el.innerHTML = dish; //much faster than $el.html( dish );
//tried also the function replaceHtml from http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/faster-than-innerhtml
//but it was not faster nor without sideffects (it was not possible to count spans into el)

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/chili

I just found this interesting comment in the jQuery Syntax Hiliting Plugin "Chili".
It seems, one should preferrably use innerHTML instead the core jQuery method...
(Just to clarify: I didn't do any benchmarking myself)

Performance issues when modifying HTML with jQuery

JavaScript