after, Child's TV show aired, and people could watch her spend an afternoon preparing beef bourguignon or roast chicken with port wine. For the first time, home cooks were encouraged on a mass scale to produce classic, restaurant-worthy food in their own kitchens (like the foie gras pictured above). The centre of attention By the '70s, chefs and home cooks alike recognized that food was an opportunity for theatre. While cooking may once have been done in small, closed-off kitchens, roasts carved tableside and elaborate productions involving brandy and flame brought technique into the dining room. "It was the start of the open kitchen that you see more often in restaurants today," says Teja Atkinson, a chef and instructor's assistant with the Culinary Arts program. "Food was made right before your eyes, and it was a way to put on the best show, to get the aromas, and even for chefs to one-up each other." While few home cooks today are regularly setting fire to the dessert, the original concept has taken hold in the open-concept kitchen, which literally brings food to the centre of the home. A tall order If you had to distil 1980s style into one word, you might use big - or, more accurately, tall: tall hair, tall shoulder pads and equally stylized cuisine, which often placed structure and presentation ahead of flavour. Elaborate presentation was a must, and a truly spectacular dish might resemble a Jenga tower on a plate. By the latter half of