Fat Guy

I agree with that, Jake, and don't mean to ignore small towns. I think, however, that the news is pretty good for the very small percentage of the population now lives this way. While I don't think, with the exception of a few destination restaurants in places like Yountville, that small towns are going to have a dining renaissance anytime soon, I do think that the situation now is better than before. For one thing, people in small towns have access to exactly the same media as people in Manhattan and other major urban areas: they get the same TV stations, the same websites, they can order the same books from Amazon.com -- they have access they never had before. Even better, thanks to the FedEx revolution that Michael Ruhlman mentioned in the roundtable discussion, it's possible for a family at the extreme end of a sparsely populated rural delivery route to get lobsters shipped overnight from Rhode Island, and to call Zabar's in New York City and have any kind of cheese shipped -- and throw in some Valrhona chocolate and good extra virgin olive oil.

I agree that chains and other large multinational corporate entities will continue to exert the most influence over what people eat. And they tend to exert supply-side pressure that encourages people to eat crap. They will, however, respond to most anything that can be profitable. And that should give us hope. For example, it is clear to the corporations behind the big chain restaurant undertakings that there is increasing consumer sophistication regarding food quality. It's easy to see the worst in society at any given moment, but I see many trends of culinary improvement thanks to an increase in culinary interest across the board. A good example of the response to this would be the major McDonald's corporate investment in Chipotle Grill. I was recently at the new Chipotle outpost in Brooklyn Heights. It was superb -- if this is the future of chains, I'm very pleased. The corporations that own supermarkets are having the same realization. Parmigiano Reggiano, respectable olive oil . . . these ingredients and many like them are now available at all but the lowest level of supermarket. You can go into any relatively nice suburban supermarket these days and put together a meal that is better (fresh fish, fresh vegetables, high-quality domestic and imported ingredients) than what you could get at the top New York restaurants thirty years ago (frozen fish, frozen vegetables, nothing domestic that was any good and precious few available imports).

For the most part, with the exception of a few restaurants in museums and culinary schools (and not necessarily even then), there is no such thing as a not-for-profit restaurant. Assuming that situation persists, consumer demand will always be a huge part of the equation that determines what restaurants serve. This is not necessarily a good thing in all cases, as Bux intimates above. If you want the best, leaving the decision up to consumer demand is simply not a great strategy. Average tastes breed average restaurants. We have great restaurants today not because consumers demanded them but because chefs created them along the "if you build it, they will come" strategy. In order for restaurants to improve -- in order for dining to have a future -- consumers have to be willing to be led into new experiences by chefs they trust. This is the difference between pandering to consumers and serving them by educating them. Nor is money the chief motivation for many in the restaurant business. I've met scores of chefs and restaurateurs who could be making a lot more money and doing a lot less work as investment bankers, lawyers or psychologists -- they've had the education, skills and socioeconomic background such that those were easily available choices for them. But they chose the restaurant business because they loved it. Now, of course, the average owner of a McDonald's or some other franchise is mostly in it for money not for love of the game. But at the top levels of dining, there is a healthy dose of idealism and artistry in the mix. Will the future nurture that idealism and artistry, or will the future push for pandering? It's hard to know. The success of Zagat is not a good sign, though -- it is the expression of the average, elevated to the status of real criticism. Newspaper critics seem to be focusing on much the same consumer-oriented issues, and less on the artistry -- so they are not helping the enterprise the way architecture critics help the enterprise of creative architecture. I hope there's room for the internet to help celebrate chefs who take risks and pursue creativity and difference. I hope we'll do our part.

With respect to food media, here's where I see it going: I think media will become increasingly important in the dining world. The whole concept of the celebrity chef wouldn't exist without media, and we are seeing more food TV programming, more online food coverage and expansion of food content in general interest media (Tony Bourdain, for example, now has two TV shows running, neither of which is on the Food Network). At the same time, I think the type of influence the media has will be changed, and diluted. The powerful people in food media used to be the restaurant reviewers. This is becoming less and less the case. You want to know someone in the food media now, you want to know either a television producer or a newspaper food section editor. You want exposure, not reviews. And as Zagat, Michelin, the internet and an increasing number of newspapers provide more and more restaurant-review-type coverage, the power of any one restaurant reviewer becomes lessened. So I think food media is rising in influence, but restaurant reviewing is declining in influence (not to mention quality, which is an issue for another topic).

Dr. Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study in the late 1990s that shed some light on this subject. Rozin, a psychology professor, studied cross-cultural food attitudes among more than 1,000 Americans, French, Belgians and Japanese. His research shows that, while the French overall associate eating with pleasure, Americans worry about food and associate it primarily with nutrition (the Belgians and Japanese come out statistically in the middle). Rozin concluded that, "There is a sense among many Americans that food is as much a poison as it is a nutrient, and that eating is almost as dangerous as not eating." When asked if they would be willing to give up eating altogether in favor of a pill that could fulfill all their nutritional needs, 26 percent of Americans said yes -- double the percentage of French. As Rozin explains, "Americans try to categorize foods as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. A third of Americans believe that salt and fat are toxic, like mercury. But most foods, salt and fat included, are healthy in moderation and become unhealthy only when consumed in excess. The French seem to have a better understanding of this notion of balance." Whether French women get fat or not -- and I suspect some of them do get fat -- the really telling bit of data remains (to me) the "French paradox." While only four percent of French people eat diets that meet U.S. nutritional guidelines, and while the French overall have higher levels of serum cholesterol than Americans, the incidence of heart disease in France is 33 percent lower than in America. A 1999 piece I wrote about Rozin's study said the following:

I just had the pleasure of visiting the new DiBruno Bros. store for the opening of the upstairs "Caffe Society" series that DiBruno Bros. and the Book and the Cook are sponsoring. It's an incredible space with a demonstration kitchen, cafe-style seating, plasma video monitors and an excellent sound system. We had about 50 people for a talk and book signing with wine, cheese and other snacks. I could easily see this becoming the place for culinary events in Philly -- there's nothing like it there, or in most cities. The store itself is impressive -- what a great resource. And situated so close to La Colombe. What else do you need?

So, there have been a number of predictions about the future of dining, and I hope we'll talk about those. But I also think it would be interesting to hear what folks are thinking should happen in the future of dining. What would you like to see change, improve, disappear? What would make you enjoy dining more? And what would you like to see less of? One thing I'd very much like to see is a reversal of the trend towards what I call "too much noise, too little light." It seems there is some sort of rulebook for new restaurants that says they have to be dark, crowded and loud. Indeed I have heard tell of a number of studies indicating that dark, crowded and loud restaurants are more appealing to customers than well-lit, spacious and quiet restaurants. Now, I have been speaking to audiences in several states about my book, and I have taken some informal polls. I have asked each audience, "Anybody who prefers dark, crowded and loud restaurants to well-lit, spacious and quiet restaurants please raise your hand." So far, not a single person in a single audience has raised a hand. Me, I'll happily pay extra for light, space and quiet. Nor do I think darkness should go on being equated with romance. The whole sex-with-the-lights-off thing is a Puritanical holdover, and doesn't resonate with me at all. I think it's far more romantic for me to be able to see the woman I'm with. As for the benefit of her being able to see me, well, I'm less certain. In any event, I'd like to be able to see the menu without having to use a flashlight and wouldn't mind being able to see the damn food either. What's on everybody else's mind?

This makes me like Ruhlman a lot. So much so that I want him to have a better title for his "Reach of a Chef" book. I'm thinking.

"Is it truly possible to admire and appreciate good food to the fullest extent if your unfamiliar with the basic principles of cooking?" Is it necessary to cook in order to be familiar with the basic principles of cooking? Does cooking necessarily familiarize one with the basic principles of cooking? What happens at restaurants that don't employ any of the basic principles of cooking: El Bulli, Fat Duck, Alinea . . . ?

We were in Philly this past week. Our first stop was New Castle, Delaware, where I had a TV interview about my book. The guy on CN8 asked my my favorite restaurant in Philly and I told him Carman's. As soon as the taping was over we hopped in the van and made a bee-line for Carman's. Hey! She changed the schedule and is now only open Friday to Monday. And it was Thursday. We regrouped and had lunch at one of the outdoor cafes on Market Street, near our hotel (Sheraton Society Hill). The next morning we planned better, enlisted Holly as a mediator, ascertained that Carman was definitely open and that she'd be accepting of the whole family (parents, baby, bulldog, Holly Moore . . .). The meal was wonderful. I forgot how great all the little touches are, for example the selection of jams from North Carolina that actually taste like fruit. Ellen preferred the fig jam; I preferred Damson plum. There are about twenty choices. The omelette of the day had asparagus, onions and blue cheese. Beautiful flavors, especially paired with a double order of extra crispy bacon and very good rye bread. Holly ordered the pork chops. His looked better. Bastard.

There's a wonderful story about the Pig Pickin' in today's News & Observer, by Debbie Moose. You can read it here. "As the 120-pound guest of honor reclined in Varmint's bathtub, soaking up a brine, the cooks took over the kitchen, peeling peaches, mixing biscuits, shredding duck and chicken for Brunswick stew, slicing squash and chopping tomatoes and okra. . . ."

Yeah. Weapons, drugs, stealing . . . and slapping an obnoxious runner's hand off the pass. All of a kind. Of course I think it was, as Doug Psaltis himself says, pretty damn stupid for him to slap that guy's hand. I think it was even stupider, as I'm sure he by now realizes, to leave it out of the book -- he'll surely pay for that in terms of credibility. That omission was a great gift to those who refuse to accept criticism of Keller and French Laundry -- they now have their (bad) excuse to write off everything Psaltis says. But I've got to say, as between hand-slapping and character assassination, I consider the latter to be the greater sin.

Google's best argument will be that they're only going to let people see a few sentences of copyrighted works. If so, maybe it's fair use, maybe it isn't -- there's something to argue about there. But if it can easily be hacked, or if later the information is utilized differently, it starts to look a lot more like just scanning a copyrighted book and putting it online.

Because there's a big difference between a fistfight and a slap on the hand. One is something you fire people for; the other is something you demand an apology for.

Tony, are the folks at French Laundry saying, in essence, that "Doug slapped the guy's hand and we fired him"? I would find that hard to believe, wouldn't you? I could see the HR apparatus swinging into action and putting an employee on notice that nothing of the sort will be tolerated. But fired? I've never worked for or represented a company that would outright fire somebody for that. And unless somebody can document the timeline -- that the incident happened on Psaltis's last night -- then it's hardly credible as anything but an after-the-fact explanation of Psaltis's departure, dredged up now that French Laundry has felt the sting of criticism. More importantly, I would find it irrelevant. We already know about the incident. The spin -- was he forced out or did he leave; was the slap one of many reasons or a primary reason and from who's perspective -- seems incredibly trite beside the overblown innuendo. Do I believe Psaltis was dissatisfied at French Laundry? Absolutely. I know he was, because from his first days out there I spoke to him on his cell phone pretty often. Probably ten calls in all. And he was saying the same things about it then that he says in his book. Do I believe he told me everything, or that the book says everything, or that he says everything in his one post here on this topic? Of course not. It's not that book where the guy photographed everything he ate for a year. For all I know there was another incident that I don't know anything about -- if so I beg you say what you know because this is getting ridiculous. I'm sure the slapping incident caused the folks at French Laundry much consternation. But now it seems like it's being used as an excuse: Psaltis slapped a guy's hand, therefore our walk-in was never disorganized. Whatever.

Which of course doesn't make it one iota more legal. But it is still an important point, which may lead to refinement of the current legislation (or lack thereof) regarding "fair use."

The issue of formality and fine dining (there was a time when nobody would have thought to separate the two) is, I think, representative of a host of other issues. It’s not just about the coat and tie. It’s about all the things the coat and tie represent. Fine dining has gone from being something that aristocrats did at home, to something former aristocrats did in restaurants, to something anybody with a hundred dollars of disposable income can do. Moreover, there are now people with a lot more than a hundred dollars of disposable income who bear no resemblance to aristocracy. While there have long been nouveau riche, it is really with the dot-com generation that we see nouveau riche who have no desire to emulate existing riche. When the unshaven, unwashed guy in jeans may be the wealthiest person in the restaurant, new rules are needed. Most restaurants have adapted. Those that haven’t are mostly out of business or near extinction. There may be room for a niche sub-sub-subculture of a couple of restaurants in a given major city where the target audience excludes the casual generation, but they are the proverbial exceptions that prove the rule: just look at the average age of their customers, who typically appear to have been kicked out of the AARP for being too old. Now, I like to dress up sometimes. I think a man in a suit looks better than a man in Dockers. But in addition to the triumph of casual Friday and casual every other day of the week, we have another issue to contend with: men’s style is no longer dictated by the suitmakers. So you can have some schlub in an awful suit next to an impeccably turned out guy in fashionable designer garb and the schlub gets in while the other guy is in the street? Not happening. Unsustainable. Of course this has been the case with women’s fashion for a much longer time. That’s why it’s impossible to legislate. There simply is no feminine equivalent of “jacket and tie required for gentlemen.” And now, there is no contemporary, meaningful male equivalent of “jacket and tie required for gentlemen,” either. As I was saying earlier, though, this isn’t all about clothes. Sartorial considerations are just some of the most visible ones. But the whole style of restaurants has changed. The service has changed. The approach to ingredients has changed. These things will I think continue to change, and I would be shocked to see a full-on return to formality. Maybe a mini-cycle back the other way, sure. But the world does not appear to be moving in that direction. This all ties back to comments made throughout this discussion (and thank you gentlemen for making it so interesting) about restaurants having been cut loose from their historical moorings in many ways. We are to a certain extent entering a free-fall stage right now. There are no rules. But there will be rules. I look forward to seeing what they will be.

You can make a lot of convoluted arguments as to why things like this, file sharing of copyrighted material, etc., are legal but, well, they aren't. I do think it's unlawful and that Amazon is going to lose or settle on a much more restrictive opt-in-type arrangement. That, however, is not necessarily the solution that serves the interests of authors, publishers or the public. Right now there's a gap -- at least I think there is -- between what the intellectual property laws require and what actually makes sense. (eGullet Society management takes the position that we need to follow the law even when there are honest differences of opinion about the law's appropriateness in particular instances).

Messrs. Ruhlman and Bourdain, with all due respect, this is beneath you. If you've got something, spill it. The implication that Psaltis is hiding something seems pretty dodgy when it's accompanied by "I don't want to make accusations or explicit queries in this public forum." Don't you realize you've already made a loud accusation in this public forum? I think it's only fair, at this point, to say what it is. Psaltis says he slapped a guy's hand. Was it really the guy's knee? If there are truly horrible revelations about Psaltis that have not yet come out, let's get them out here -- that's what eG Forums discussions are about. My desire to get the truth out outweighs my desire to defend my friend, but at this point there's nothing to respond to but innuendo.

The recipe for most anything you can imagine is already available for free online. People don't buy cookbooks because they have no other way of getting recipes. People buy them because they are objects that have many kinds of value -- a unique package that no other medium can reproduce completely.

Tony, please don't retract my blurb! It still needs to go on the paperback!

Tony, are you sure you blurbed the Psaltis book? I don't see a quote from you on the jacket. I see Pat Conroy, Mario Batali, Jacques Pepin, Charlie Trotter, James Villas and Publishers Weekly.

I guess I just don't understand why so many people aren't willing to post what they think they know, rather than get bogged down in all this innuendo. Michael and Tony, you obviously think you have information, so why not post it? I think it would be entirely appropriate for either of you to post the alleged facts of a conflicting account. However, it seems extremely uncool for you to be harping on Doug while refusing to say why.

Michael, if somebody asked you a question like that, would you answer it? "Now would be the time" sounds like what a police interrogator or prosecutor would say.

Doug, I currently consider you a friend but would be willing to consider you a close friend if you wanted to commit to taking that step in our relationship together with me. Would you do that with me, Doug? Would you take a chance? You too, Tony.