A bilingual French friend of mine, a bit of a foodie, is regularly reduced to tears of laughter when she visits restaurants in Britain. It’s not so much what’s on her plate that provokes hilarity, it’s the descriptions on the menu. There is nothing, but nothing, as wonderfully silly as the earnest pseudo-French she finds scattered around fine kitchens: the ballottine en papillote, the jus d’anything, the truffled amuse bouche, the fatigueed vegetables, the paysanne of vegetables (such a cruel way to talk about the working class), the confits and the coriander papardelle, the artichoke velouté and the coffee granité.

She still corpses at the delicious pomp of palette de couleurs she once found on a dessert menu, which turned out to be three scoops of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice-cream, as plain as any seaside caff would offer.

Sadly, the laugh is now on us. Pretentious food is now mainstream. The burlesque has beaten us; we cannot parody what is beyond parody. She and I, tickled pink by our “thrice cooked squab pigeon from Anjou” and our “cappuccino of garniture Bourgogne”, are now high and dry, washed up in the land of the exquisitely pan-fried fool.

And of course, what people want, people get. There is a grand ceremony today for the EatScotland Gold Awards, in which six Scottish restaurants are recognised for providing world-class eating experiences. I can’t reveal the names – they are embargoed like the honours list – but they will be familiar to anyone who knows their pied de cochon from their pane d’epice. It could be Michelin awards, it might be Routiers. It’s all rhubarb.

And, of course, I am mightily wrong to mock, for these places are hugely important to the economy; they rely on the work of great chefs; and, yes, it is clear that, as Peter Lederer the VisitScotland chairman says: “Food and drink is at the heart of all 17 million visitors’ experience in Scotland each year.” But that doesn’t mean it’s right; it doesn’t mean we have to fall for it – this overarching conceit that takes food and turns it into culinary bling.

The more we celebrate with awards, the more showbiz food becomes – and the farther it travels from beautifully cooked, simple, accessible food, which is what the French actually eat, and without any need for florid descriptions. Or spending fortunes. If there are to be awards, they should be for demystifying food. We need more of the ethos of the slow food movement: to reward the subtle, the local, the authentic and above all the tasteful (in both senses of the word).

Until such a time, it is worth, for those of us who inhabit the high ground on such matters, to analyse modern menu writing. The best menus are manipulative masterpieces, designed to hook us in and create shock and awe. There is also the very real question of value for money: unless a menu devotes at least 25 words to each dish, liberally sprinkling medallions, carpaccios, veloutés, tempura, “aged” balsamic, coulis of glandes de chevre and curry scented foam the way dinner ladies at school used to sprinkle hundreds and thousands on custard pie, then they can’t possibly charge £85 a skull, can they?

This is called in the trade blue-chipping. Adjectives such as shaved, seared, lacquered and glazed are often used with blue-chip ingredients such as lobster or truffles. The actual food is not guaranteed to be great; what’s guaranteed is that the chef thinks you will be impressed.

Exoticising, the most risible version of this, is about using as many foreign words as possible so that you’ll have to ask the waiter for advice and end up choosing something expensive. Science lab vocabulary – emulsion, foams; you may feel you are in a paint shop – is appearing now, probably because of Heston Blumenthal and his molecular gastronomy.

Then there is traffic jamming, whereby every ingredient is listed like a supermarket label, mainly to convince you that this is a dish you could not possibly cook at home and are therefore getting your money’s worth. Branding is very popular in Scotland – East Neuk crab, Orkney scallops, Dalwhinnie sabayon (I haven’t a clue, either) – and convinces you that the chef travels the country every day hand-picking ingredients. Then there is the technique of freshening up: synonyms such as local, market, seasonal, gathered, foraged, hand-plucked. Raymond Blanc once said: “Even when I peel a carrot, I think how to produce the flavour better.” Easy. His maitre d’ gets out the thesaurus.

Were that more chefs would go for the double bluff, and try minimalising their menus – a “less is more” approach to make diners feel that they are in on the secret: just them and the CEO having a chat in the boardroom. Martin Wishart, in Edinburgh, espouses this, with “rump of beef”, “cheese” and “scallop risotto” on his menu.

I am perhaps jaundiced by the sense of waste my upbringing instilled in me. As the American satirist Calvin Trillin once wrote, the most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. But I do think the foodie culture, at its most extreme, has been destructive, serving only to widen the vast gap between top-end fodder and the junk that is slowly killing the vast majority of the public. Hilarious, isn’t it, to think that your nage de langoustine would pay for enough fish suppers to keep a child alive for a week. As the Swedish chef on the Muppets said, as classically incomprehensible as any modern menu, “Børk! Børk! Børk!”.

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