
Menu Matters - blegh
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/menu-matters-on-alison-pearlmans-may-we-suggest/
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doctorpangloss
Sure, menus are a linear experience disguised as choices.

Rich 60 year olds have been eating at restaurants for decades, though, and
maybe only using smartphones and software for a few years.

This is a big deal when the average age of a congressman is 55 and senator 60.
Why?

Menus are a kind of retail that manipulates your psychology. So is Amazon, and
in some senses YouTube and Facebook. Those things have a bigger impact in our
lives than menus, but people barely understand how software works.

If you wanted to communicate to a congressman (or the public really) why
profit-optimizing collaborative filtering looks like a series of choices, but
is really an experience that tells you what to do, good luck using that
abstract algorithmic language.

But a restaurant menu? At least they'll know what the hell you are talking
about.

Ironically, the most relevant part of this piece for the software audience
will probably be, "Oh great, I can explain to investors how my product
recommendation engine funnels people into the best-paying affiliate products,
even though it's disguised as an informed choice, by using the metaphor of a
menu."

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dfxm12
I remember the first time I saw "Scottish Salmon" on a menu. It was the only
salmon dish on the menu, so I'm not exactly sure why they were trying to
differentiate it. Was it just to justify a higher price for it? What other
adjective command a price premium?

What I did know is that more important than where a salmon is from (whether it
be from Alaska or Norway) is if it is wild or farm raised. The fact that it
was called out as "Scottish" but not "wild" made me think this wasn't going to
be a particularly good dish.

Finally, I thought, did any 3rd party actually verify that this salmon was, in
fact, from Scotland? Would the restaurant get into any trouble if I happened
to be a super salmon taster and determined that this salmon was in fact from
somewhere else and alerted the authorities?

All in all I was surprisingly disconcerted by this one little adjective on the
menu, and I don't think that was the restaurateur's intent.

Anyway, if menus are of interest to you, the New York Public Library has a
digital collection of menus going back to the 1800s:
[https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-
buttolph...](https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-buttolph-
collection-of-menus#/?tab=navigation)

~~~
jolmg
> The fact that it was called out as "Scottish" but not "wild" made me think
> this wasn't going to be a particularly good dish.

Might not the perception of the average client and not oneself be more
important in determining the intentions of whoever wrote that menu? I imagine
that if you're going to put one adjective in your dish name, "Scottish" might
elicit a better perception in more clients than "Wild".

I agree with your perception, though. From a client's point of view, "Wild"
should be better.

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gumby
> helped differentiate a modern dining concept — the restaurant — from the
> coarser table d’hôte, where your choices depended on whether the proprietor
> liked you...

And as is customary with fashion, the table d’hôte is now an exclusive, where
it can be used to connote "freshness" (itself another concept called out in
this lovely essay).

