With regard to the rhetoric of the menus under discussion Paul Freedman asks people to consider the following:

1. How much description of what the dish actually will be is provided?

2. Elaborate editorializing ("delicious")

3. Rhetoric of quality (local farms) vs. rhetoric of elegance or elaboration (associating dishes with famous people as at Le Grand Vefour)

4. Use of French in US menus

5. Rhetoric of anti-description (Craft) or trompe l'oeil and juxtaposition (El Bulli).

6. Humor vs. seriousness

To connect the above to a future topic, Krishnendu Ray would also want you to consider the menus you have crafted for your own restaurants and publications. On a future occasion he would like you - especially the chefs in our group - to bring your menus to the group and tell us how you crafted them the way you did.

What were you responding to? Imagined customers, critics...?

What for instance did NOT make it into the menu? Why?

What was on your mind and came close, but did not make the FINAL CUT? Why?

What you never considered to put on the menu, why?