
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 25, 1995                   TAG: 9509250082
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TALL ORDERS

THREE REASONS to love living in the Roanoke Valley rather than a big city: lower crime rate, lower traffic congestion, lower food.

Yep, lower food, the most recent addition to what could be a lengthy list. And we're not just talking prices, either, though that's an advantage, too.

We're talking height here, folks.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Toronto, chefs are stacking food high - the taller the better - and extending "dish verticality" with skewers of trimmings. A chicken Caesar-salad sandwich, already 8 inches tall, is pierced with a skewer of "a lettuce leaf, pearl onion, cherry tomato, olive and a sweet gherkin."

Open wide.

Do not mistake these architectural wonders for mere deli sandwiches piled high with slices of turkey, pastrami and fixin's. That sort of thing can be found everywhere. At New York's Gotham Bar and Grill, where the rage for tall food is thought to have its origins, chicken breast sits under "a 12-inch tower of shoestring potatoes." Asparagus spears are stacked like Lincoln Logs. And in restaurants all over the country (well, not all over; not here) broccoli is presented stalks up.

A city whose skyline is dotted with one skyscraper is not ready for this.

And perhaps before towering salads and desserts wobble into the valley, the entire fad will have collapsed. Local restaurant critic Dolores Kostelni says tall food is not actually new: It was all the rage in the waning years of antiquity and into the Middle Ages, when it was called pieces montees (betcha can't pronounce that, New York). The style faded because it was so artificial looking and unappetizing.

Modern sophisticates are easier to please. "It's a statement," one Chicago food critic gushes. "As a customer, you just sit there and think about the engineering."

Mm-hmm.

Young chefs say their food architecture is designed to win notice for themselves and to heighten the experience for diners.

And, admits one chef whose Towering Tuna appetizer spears customers for $9, "It allows me to charge a little bit more."

Ah.

We'll just have the pancakes. A short stack.

by CNB