In one of the most memorable scenes of the late, and sorely missed, Juzo Itami's classic 1985 film "Tampopo" ("Dandelion"), Japanese businessmen enter a French restaurant. Confused by the exotic items on the menu, the elderly members of the party stick to what they know: sole meuniere, consomme soup and Heineken beer.
The youngest member of the group, however, breaks the harmony by ordering quenelle, Boudin-style, like they serve it at the Taillevent restaurant in Paris, escargot wrapped in pastry with a fond de veau sauce, and an apple and walnut salad. The waiter is thrilled somebody in the room truly knows fine food, while his older colleagues fume with anger and embarrassment.
Nearly three decades later, that scene looks less like a parody of high-end diners ignorant of gourmet food and more, as the recent food misrepresentation scandal shows, as a prescient profile of today's finicky foodie who reads the menu carefully and knows which South African wine goes best with the Kobe beef or Okinawan pork.