No Substitutions Please

by Mark R. Vogel

Are you one of those people who frequently request substitutions when ordering meals in restaurants? You know who you are.

All you "sauce-on-the-siders," ingredient changers, and "can-you-make-mine-steamed" freaks. And if you're not switching ingredients or cooking methods then you're deleting them:

no anchovies, no cheese, no dressing, no mushrooms, no this, no that, etc. Or, the worse kind, the patrons who reinvent the dish: "Uh, instead of the cognac cream sauce on the steak can you make me a bordelaise?"

The antithesis of these individuals are the restaurants that will not allow any substitutions. Many will note "no substitutions" on the menu.

While most restaurants will expend some effort to accommodate their guests, these ultra-rigid establishments have drawn a line in the sand on the shores of menu augmentation.

Well, the proverbial coin has two sides. On the customer's side, individual palates vary for a plethora of reasons. Factors such as biology, psychology, and previous food experiences all contribute to the diversity in human taste preferences.

Now throw in weight loss restrictions, medical ailments that affect diet, religious prescriptions against certain foods, and individual idiosyncrasies, and you have a ponderous amalgamation of forces destined to cause the person and the menu to clash.

And why shouldn't the patron have things his or her way? They are paying for it after all. Why should someone have to spend money to eat their food the way someone else intended?