Presentation of food is important to appetite. Otherwise, there'd be much less parsley in the world, and "plating" would still refer to the coating of a surface with metal. Don't read this post if you'd prefer your food not watch you eat it.
So, you're in an American grocery store, doing the shopping. You pick up the produce, check its color, sniff it, squeeze it, heft it, knock on it and listen for hollowness or denseness or just a pleasing resonant frequency. Sometimes there's even a paid employee giving out samples, so you can have quality assurance before committing.
And then you arrive at the deli or meat counter. [Disclaimer: I've been a vegetarian for most of my life. Qualifier: I have no objection to the responsible harvesting of animals for food.] How do you select your meat products? -- by color, texture, fat content? How do you judge their freshness? There's been some hoopla about treating meat with carbon monoxide to keep its red color longer, and I assure you I have opinions about that, but it's a different topic. My parents eat a lot of fish, a phenomenon which seems to be growing with concerns about "bad" cholesterol, obesity, and the popularity of the Mediterranean diet. In selecting their fish, they're looking for freshness and the source of the animal, which are associated with healthfulness and sustainability. Many medium-sized fish are sold "cleaned" (read: gutted) and with their heads and/or tails still attached. Allegedly, fresh fish have clear eyes; cloudy eyes mean the fish was less healthy and/or spent more time on the shelf.
Americans, generally speaking, don't buy things to eat that (currently) have heads. American delis and meat counters present meat in neatly anonymous butchered chunks, packaged securely in plastic wrap with its flaws cut off and sold separately for the family dog, whose tastes are, presumably, less discriminating. American consumers are comfortably separated from the process by which the doe-eyed animals at the petting zoo become options in a refrigerated display case. It's not even labeled for the animal it came from; rather an additional degree of separation is achieved through euphemisms like pork chops, filet mignon ("cute cut"), ham hock, bacon strips. The renaming applies most to pigs -- perhaps because they're thought of as dirty animals -- and red meat, and less so to poultry, which is recognized as having breasts, thighs, and wings. These last are discernable body parts, whereas the typical person can't point to a cow and identify the source of a skirt steak, although ribs and shoulders are more familiar.
And yet, fish are sold with heads on. In some cases, they're cooked with heads on, and served as though they might watch you pick daintily away at what remains of their bodies. I think Americans prefer meat acquired from a larger-than-single-serving-size animal. There's less uncomfortable mental processing required to consume an anonymous cut of meat than there is when served a mostly intact body: shall I begin at the head or the tail? It's rather like eating a chocolate bunny. Additionally, being served an entire animal body requires acknowledgment of a life lost: one head per person per meal. I think that's an uncomfortable realization for people who'd prefer to just enjoy their dinners, rather than reflect too deeply upon their arrival on the plate. The sprig of parsley no doubt helps.
