Fat Guy

In many disciplines, minimalism presents copyright challenges. A white canvas, a curved piece of metal, a single note . . . it's hard to describe the originality of these things. It's a shortcoming of the way most everybody thinks about art: complexity equals creativity and simplicity equals nothing.

In terms of my real-world experiences, some restaurants are worse when the chef is away, some are the same and a few are better. So it's not really possible to generalize, except perhaps to say there are no hard-and-fast rules. In other words, people who say "All restaurants are always better when the chef is in the kitchen" are making an unsupportable generalization. I think a lot of folks want it to be true, but the reality is that, with the exception of an extreme minority of tiny restaurants here and there, the chef doesn't cook your food even if he's in the kitchen. All the work is delegated. Good chefs can delegate from 5,000 miles away. Bad chefs can't even delegate from the pass.

As in any movement, there are founders. In the case of impressionism in art, you have Cezanne, Renoir, Sisley, et al. In the case of rock music you have Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, et al. In the case of molecular gastronomy it's Ferran Adria, Herve This, et al. The paintings of later impressionists and post-impressionists are certainly inspired by those of the early impressionists, and decades of rock music owe a debt to Chuck Berry and the other early rock musicians, but you'd never say "All impressionist paintings are just copies of Cezanne" or "All rock is just a copy of Chuck Berry." The difference between working within a style and copying is similar to the difference between inspiration and plagiarism.

There's no butter involved in the burgers. Just a little on the buns.

Just 455 posts ago, I felt the same way. The problem is that not enough folks take shame seriously. The cries of "there's no such thing as culinary plagiarism" and "you can't copyright a dish" have convinced me that, unless it is possible to copyright a dish, not enough people will care about copying. Our first expose made it into a few papers, our second was ignored by the press and by the culprit. By the third time, people will just yawn. And very little of this really trickles down to the general dining public. So, unfortunately, I think we need more than the threat of shame -- this is a situation where we need the law.

From a statistical perspective, it doesn't really matter why an allergy claim is false. Whether it's a deliberate lie or an earnestly believed falsehood (or a self-fulfilling psychological condition), it undermines the credibility of all allergy claims equally. Here's what we do know: Good article. Worth reading. http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives...d_0805p10.shtml That's quite a large gap: 1/3 versus 1-2%. The population of the United States is currently just shy of 300 million. That means between 3 and 6 million people have actual food allergies, and 100 million believe they do (okay, you have to subtract out children, but close enough). In other words, somewhere around 95% of food allergy claims are false. This should be extremely worrisome to the 5% whose food allergy claims are true. The boy who cried wolf phenomenon, in this instance, isn't about any one person lying. It's about the knowledge that when someone tells you he or she has a food allergy, the statement is false 19 out of 20 times.

Aesop . . .

I don't think anybody is claiming there's no such thing as serious, life-threatening food allergies and intolerances. But I also think it's well established that a lot of people who think they have them don't, and that a lot of other people fabricate allergy claims in order to get special treatment.

There are certainly some folks who believe this, however having them in this conversation is like trying to talk about steak cookery with a radical vegan: you're trying to figure out how to get a nice char on the steak, and the vegan is screaming about how eating steak is immoral.

Can a straw man make a thumbprint?

As explained above, copyright protection is not a value judgment. As the House report on the Copyright Act states: "The phrase 'original works or authorship,' which is purposely left undefined . . . . does not include requirements of novelty, ingenuity, or esthetic merit, and there is no intention to enlarge the standard of copyright protection to require them." The reason there is no specific protection for fashion design has nothing to do with the artistic merit of fashion design. In early copyright law theory, clothes were categorized as utilitarian articles. As fashion design has become more creative, the law has not yet caught up -- same story as with cuisine. But almost every legal academic who has studied the matter has written emphatically that fashion design is exactly the type of thing that should be protected by the copyright laws. The reason there has been no specific protection is that, until recently, the fashion industry never lobbied for it -- and indeed may have taken the short-sighted view that piracy can help with brand awareness. Now that the industry has largely gotten past that and is lobbying for copyright protection, there will surely be protection eventually. This is a good article from the New Republic summarizing the situation: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050314&s=raustiala031505

The standard is not whether the work of Ferran Adria is on the same level as the work of Faulkner. The standard is whether the works of Ferran Adria are "original works of authorship." The following are categories of works that, according to the Copyright Office, are protected by the copyright laws. Many of these examples would seem to refute your analysis. • Advertisements, commercial prints, labels • Artificial flowers and plants • Artwork applied to clothing or to other useful articles • Bumper stickers, decals, stickers • Cartographic works, such as maps, globes, relief models • Cartoons, comic strips • Collages • Dolls, toys • Drawings, paintings, murals • Enamel works • Fabric, floor, and wallcovering designs • Games, puzzles • Greeting cards, postcards, stationery • Holograms, computer and laser artwork • Jewelry designs • Models • Mosaics • Needlework and craft kits • Original prints, such as engravings, etchings, serigraphs, silk screen prints, woodblock prints • Patterns for sewing, knitting, crochet, needlework • Photographs, photomontages • Posters • Record jacket artwork or photography • Relief and intaglio prints • Reproductions, such as lithographs, collotypes • Sculpture, such as carvings, ceramics, figurines, maquettes, molds, relief sculptures • Stained glass designs • Stencils, cut-outs • Technical drawings, architectural drawings or plans, blue- prints, diagrams, mechanical drawings • Weaving designs, lace designs, tapestries See: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf I also respectfully submit that most of those who would deny that the works of Ferran Adria are serious art have probably not spent much time examining his work as documented in the El Bulli books. He is routinely called "the Salvador Dali of cuisine" by artists and observers the world over. I think by any standard that could be named, his work could be shown to be art to whatever extent it's ever possible to show anything like that. It would be an interesting exercise, but, for the purposes of the copyright laws, totally beside the point.

Some high-end chefs and restaurants have registered trademarks for individual dish names. The example that comes to mind is David Burke's "Swordchop," which is a registered trademark (number 2597887). You can serve a swordfish chop anywhere, and you can call it a "swordfish chop," "swordfish steak," or "Grandma's Own Swordfish Chop," but you can't call it a "Swordchop." This seems to be of limited utility, however, for a single-establishment restaurant or small restaurant group. It's not likely that the name will catch on to a great enough extent for it to be a commercial advantage to use it as opposed to some other name. Maybe in exceptional circumstances, but not often.

If you're concerned about losing hydration, one thing you can do is put a little water on the bread before you put it in the toaster oven (as opposed to a pop-up toaster) or regular oven. That's what I do -- I don't care at all about the hydration aspect of it, but it really brings the crust alive.

Why not use the toaster oven?

Given the number of people in New York City who order dried sauteed string beans on any given day, and also its variants such as chicken with string beans, they'd have to cover the roof of every building in the city with sheet pans full of string beans in order to air dry enough of them to keep pace with demand. Flying in to JFK airport would afford a bizarre view of string bean colored rooftops stretching as far as the eye can see. Or I guess they could dry them all in Jersey and bring them over by string bean barge.

I probably assumed that too, without ever really thinking about it, but when I actually focused on the string beans on the plate in front of me it was apparent that they hadn't been dried in that manner.

Amazing coincidence, I was eating at a local Chinese restaurant last night, where the dish is (as it is on many Chinese menus I've seen in New York) called "dried sauteed string beans," and Ellen asked "What does it mean that they're dried?" The question had never occurred to me, but I immediately realized they were probably deep fried -- it just didn't seem likely that they were slow roasted in an oven (though I can see how this would work in a low-fat version). Boy, if all the health nuts who order this dish thinking it's a low-cal, low-fat vegetarian option find out it's deep fried . . . . (!)

Tricking someone into eating food under false pretenses is dishonest. Saying you have an allergy when you don't is dishonest. Prying is obnoxious. I wouldn't want to be in the position of defending any of these practices. Whether a host wants to bend over backwards to accommodate dietary restrictions is a matter of choice. It's not required -- you're already a mensch if you invite someone over for a home-cooked meal. Hosts who are willing to cook a separate meal for each guest are very kind and generous. To return the favor by lying is unacceptable. For a guest to request anything special, outside of family and family-like relationships (such as with close friends who've indicated a willingness to accommodate), is presumptuous. If you can't eat or don't like something that's being served, don't eat it. Deletion (e.g., asking that the meat be left off your plate) is acceptable, even if it makes folks uncomfortable (once they start interrogating you, the rudeness is theirs). But anything beyond deletion should be offered by the host.

I haven't eaten at all six, and neither have the judges!

You should go back and find out the names of the people who cooked each of your dishes, so you can be totally literal in your descriptions. Menus, for their parts, should list things like "Tonight on the saute station, Bill Smith, CIA '01."

If the only people claiming to have allergies were those with serious allergies and strong intolerances, there would be no issue. The issue arises because so many people are lying or deluding themselves: claiming allergies when there are no symptoms whatsoever. This leads to a collective boy-who-cried-wolf situation, where we know most people making allergy claims are lying or deluding themselves and, as a result, the amount of care taken sinks to a common denominator of non-vigilance. Those with serious food allergies and intolerances should be outraged when those who just don't like fish lie and say they're allergic to fish.

The USA Today piece cited above explains nothing about the study it relies on for the statistic that 11 million Americans have food allergies. This number, which represents nearly double the number routinely reported by the CDC and FDA, would seem to require a little investigation. There's a small note in the article that says the study data come from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Looking at the MSSM website, there seems to be a study that contains the same numbers. It can be found here. If that is indeed the study upon which this article relies, the claim should not be, as the article says, "an estimated 11 million Americans with food allergies." Rather, it should be "an estimated 11 million Americans who think they have food allergies." This was not a clinical study; it was a telephone survey. According to the study press release: "Nearly 15,000 people were surveyed in the telephone study conducted in 2002 by FAAN and Drs. Scott H. Sicherer and Hugh A. Sampson, from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine." This is more interesting from the standpoint of social psychology than it is from the standpoint of medicine, because it means twice as many people think they have allergies as do. It is well known that most people don't even understand the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance, and that many more people believe they have allergies than do: (From EUFIC). Moreover, most food allergies are not serious ("most allergic reactions to food are relatively mild," same source). The USA Today article makes it seem as though this huge percentage of the population is at risk of imminent death from food allergies.

It seems you don't understand, then. There's nothing "absurd" about what Ulterior Epicure wrote. He was just speaking English. "I am at all my restaurants all the time." --Ducasse

Andrew Carmellini wasn't even mentioned in the New York Times review of Cafe Boulud. It was all Daniel Boulud, and the only mention of anybody other than Boulud was of Alex Lee. For example: http://events.nytimes.com/mem/nycreview.ht...260&oref=slogin Geoffrey Zakarian, as far as I can tell from the PR materials I've been sent, very much claims credit at Country. In the early press releases, there was no mention of any other chef. Later, the releases all lead with Zakarian and mention the chef and pastry chef much later, as an afterthought. And then after dishes are described: Thus, the review in New York Magazine review of Country includes language such as: Same story in the New York Times review of Spice Market: In that review, there was no mention of Gray Kunz or of any chef de cuisine: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...750C0A9629C8B63 I think you're going to find that this is indeed just how people talk about restaurants. It's no excuse, it's the way we use the language. This wasn't some mistake Ulterior Epicure made that he needed to be hounded for. He was following the standard procedure for talking about restaurants. You may want to change that procedure -- you seem to feel very strongly about it -- but currently this is how people talk about restaurants. As a litigator, I worked on plenty of multi-million-dollar cases for clients just like Merck, and I can report to you that these matters are handled as team efforts, under a delegated system. This doesn't make the lead partner a figurehead, it simply makes him a good commander-in-chief: he's focusing on the big picture and the folks on the team are handling various aspects of the case according to his plan. Just like at Per Se or French Laundry. The legal example is one of many, however. This is simply how leadership and delegation work in most any large, successful corporation. As soon as a company -- be it a restaurant or a law firm -- grows beyond the scope of a small or family business, there has to be delegation or the whole thing collapses. But the leaders retain responsibility, even at large organization sizes.