Fat Guy

May I suggest that we don't need analogies to music here? Indeed, I think they are somewhat unhelpful. It seems to me that we can more easily settle this by looking at cuisine on its own terms.

I am indeed only talking about a narrow category of chefs and restaurants.

Evolution is not the same as a quest for novelty. As for the merits of the point, all you have to do is look at what fine-dining restaurants were serving 40 years ago. Unless there is some unique reason to believe that in 2004 everything has clicked, the overwhelming likelihood is that 40 years from now cuisine at the high end will be as different as the cuisine of 2004 is from that of 1964. Sure, there's always room for a few classicists who focus on refinement over inventiveness (although at some level that refinement can be a form of inventiveness), and there's always room for a few chefs who hit upon a formula and just keep working it, but as the leading edge moves forward it is inevitable that the context in which the stationary chefs are viewed will change. And for chefs who in the first place made their names by being different and creative, that change in context can be particularly challenging.

If we're talking about most restaurants and chefs, then evolution is not particularly an issue. But if we're talking about the leaders at the high end of the profession -- the top chefs and restaurants in the world -- then creativity and progress are essential. On the whole, I think cuisine is in its infancy, and virtually none of the top chefs in the world are cooking primarily from the repertoire. Maybe in a few decades or centuries things will level off and cuisine will be more like opera, with the connoisseurs focusing on subtle variations of the canon and the introduction of new material a rarity. But right now cuisine is in full-blown growth mode. The evolution just in the past 40 years has been staggering, and the inputs that give rise to such evolution are continuing to press and accumulate: ingredients, methods of cookery, tastes, transmittal of information, cultural exchange . . . there are so many things going on that make change the norm right now. I think a chef at the top level commits himself to being left behind if he ignores change.

I think you must have us confused with "the other site." Chowhound deletes links to eGullet, not vice-versa. You will find scores of links from eGullet to Chowhound. We have no beef with Chowhound other than these deletions and the abusive treatment some of our members have received over there. And we enjoy the opportunity to show eGullet off, because what you will find on eGullet is an extensive repository of English-language discussion about El Bulli, Ferran Adria, and avant-garde cuisine. When media were recently invited to interview Ferran Adria in London, he gave 5 interviews: The Times of London, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, and . . . Jonathan and Moby from eGullet. As well, eGullet's international staff is often in contact with Ferran Adria and his organization via e-mail and phone. Robert Brown has written of his visit to Adria's "Taller" -- the off-season laboratory where he creates the menus for the coming season. Even key print articles written of late about El Bulli have nodded to eGullet: the Lubow piece in the New York Times Times magazine mentions eGullet on the first page, when the BBC covered the Lubow story it referenced eGullet, the print coverage of the El Bulli book has repeatedly quoted Steve Klc, and when Chuck Martin wrote about El Bulli in the Enquirer his second paragraph read in part "Many consider El Bulli among the best restaurants in the world, and it's certainly the most buzzed about - on egullet.com, in Wine Spectator and in the Sunday New York Times Magazine." This makes sense, of course: where else but in avant garde media would you expect to find discussion of El Bulli? In addition, of course, we have had online Q&A with Grant Achatz and Heston Blumenthal, as well as much coverage of Jose Andres. And thanks to our Spain forum host Robert Buxbaum and great contributing members like Robert Brown, Victor Serna (when I met Santi Santamaria and mentioned Victor's name, he embraced me -- literally), Miguel Cardoso, and too many others to name, we have tried to provide information about the whole of the Spanish culinary scene -- not just Ferran Adria and El Bulli, and not just the Michelin-starred places. Just a few examples of what you will find on eGullet, and I emphasize that this is not a complete list: 27 Small Courses of Ferran Adria, from an interview with Jonathan Day and Moby Pomerance, in The Daily Gullet, Monday, April 5, 2004 http://egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-27courses Eight at El Bulli, A Journey to Dining's Outer Reaches, by Jonathan Day and Robert Brown, Monday, April 21, 2003 http://www.egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-dayonelbulli Table Dancing: The Last Article You Will Read On Ferran Adria (Today), by Timothy C. Davis, Thursday, August 21, 2003 http://www.egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-tabledancingadria The Cabinet of Dr. Adria, A visit to the el Bulli Laboratory http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=24647 Avant garde cooking and El Bulli, A tradition of its own? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=19887 El Bulli: 1998-2002, A culinary book for the ages http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=14330 El Bulli--From wonderful to absurd http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=5915 Learning to Cook . . . Again and Again and Again, a discussion with Chef Grant Achatz, by Jonathan Day, Tuesday, March 4, 2003 http://www.egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-dayonachatz eGullet Q&A with Grant Achatz http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showforum=91 eGullet Q&A with Heston Blumenthal http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showforum=64 Jose's Minibar http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=26554 San Sebastian Dining: Akelare to Zuberoa, by Robert Brown, Thursday, September 18, 2003 http://www.egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-brownsansebastian

I did a bit more experimenting this morning with the Boston shaker. Perhaps this is not a relevant piece of advice for a working bartender who needs to move quickly, but for someone mixing a drink at home the 10 seconds involved are no big deal. The seal is created by contraction of metal due to cold. The seal is loosened if the metal expands. If you simply place the Boston shaker on the counter glass side down, the cold liquid and ice settle into the glass part, leaving the metal part to warm up rapidly. Count to 10. In my tests this morning, the metal part lifted off with very little effort.

They have a special number for guests who hold reservations and they ask guests to call them to confirm 2 days in advance of a reservation. Clearly they have the ability to answer a phone if they want to. But who has suggested they leave a callback number anyway? They should simply be leaving a message saying they tried to call and will call again.

Whatever, dude. Jensen, your pot is already stripped. So reseason it and see what happens. You've got nothing to lose. Let us know how it works out for you.

For the record, I think much of the bread in London is excellent.

I have no trouble accepting that in the hypothetical scenario you describe above a fully performing restaurant would be eligible for three stars. But Spice Market does not conform to the hypothetical scenario. It's a gorgeous place with a great buzz, and from sticking your head in and reading a menu you might get the (mis)impression that "It has appetizers, main courses, desserts, a bar and a wine list. You can get a real table, place a real order, and get served, just as at any restaurant." But anybody on this thread who has eaten there will tell you the restaurant doesn't work that way. You order communally and they dump small plates in the middle of the table in a constant flow -- they don't serve "just as at any restaurant." Instead, they tell you, obnoxiously, that "the food comes as it's ready," which is the same thing they do at Asia de Cuba, another restaurant I'd describe as more club-lounge than restaurant. The difference being that at Asia de Cuba the family-style dishes are too big for one person to eat, and at Spice Market the family-style dishes are too small to satisfy one person. This is not even getting into the street-food aspect of all this: it's one thing to have some chicken wings on your menu and otherwise serve three-star-type food. But Spice Market's menu is laden with egg rolls, spring rolls, chicken wings, and various other straightforward dishes that collectively just don't have the ring of three-star cooking about them. And this is all quite aside from the fact that, as you can read here plenty, the kitchen is not performing at a particularly high level and that the service is pretty weak.

9 and 4 and 0.

The "hundred years of patina" thing is in my opinion overrated. If you reseason and use the pan for a few months, it should perform beautifully.

Mabelline, it's always fun to take doubters to the Berkshire Mountain Bakery, where in Nowheresville USA you can get get better bread than any I've had in France except for the top handful of bakeries like Poilane and company. But the reality is that the bread in most of the US really is terrible, just as the restaurants are terrible. If we're talking about penetration of good food, good bread, good wine, etc., into the rural areas of the country, the French totally kick our asses and that's that. There's no point in trying to argue that point. It can be explained somewhat: France is a lot smaller. But no explanation is going to tip that scale anytime soon. At the same time, in many US cities and regions, I think we are doing some incredible things with bread. As I said, I think the bread in Northern California -- and also in selected areas throughout the whole Northwest -- is just incredible. I would much rather be told I have to eat bread exclusively from Northern California and the Northwest for the rest of my life than be told I have to eat only bread from France.

Me paint an overly black-and-white picture? Now there's a surprise. I'd like to focus on wheat issue for a bit, since I've reached the boundaries of my limited knowledge on the baking issues. My understanding is that in the US you can get any kind of wheat you want. We grow hard wheat in the North (and of course the Canadians grow a heck of a lot of it too) and soft wheat in the South, although that's probably not as subtle as the actual crop-distribution picture. And we grow lots of different strains. Our climatological range is broader than France's, I'm sure, although wheat is not, as I understand it, affected by "terroir" in the way grapes are. If American breads are on the whole being made with harder flour than French ones, that's surely a matter of choice not necessity, because I can go to Costco right now and buy a big sack of bread flour (high gluten), all-purpose flour (medium gluten), or pastry flour (low gluten). Of course the protein content is only one of a number of factors that influence the performance of flour. There are of course two main elements to flour: the wheat and the processing. Is the actual wheat in France any different, or do we have access to all the same stuff in North America? I'm pretty sure we can get all the same stuff. Is France growing all its own wheat anyway? I'm not sure. I think France is a net exporter of wheat, which doesn't mean they don't export one kind and import another kind. We'd have to check one of those trade reports to know for sure. I know Italy imports a heck of a lot of wheat from the US and Canada, but that's mostly used in pasta making, I think. As for the processing, does it differ in France? Is a good bakery in Paris being shipped wheat that has been processed to a higher standard than what a good bakery in New York gets? I don't know.

I was just writing you a PM . . .

Seth: I'm not the one overstating the devastation. I never visited France before World War II. I'm relying on two inputs. First, that those who seem to be very well-schooled in the history of French bread seem pretty universally convinced that French bread-baking culture disappeared after World War II and started being reintroduced in the 1990s as a project rather than as any sort of continuation of a currently existing tradition. And second, that the bread I've had in France -- and I'm probably no better traveled there than you -- has been for the most part unimpressive. In terms of the what-kinds-of-baguettes-do-bakeries sell, well, Jonathan has a house in France so he surely knows better than I. But my recollection, which is no more reliable than my generally unreliable brain, squares with what the Independent says: Jonathan, with respect to the use of the term "standard" I'd just like to clarify that I've been using the term all along in the sense of what is usually made, purchased, and expected as opposed to engaging in any sort of search for a legal standard. That's you, not me. I hope we're all in agreement that the "standard" baguette -- aka the baguette courant or whatever -- is crap. As for the "baguettes de tradition," which are a lot better, I still don't think even the good examples I've had have been particularly great. Clearly I'm in a minority here, but I just don't view them as any sort of paragon of breadbaking skill or flavor. To each his own, I suppose, but I don't see the appeal. A note: the artisanal breadbaking movement has been an international one, and I think it's important to distinguish artisanal breadbaking in general from the improvements that have been made specifically to baguette production since the 1990s. Just fermenting overnight and using a better brand of flour doesn't make your bread artisanal.

I don't know the standardized terminology for "Pain a l'Ancienne" and what it can and can't be. I do know the ones I get from Pain Quotidien -- a Belgian (?) chain you can find all over New York -- are the way they are because they're made from a sourdough "mother" and are slowly fermented. I suppose you could make a similar product with a levain based on commercial yeast, and some of the chemistry would be the same, but it wouldn't have the flavor of the sourdough, which is just a lot more complex than the laboratory-generated yeast. But speaking to your larger point: the French are emphatically not steeped in that tradition. The overwhelming majority of the French population -- those who grew up post-WWII -- never knew good bread growing up, and the baguettes they knew were cottony and awful. If anything, the French are learning from scratch, and while there have been documented improvements I think it's far too generous to say the so-called Renaissance is in anything but early stages.

Most bakeries make both, don't they?

Jonathan, I'm talking about Steven Kaplan, "the American who saved the French baguette." Every once in awhile there's a big newspaper feature on him. Here's one from The Independent in March '04. Incidentally, he seems to agree almost exactly with your statistical assessment, assuming it is circumscribed by one assumption: "The bad news is that half of small bakeries in Paris are producing baguettes de tradition which are, quite frankly, awful. The good news is that even these bad, traditional baguettes are a hundred times better than standard, white baguettes." Note the use of the term "standard" by the world's foremost baguette authority, as distinguished from longer-risen "baguettes de tradition" and, presumably, "l'ancien" sourdough types.

I'd be very interested to see some statistics on the rising times and production methods for baguettes in France today. No doubt there are a lot more artisanal baguettes being produced today than there were in 1990 -- artisanal baking has been an international success story -- but is it truly the case that a randomly selected baguette in France has a particularly good chance of being a good baguette even by baguette standards? To cut to the chase, Jonathan, are you saying you would actually choose one of these "very good indeed" baguettes -- for example one made via overnight fermentation like that American guy taught the French about -- over a nice non-baguette loaf of sourdough bread? I could live to be a hundred and twenty and never be tempted to make that choice.

Most US restaurants outside places like NYC and Las Vegas are three-ring-binder franchises. But really, having done quite a lot of culinary road-tripping (as much as anyone on eGullet except Holly Moore), I haven't seen any sort of indication that "the question" is more common in NYC or Las Vegas than anywhere else.

Jonathan: I think I noted above that it's possible to make a sourdough baguette, and in an earlier post I mentioned the l'Ancien baguettes that I favor. The standard French baguette, however, is a quick-risen bread made from white flour and commercial yeast and it's just not particularly good. If it's fermented overnight, it can be pretty good. If it's made with sourdough, it can be very good, but it's not the standard French baguette. It's a product that doesn't have anything to do with the query Alex presented to us.

Not that the results of baking competitions mean much for the consumer, but the last one of these competitions (they hold them every three years) was won by the Japanese. The Americans came in second and the French did not make the top three. That was the 2002 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. The US team took first place in the previous competition, in 1999. The 2005 competition is coming up in . . . 2005.

Don't you people have credit cards? You know you can get miles and stuff. And nobody will ever ask you if you need change.

Presumptuousness is the foundation of the tipping system as it has developed in the US. A tip is not truly a gratuity; it is in fact the server's salary. Once you become at peace with that state of affairs, you will not be easily bothered by presumptuousness.