Enemies Of The Realm: A Chef's Loves And Hates Of 2015

Why does the first third of almost every new restaurant menu have to be taken up with these three things? I love all of these things, but it seems like someone is out there selling an inflatable restaurant starter kit with a predesigned menu that leaves a few blanks for the restaurant's own dishes.

I'm a fan of charcuterie and salumi, and am guilty of making my own. But come on, people, a charcuterie board is a European bar snack, not a meal. And after all of the work and patience that it takes to create these fine pieces of cured, smoked or otherwise preserved meats, how does it do justice to put an assortment of disparate textures and flavors on a board with one or two types of mustard that may or may not accent the meat and some piles of pickled things? Could there not be a more specific pairing for just one type of meat and really make it sing?

Same thing with cheese boards — it speaks nothing of a chef to simply lay out their well-curated list of cheeses paired with the ubiquitous Marcona almonds and blob of quince jelly.

Oysters have been shucked, slurped, or roasted by natives for centuries. In my part of the world, they were such a staple of the native diet that great heaps of shells were created, largely because these natives were too lazy to take out the trash. When explorers arrived, they were sure these piles contained unimaginable sums of gold. Lacking any true natives to tell them differently (as true natives had essentially died out or assimilated with some Northerners to form what's now known as the Seminoles), these diehard gold fiends spent a lot of time digging through someone else's garbage.

The point of this didactic interlude is that raw oysters on a shell ain't fancy — never have been. When I was growing up, a pile of oysters was meant to go with a pitcher of cheap-ass shitty beer and some crackers and cocktail sauce. Just because you made a mignonette and serve them with cloth napkins doesn't mean that a raw oyster is anything more than an oyster, delicious as it may be.

So here's a challenge: Take these beautiful ingredients and actually compose a dish from them that showcases their beauty, rather than just slapping them on a board, mirror or pile of ice. It is possible to have all three of these items on a menu to placate the curious expectation of the masses and step one's game up a bit.

Let's just call 'em fish, okay? I'm lucky enough to be 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and 100 miles from the Atlantic. There is plenty of local fish to be had. Does this mean that I'm selling grouper (regarded as a trash fish when I first started cooking) or American red snapper constantly? No, I'm always looking for the less-utilized, underappreciated fish to put on my menu. Mullet, trigger fish, sheep's head, mackerel and hog fish are all delicious and often looked down on as lowly species. These are also generally more sustainable populations, and we'd be well served by cooking more of these and less farm-raised salmon. These fish deserve a place at the table, so let's ditch the label and put them in a place of proper respect.

Also known as "the Chipotle Effect" (the phrase "the Chipotle Effect" belongs on this list as well). "I've got a great idea! Customers are going to come in and look at this really confusing list on the wall, pick their base of one thing that costs one price or six other items at varyingly, increasingly more expensive items, then do the same with a protein from a similarly skewed list, a sauce and a bunch of add-ons. It'll be great!"

Yeah, unless you're a food truck or used to be a food truck, this model is infuriating to me. How about you build some dishes and put those on the menu instead, kay?

Not everything needs to go away. Believe it or not, there are a few things that I've enjoyed in 2015. While not all are trends, these are Allies of the Realm — things that I'm actually quite excited about.

Having grown up in Florida, I feel there is only one king oyster: the Apalachicola. This opinion has been supported by The New York Times, Garden & Gun and Field & Stream. For a variety of reasons, the truth lying with the perspective of whomever is wagging their finger at the time, I'm not hopeful that I'm ever going to eat a true Apalachicola oyster again. Other Gulf oysters are good, unless we're talking about Texas (just don't like 'em), but they are not the same by any means.

But looking a bit to the west, just across the state line into Alabama, some folks are farming oysters utilizing Australian techniques more commonly applied to Atlantic oyster operations. The end result is a smaller oyster than normal for the Gulf, but creamy, slightly metallic and a little buttery — all of the qualities that I miss in an Apalachicola.