It’s fair to say that New American Cuisine was based on charismatic goat cheese.

It is served warm, with a flourish of baby lettuces and rolled in fruitwood ash and floated upon sea-green virgin oil. It is sliced into medallions and garnished with nasturtium petals. It is topping fancy pizzas. It’s crumbled into pricey salads and mounded onto crisp baguette slices to accompany ultra-cool chardonnays and fumé blancs.

How odd it is that we swoon over this creamy, tangy cheese yet curl our lip at the notion of eating the meat of goat from whence it comes.

I’ve been wondering if the problem lies with the goat beards that are known as goatees?

We have always been suspicious of beards, on account of their connection with intellectuals and other dangerous left-wing subversives.

Another clue to our disdain may stem from saddling them with the name “Billy Goat” and calling their offspring “Billy the Kid.”

Billy – and Tom – as in Tom Cat, implies a tendency toward night prowling and the kind of lascivious behavior that leads to such wanton tendencies as begetting.

Naturally, thoughts about ‘right and wrong’ made me think the image problem might have something to do with goat’s hooves, which you will have noticed, are cloven. This anatomical anomaly, coupled with the dreaded horns mounted on their heads, leads to worrisome comparison with the Devil, the Greek goat god Pan, satyrs and yet other symbols of bawdy naughtiness, that have largely fallen from favor in the current climate if modified Puritanism.

And, of course, we all remember the Bible’s forecast of the Last Judgment, during which we will be separated into sheep and goats, and receive our long-term assignments accordingly.

The probable origin of the phrase, “getting our goat,” is the French expression prendre le chèvre, meaning, “to take the milch goat,” which could well be a poor person’s sole source of food or livelihood.

Today the goat association would prefer we cease to think of a goat as a disagreeable small, horned ruminant animal and instead come to regard it in astrological terms as it pertains to the constellation of Capricorn.

Even so, I am pretty much convinced that goat meat could provide us with another fabulous fad to distract us from the hard economic times that threaten to engulf us.

The young superstar chefs are rapidly approaching middle age and urgently need to come up with something fresh to capture our attention.  They could offer us roasted goat with octopus salad or maybe fricassee of stir-fried goat haunch with smoky chipotle and Armagnac-infused dried plums–formerly known as prunes–or even goat tortellini with lemon grass and rhubarb crumble.

The possibilities are infinite. Imagine if the nutritionists teemed up with the advertisers. Pretty soon we would be urged to have ‘an oat with our goat’! And there is plenty of work for farm-to-table birthers, rearers, milkers and artisanal goat cheese makers too.

As I was thinking about goats, I had quite forgotten that goats are also the source of MOhaiR and CASH$mere, our softest, costliest wools. We could consider combining the MO   R with the CASH. When this item appeared on the menu, we would cry out with one voice:

“What we want is MO—R  CASH!”

For 25 years, Professor Paul Rozin’s research has focused on the nature of remembered pleasure — and — an astonishing diversity of other intriguing studies too.  He is professor of psychology at University of Pennsylvania.

His son, Alexander “Lex”, Associate Professor of Music Theory, teaches at West Chester University School of Music.

Both are distinguished scholars. Both have earned Ph.Ds.

Both are dazzlingly brilliant and deliciously entertaining speakers.

At a recent talk, together at The Culinary Institute of America, they explored Informative Parallels Between Music & Food.

They asked a series of provocative questions:

• Why do we eat what we eat?
• What music should be played in a restaurant?
• How do we view art?
• How do we view the plate?

Alex Rozin then offered a unique perspective;

“In music there is a triangle with Composer. Performer. Listener.”

Paul Rozin responded: “In a restaurant there is also a triangle:

Farmer. Chef. Diner.”

A composer does not allow the performer to change his composition.

A farmer, by contrast, anticipates the chef will change his product — except if the chef is Thomas Keller, (and others in his culinary stratosphere). The exalted chef do not permit the staff to tinker with their ideas.

Furthermore, a music and a culinary composition follow patterns:

Overture.

Theme.

Conclusion.

Musicians use the same chords over and over again whether they are playing classical music–Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony or Hip Hop or Pop.

Chefs use the same foundation ingredients: onions, celery and carrots….

Chef Anne Rosenzweig

Chefs also play themes on variations i.e. four mini versions of crème caramel on the same plate at Le Bernardin.

This line of creative thinking can lead to another symmetry with a difference…for example. a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich) could be bacon and lobster baked in a popover or as Chef Anne Rosenzweig interpreted it: lobster and sundried tomatoes enclosed in a brioche.

As the Rozins wryly observed: “It’s not what you steal (everyone steals) but what you steal and how you use what you stole.”

Exploring a different topic, Prof. Paul Rozin commented: “There are seven billion eaters but relatively few chefs. They aim to provide the best possible experience or best memory. It is interesting though, that the memory of the dinner may have little (or nothing) to do with the food.  Many say the best meal they ever had was…. an occasion or a place or shared with another person. The occasion is vividly recalled, but in the telling of it, there may be not a word about the food. It is the setting, the sounds, the light and other sensory feelings that continue to burn in the remembrance.”

Prof. Paul Rozin’s other remarkable discoveries are:

•  The most memorable meals are those eaten at home.
• Nutrition is rarely a factor in describing pleasure.
• If the food IS mentioned, it is the entrée, not the dessert.  And the most frequently named food is steak.

So some people may return to a restaurant, eager to eat their favorite food again…and hope it will be the same every time while in contrast, others go to be surprised and delighted by something new.

The ultimate test is what was the eating experience — not what’s for dinner but  what will the diner remember?

Many people think that servers are transient folk who would much prefer to be occupying themselves with more desirable work. However, as the status of the chef has become more elevated, the role of the server or waiter has begun to change too.

It may be disheartening to toilers in the hot kitchen to discover that more folk go to restaurants because the service is good than because the food is fabulous. Guests want to be served, not merely fed.

Now and again there is anguished talk about elevating the public’s perception of servers by including gratuities in the check and, offering a decent salary with benefits and paid vacations. As sensible as this proposal seems on the surface, it continues to face implacable opposition from almost everyone:

Management Says “No”

Managers claim that if the gratuities were added to checks, the public would be shocked (shocked!), at their total bills. This way of thinking seems to suggest that you can fool all the people all the time and that the notion of the expectation of a server’s eager anticipation of a tip will always come as a complete surprise. You might think that the restaurant industry, a cornerstone of the American economy, could figure a way out of this quagmire.

Servers Say “No”

Many servers don’t want to change the system. Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour for everyone else, and although many weary servers make only $2.13 per hour in wages, in some exalted palaces of gastronomy—particularly those with grand banquet facilities—they can count on very large gratuities indeed.

Guests say “No.”

There is a notion, too, that guests like to exert their power by grading server performance and deciding whether to leave a gratuity of the customary 20 percent. The total is rarely more. Sometimes it amounts to considerably less.

In most other civilized countries, France included, service is included in the check so that no one need engage in arithmetical speculation.

What do you think? Should gratuities be included in the bill?