A cliché becomes useless not because it is untrue but because it becomes fatuous or all inclusive. So let me use a cliché about food that I think cannot be stressed nearly enough: Good food requires the best, freshest ingredients that should never be complicated by many others.

The fact is, despite the constant repetition of this idea as a promotional claim, by its very definition there is only a finite amount of the best, freshest ingredients available to cooks and restaurateurs, no matter how much they insist they always buy first-rate asparagus, Dover sole, wagyu beef and sea scallops for their printed menus, day after day, year-round.