There is a standing arrangement with two line fishers at the dawn market. We do not send them a list. They send us what they caught, whole and on the bone, and the evening menu is written around what arrives. Some mornings it is turbot, some mornings sole, and some mornings the fish is not good enough and a dish we had planned simply does not run.
This is slower and less certain than ordering to a recipe, and it is the entire point. When the producer writes the menu, the kitchen is forced to stay awake. We cannot lean on a fixed card. We have to read the fish, the bird, the first crate of asparagus, and decide in the moment what will let it speak.
Cooking on the bone and ageing on the bone both ask for patience the menu cannot rush. A turbot rested over its own roasting juices, a pigeon held in the cellar for a week, a comte left for two winters. None of it can be hurried, and all of it tastes of the time it was given. We would rather serve one honest thing late than ten convenient things on time.
Sezanne