Salad Days

by Ronnie Scott

In Salad Days, Ronnie Scott interrogates our current obsession with food - and asks whether it’s actually such a bad thing. Salad Days takes us via the world’s best restaurants in Noma and elBulli, and more humble yet no less delicious restaurants and cafés in Melbourne, while also interrogating how we use food to relate to one another, the particular joy of hearing about someone else’s experience of a glorious meal (even via social media), and why members of gen Y are spending extravagantly on food when they can’t afford real estate. Scott looks at the more challenging aspects of this conspicuous consumption as well - ethical eating, sustainability, class concerns. If food offers us a ‘curious mixture between comfort and disturbance, staying put and going far’, is that something to celebrate, or to worry about?

Salad Days is a fascinating and lyrical look at a particular moment in our history and society, and an important contribution to an ongoing debate about how we eat.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food

64 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Ronnie Scott writes essays and criticism for newspapers, websites and magazines. In 2007 he founded The Lifted Brow, an independent literary magazine. He's a Lecturer in the Writing and Publishing discipline at RMIT University. The Adversary is his first novel.

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ovaj australijski milenijalac se ponašao kada je otkrio fine dining kao ja kada sam otkrila Mac Demarcov album koji deli naslov sa ovom knjigom - jao, kako sam kuuuuul i jedinstvenaaaa, vauuuu.

Elem, bilo je par momenata gde je uspeo da sklepa i nešto korektno; poredi "cooking" i "cuisine" i smatra da je cooking više veština i neophodno za pružanje goriva telu, dok je cuisine fokusiranje na umetnost i lepotu prezentacije jela na tanjiru i slanja poruke.

A onda je sve to upropastio sa paragrafima u kojima nam predstavlja svoje pretenciozne prijatelje:"He also told me that, from his experience working at a bakery, he thought donuts were ‘a stupid food, liked by stupid people.’ This was all the sort of thing I wished to hear." (Očni nervi me bole koliko sam prevrnula očima.)

Ostatak su bili samo pokušaji da opravda to što je dao 500$ na večeru u Danskoj.

(Možda bi mi se u nekom mlađem dobu ovo više svidelo, ali izgleda da postajem džangrizava Slavica sa godinama, jbg.)

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting essay on the culture of food and eating out, both at exclusive restaurants and local cafes. Dining out at restaurants with exorbitant prices just to say we've been there. Is it pretentious or just an experience not to be missed? Then there's the group of young people who don't cook and eat out at every meal. So much so that there are apartments being designed in New York without kitchens. I quite enjoyed this quick, cleverly written little book.

[Levi Huxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronnie Scott’s essay on food culture in Australia gets its own Penguin Special edition, and deservedly so. It’s a very personal and milieu-specific take on the intersection of food, class and so-called Australian values, so it’s bound to frustrate those looking for something more definitive. The idiosyncratic lens, exquisite writing and relevant insights were enough for me to feel privileged to have stumbled upon it.

[Adelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salad Days brought up some interesting ideas about fine dining culture, specifically in regard to Aussie attitudes toward it too. But I feel like the points weren’t expanded on enough, would’ve liked a more fleshed out version of this.

[Cataluna6 · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 *

A rambling memoir on how we eat, how we used to eat and why we feel compelled to spend ridiculous amounts of money eating out. I would've liked to read more about the ethical implications of spending $500 on a meal. I felt like this was such a meaty* subject and more focus on that would've been great.

*Yes. I went there.

[Kkneen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars. I wanted more. This only got me through the first of my two flights and I wanted more more more. Nice mix of memoir and Epicurean rumination. NOT LONG ENOUGH. This needs a sequel.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a great concept, so much potential but it barely skimmed the surface.

[Dylan Glatz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't say (with confidence) that Scott interrogated most anything in this featherweight volume. The blurb poses some genuinely arresting inquiries, but these ultimately go unanswered, let alone explored.

This book's primary structural premise -That fine dining is a self-serious, performative, and painfully impermanent indulgence- is shallow, and feels semantically indolent for readers living in the era of Dubai chocolate, The Bear, and #viral food trends. Perhaps these were novel revelations in 2014 (for who?), but today they read as implicit and uninteresting. Jay Rayner's 'My Dining Hell' -which includes reviews that precede Scott's work by some years- makes a much more compelling case for (the best and worst of) fine dining. Scott repeatedly makes reference to his social class, but falls short of interrogating how and why this might impact his perspective on spending exorbitant amounts on multi-course meals. For the author and his entourage of Inner-North would-be literati, nothing is at stake, and everything that could be enjoyed can be bought. 'Salad Days' would be better off excluding half-hearted attempts at interviews with industry professionals, which provide yet another distraction from this volume's ostensible thesis. In this sense, I turned the last page with the overwhelming sense that 'Salad Days' was not only under-developed, but uninteresting.

Scott's six 'courses' follow no clear route, as the kernels of an idea are whisked away by swooning recollections of (yet another) abrupt, unaffordable holiday. The realpolitik of fine dining remains unexamined, and I fear that the author has not safely escaped the pretentiousness of his subject. This aside, I found Scott's authorial voice trite and ill-equipped to evoke good food's romance, theatre, and truth. Syntax was often ungainly, and tended to highlight Scott's shallow engagement with his subject matter. Ideas are dropped like hot crockery as quickly as they are picked up, and readers can do little but furtively peer at the smashed conceptual shards as they are ushered toward the next dull distraction.

Altogether, 'Salad Days' was undercooked and unsatisfying. Put another way.. I'm still hungry..!

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

Salad Days discusses the difference between cuisine and cooking as well as the fact that millennials eat out more than they cook. Scott gives examples of restaurants that have achieved Michelin stars and why such places are deemed to serve pretentious food that place emphasis on art and experience rather than nutrition and simplicity. Interestingly, Scott also mentions why millennials use social media to extend their food experience as it is seen as kinesthetic and promotes feelings envy. Unfortunately, Scott's ideas have not been elaborately discussed. Many of the ideas have been mentioned briefly and appear as rambling thoughts.

[Samuel Ho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quaint, easily digestible essay about the Melbourne food scene in the early 2010s. Scott captures the fruitful transition of fine dining gradually shifting between 'fancy foams'* to 'locavore-ism'*.

Unfortunately, the essay tends to meander and fails to meaningful answer its opening premise.

Besides from the structural issues, the writing is strong and entertaining.

*Terms completely made up by the reader.

[pHil · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting read on how the ideas of food varies from place to place and what places will do to win awards
What people will do and how much they'll spend to say you've eaten at the winners