Museum quality meals

I still wonder who's bright idea it was to turn a simple meal into a supposed "work of art". Do we really want to go to a restaurant -- where we're more often than not paying too damned much for the food -- to receive small portions of our order presented in such a way we don't want to disturb esthetic quality?

This, if I'd heard correctly, is called nouveau. OK, I'll concede to calling it "new", whether you choose the pretension of a French term or no, but we've all been conditioned by museums round the world to not touch -- & likely damage -- pieces of art. Now, we're supposed to ruing our "night out" by not simply destroying, but devouring, some idiot piece of art which not only looks as though it shouldn't be touched, but is exorbitantly priced & measly.

I, as I suspect do most, prefer a nice hunk of meat with potatoes & some appropriate vegetable or two on a clean plate all set filling either a third or a quarter of the open space of that clean plate. No pretension here -- &. likely, a bargain, at that.

Shall we boycott such establishments cheating us & contradicting our long years of conditioning? I think so -- in spite of my long-standing philosophy of questioning everything resembling authority. It's a losing battle, I know. But imagine the possibilities -- we might actually succeed in getting what we pay for....