Tasting Menu (Menu degustation)

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TASTINGS MENU--500 Google hits, 5 Google Groups hits
TASTING MENU--28,700 Google hits, 1,140 Google Groups hits
MENU DEGUSTATION--12,000 Google hits, 272 Google Groups hits
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Tastings menu? Tasting menu? In my opinion, most menus taste like cardboard.
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The Sunday NEW YORK POST, 3 October 2004, pg. 112, col. 1, notes the opening of Cafe Gray, 10 Columbus Circle, third floor, by Gray Kunz, the former four-star chef of Lespinasse. "This week he finally returns to the stoves, opening the doors to his magnificent European cafe in the Time Warner Mall. He's not offering high-brow tasting menus like his haute neighbors--just a simple menu showcasing modern French dishes played up with an Eastern European flair."
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OED ("Nouvelle cuisine? We're supposed to know this?") does not have "tasting menu" or "menu degustation."
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(OED)
degustation
[ad. L. dgusttin-em tasting, making trial of, n. of action from dgustre: see DEGUST. Cf. F. dégustation.]

The action of degusting or tasting.

a1656 BP. HALL Souls Farew. Wks. 1837 VIII. 314 Carnal delights; the degustation whereof is wont to draw on the heart to a more eager appetite. 1880 Daily Tel. 11 Oct., The ‘tasting bars’ devoted to the ‘degustation’ of all kinds of alcoholic compounds.
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(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
Food; Beyond the 'Nouvelle Cuisine'
By Susan Heller Anderson. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 4, 1979. p. SM20 (2 pages)
Pg. SM20: Pangaud also offers (for $37) a _menu degustation_, small portions of four or five dishes, plus dessert, that give a good sampling of his talents.
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Paris Restaurants: La Difference Counts; At These Four Restaurants in and Around Paris, la Difference Is What Counts
By MIMI SHERATON. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Feb 27, 1980. p. C1 (3 pages)
Pg. C10:
As with so many nouvelle cuisine restaurants, this one offer a menu degustation--a tasting menu of seven or eight specialties that must be shared by all within a given party.
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The Three Best French Restaurants in Manhattan; Restaurants Three best French restaurants in town. La Grenouille Le Cygne Lutece
Mimi Sheraton. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jun 20, 1980. p. C1 (2 pages)
Pg. C2:
Like so many of France's haute cuisine restaurants, Lutece now offers a nightly menu de degustation, a tasting menu of six of seven courses (about $42 a person) that must be ordered by everyone at the table. We tried such a menu and found it diverting and delectable.
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DE GUSTIBUS 'Tasting' Menu:; A Good Idea Sours
By MIMI SHERATON. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 10, 1981. p. 18 (1 page):
One byproduct of the nouvelle cuisine is the menu de degustation, or tasting menu, that is offered in many restaurants here - including the Quilted Giraffe, Chanterelle, Claude's and Lutece - and in France and that is perhaps being overworked. The reasons for its development are easy to grasp. As this new cuisine became highly publicized, diners were eager to sample all of the dishes they had read about, and so each person in a group ordered a different appetizer, main course and dessert. Then all would taste everything.
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Dining out: tasting menus offer 'a little bit of everything'
By Edward Schneider Special to The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Feb 25, 1982. p. 19 (1 page):
A new trend in the restaurant business, however, has come to the rescue: A fair number of fine restaurants in France and a few in the Unites States are offering a "menu de gustation," a "tasting menu."
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House specialties, new creations, finds in that morning's market may all be featured in small portions comprising most often two or three appetizers and fish dishes, one or two meat or poultry dishes, sometimes cheese and several desserts. If that sounds a bit like it could leave the diner stuffed but unsatisfied, bear in mind that as a rule one of the courses is a full-sized portion and does serve as a main dish.
(...)
Our first exposure to this way of dining came not in France but here in New York, at Restaurant Lutece, 249 East 59th Street. Chef-owner Andre Soltner had some wonderful fresh, and somewhat unusual, foods that day, and a little-bit-of-everything menu would let us taste more than we would have been able to otherwise.
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Dining at Paris's Hotel de Crillon
By Regina Nadelson Special to The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Sep 7, 1983. p. 14 (1 page):
The executive chef is an inventive sort of genius and will produce a _menu degustation_, or a tasting menu, if you are interested in a sampling of several dishes.
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(Couldn't open these on ProQuest--ed.)
Breaking in At the Watergate: A French Chef Goes American; Jean Louis Palladin Is Breaking In
By William Rice. The Washington Post (1974-Current file). Washington, D.C.: Dec 2, 1979. p. L1 (2 pages)
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RICHMAN ON RESTAURANTS; Jean-Pierre 1835 K St. NW. 466-2022.
Phyllis C. Richman. The Washington Post (1974-Current file). Washington, D.C.: Dec 21, 1980. p. SM16 (2 pages)
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(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
  Daily Herald  Thursday, September 21, 1989 Chicago, Illinois   Â
...in Arlington pro- grams each MENU DEGUSTATION for a defined Joho for about.....the French chef who started the MENU DEGUSTATION. About 20 years Guerard..
Section 6, pg. 4, col. 1:
They are in a class of French chef-promoters who resemble Michel Guerard, commonly regarded as the French chef who started the _menu degustation_.
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About 20 years ago Guerard introduced (Col. 2--ed.) _cuisine minceur_, his spa cuisine, which brought instant fame. Then the less spartan but still lean _cousine nouvelle_ followed on ots heels, attaching to itself the fascination of East Asian cuisines: Zen-like plate design, certain ingredients and small portions attended this Eastern interest.
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Small portions led ewasily into small courses. Guerard, according to Christian Ziegler (owner of Alouette in Highwood and Amourette in Palatice), lured the city folk of Paris to his restaurant at Eugenie des Bains by introducing a tasting menu of his new cuisine. A patron from afar could sample more of his creations through this menu so there was greater incentive to trek from Paris to the countryside.