daedalus
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2008
- Location
- Kansas City, MO
I must admit that I have never given a very high score to a box without garnish. That is because I have never seen a box without garnish that does not look like the meat was just tossed in any old way.
From a functional point of view, I think that garnish is useful because it is able to help hold the meat in place. That allows a team to arrange it in a pleasing fashion, and have half a chance that it will stay that way. To me, the putting green garnish is even better for this purpose because the meat can "nestle" into the parsley. Another thing that the garnish can do is to prevent grease/sauce from visibly pooling in the box. There is nothing appetizing about a box full of ribs flopping about aimlessly in little pools of grease.
That brings me to the other aspect of judging appearance. The score I give to appearance simply boils down to how badly I want to dive into the box and devour whatever is inside. Typically, the more care it looks like someone took to create a great looking box, the more enticing the food is. As we all know, we eat with our eyes before we ever eat with our mouths.
As far as the parsley vs. lettuce vs. mix discussion goes, I would say that the all parsley box tends to look neater and cleaner, and can thereby make the meat look more appealing. Having said that, the putting green is probably just the current trend and will likely fall out of vogue at some point in favor of some other type of garnish.
From a functional point of view, I think that garnish is useful because it is able to help hold the meat in place. That allows a team to arrange it in a pleasing fashion, and have half a chance that it will stay that way. To me, the putting green garnish is even better for this purpose because the meat can "nestle" into the parsley. Another thing that the garnish can do is to prevent grease/sauce from visibly pooling in the box. There is nothing appetizing about a box full of ribs flopping about aimlessly in little pools of grease.
That brings me to the other aspect of judging appearance. The score I give to appearance simply boils down to how badly I want to dive into the box and devour whatever is inside. Typically, the more care it looks like someone took to create a great looking box, the more enticing the food is. As we all know, we eat with our eyes before we ever eat with our mouths.
As far as the parsley vs. lettuce vs. mix discussion goes, I would say that the all parsley box tends to look neater and cleaner, and can thereby make the meat look more appealing. Having said that, the putting green is probably just the current trend and will likely fall out of vogue at some point in favor of some other type of garnish.