markk

I disagree, but perhaps on a minor technicality. Ingredients change. Surely you can't tell me that today's and meats and poultry bear much resemblance to the meats of 100 years ago, or react the same way to cooking, and I am sure that except perhaps in some remote hamlets untouched by time, most ingredients today have changed. Even if meat has changed only slightly enough that sauteeing the piece of veal in the time called for in an old recipe results in it being horribly overcooked and dry, or undercooked and unchewable, the person with zero creativity cooks it exactly as written. (Have you never eaten something hideous that a person told you they made from some great chef's cookbook?) I think that it's a point of pride with great artists, chefs included, that they want to make something dazzling in-the-mouth, and if it means that they have to take their incredible culinary genius and make yesteryear's recipe with today's ingredients so that it sings in the mouth, rather than sitting there like a dud, that's what they do, and consider it a great use of their talent and skill - I do. And that's fine with me. Have you ever heard the crap written by William Bolcom, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, William Hoffman and John Harbison that The Met puts on pretending that it's opera because people sing it with "operatic" voices??!! That's not opera, and trust me, I'm not the only person saying that after living with the works of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, and such, that we very simply don't need new composers! But that presumes that we're likening the chefs to composers. If we liken the chefs to the performing artists, then you introduce the idea of a soprano who has sung a role so many times that it begins to bore her, so during performances she changes the music and inserts her own notes and tunes. Now we really don't want that, do we? We want singers to do what most of the great singers confess to doing - they close their eyes, and see the score (the recipe) in their minds, and ask themselves "what do I need to do here, and here, and here, to bring he composers notations to life while I interpret them?" I don't want a pedantic, lifeless rendition of a great Verdi score, and I don't want a pedantic, lifeless rendition of a classic dish. As far as chefs who find that not only have many particular ingredients changed, but that as many new ones have appeared, and who want to use their genius to create dishes that bring those ingredients to life, drawing on whatever culinary history they may have in their bones, that's fine with me. I think that's what people like Jean-Georges, and Gabriel Kreuther are doing in French food, and I like it. I still wish that D'Argagnan was around, and I'll be sad as I may have said once or twice above, if the old classics never reappear because nobody remembers how to make them. My experiences with modern Italian cuisine are fewer, and less happy. One was a miserable meal I had in the town next door to Modena at "San Domenico" during the "Nouvelle Cuisine" days, and one was just about two years ago when Roman Chef Salvatore Tassa came to cook in New York and I ate his food at Lupa - after the first few dishes, we canceled the remainder of his "menu" (as we learned others had done) and convinced them to serve us from the regular menu for the rest of our meal. (Taking no chances, I had gone to the kitchen and asked Mark Ladner if he'd do this for us, and he said that he would, and just then I heard some other people say the same thing to him.) So we don't need new composers, in my book. We're wasting time and money putting on these new works one time, and then never again because nobody walks away humming the tunes, and nobody ever wants to hear these 'operas' a second time. We like the operas that are so great that every generation that's heard them since they were written has passed them along by wanting to hear them over and over again. Will deconstructed food and molecular gastronomy stand the test of time? I don't know. But just as we have the means to pull out the score of an opera that hasn't been done in years and years off the shelf, and bring it to life, because this chain has remained unbroken, I hope that we'll always have the means to cook the classic dishes, and that nobody forgets how to make them because in the rush for chefs to satisfy the egos that get bruised by the suggestion that they cook something they didn't invent, we find that we have broken the chain and can't find the missing link to get back.

Well, I would never want to try interpretations of my own food culture in other countries! I get bad enough interpretations at home in New Jersey . So when I saw that Strasbourg (France) had several branches of "Hippopotamus", which looked like a Houlihans of TGIF, and specialized in baby back ribs and the like, I chuckled and passed. But partly out of a fascination I have, and partly because I don't eat a big lunch, I always try the local McDonalds... And the McDonald's in Europe certainly aren't bad! I've been to some where they grill the hamburgers fresh to order. But one year during the Mad Cow experience, we flew into Frankfurt, Germany, and drove directly to Strasbourg, trying to hold out until lunch. But we couldn't, so we stopped at a German McDonald's just a quarter of a mile from the French border, starving and needing to 'facilitate'. There, we discovered the glorious "McFarmer" sandwich - two all pork sausage patties, on a whole grain bun, with melted cheese, tomato, and a sauce that I don't actually remember" And wow, was that ever good. We couldn't wait to cross the border and try the French version. But alas, there wasn't one. The McD's in France were serving "Le Croque McDo" as their answer to Mad Cow, a round croque monsieur, toasted ham and cheese. It was pretty tasty, though not nearly as good as the sausageburger across the river, and we may have been the only people known to man to cross back from France to Germany for lunch, and we did it on a semi-regular basis. Ah, but I am. I can always tell the story of being a born-and-raised New York City Jewish kid spending four years in upstate NY at college, and weeping (did I say "weeping" - that just came out - I meant "eating") eating at the local Chinese restaurant there. I believe you that the Chinese food in Oporto is hideous, but I'll just assume that they brought over the Chinese chef from Upstate NY, or vice-versa.

Ah, well that makes a difference, then. If you're travelling to a country specifically for the food, then it makes sense to only eat that type of food. But people travel for different reasons, and I prefer to have a wider-range of experiences in a country, and sample everything it has to offer, since there's a good chance I won't visit it again (much as I might love to). ← And as a rule, how's the food? I mean, are there countries in which only the native cuisine is any good, or are there countries where all the foods offered are just as good?

Well, I might, but then again, I might not. If I was loving the Thai food and hoping to have it as many times as I could before I went home, I might actually think "well, I eat enough great French food" and not, though yours is a very good point. No, of course you're right, but I also would say that for many reasons, I think of Indian as one of the legitimate cuisines in Britain. And Britain isn't a place I go to for "British cuisine", whereas I do go to France specifically for French food and Italy specifically for Italian food.

This grows out of the discussion that's been raging on "Tradition v. Contemporary Italian Cuisine" (but not strongly enough to link there). It came from my own comment that when I'm in a country like Italy or France, I want to make the best use of my meals to experience the traditional cuisines of that country, so not only don't I eat "foreign" cuisines, I don't even eat experimental versions of the cuisine of the country I'm in. But back to the question I'm posing here: When traveling to one Country, will you eat another country's cuisine? I've always been tempted to have Chinese food in France, but have never done it. On the "pro" side is the thought that since in America we have a "Chinese-American" cuisine that we feel is 'authentic' Chinese cuisines adapted, or dumbed-down, for American tastes by the people who make them - so if the Chinese people who settled in France and opened restaurants have "Frenchified" the food for the local tastes there, might it not be wonderful? The "con" side holds the thoughts that perhaps they don't do that, and besides, I don't want to give up a French meal when I'm in France on vacation to find out. I have, however, eaten Italian food in Germany, with very mixed results. In some parts of Germany, the Italian food is as heavy and leaden as the local cuisine. The exception was Berlin, where I had some very good Italian food. I peeked in a Chinese restaurant while I was living briefly in Mannheim (Germany), where the local cuisine was deadly heavy, and the Italian cuisine was similarly deadly heavy, and was just very afraid to try the Chinese place. So, when you're in one country on your travels, do you eat the cuisines of a different country?

I don't view it as deciding whether or not to begrudge a chef a way to make some extra $$$ - I'm all for it. It's been going on in France for years, and it's great. I mean, who amongst us does not have to opt for convenience dinners part of the time, really? And not only do some of us freeze homemade stock, I've certainly turned out great batches of foods and kicked myself for not having had the brains to make extra and freeze it. So why shouldn't a great chef "make extra" and freeze it for us to use at home. I realize that it's not the chef's kitchen that's cooking these, but a commercial operation, but if they do it with care and follow the same standards that the chef's kitchen follows, it's a win/win situation. And one of my favorite things in France (during those hours when you don't actually eat) is to admire these things in the supermarket and wish I had cooking facilities in my hotel room! But I did once live for a few months in Germany, and boy oh boy did we ever drive down to Strasbourg on the weekends and stock up !! I can't find the photo () but the firm of William-Saurin used to produce a packaged line of Paul Bocuse foods - they weren't frozen, but were in vacuum sealed pouches inside beautiful boxes that were stocked in the refrigerated cases, and you'd toss the pouch in simmering water and serve yourself a pretty delicious meal; I remember the duck confit with the green peppercorn sauce especially, and that's the photo I can't find. I brought home the empty box and used to have it in my kitchen. Of course, some dishes don't lend themselves to freezing and reheating, but for the many that do, bring them on! I'm going to order some things from the Five Leaf website right now to have on hand - thanks, FG. I can predict sight-unseen and untasted that they've got to be better than what I can have delivered where I live.

I forgot about that !!

In my search for restaurants convenient to The Metropolitan Opera, I realized that you can't get closer than dining right in the lobby of the opera house: at the Grand Tier Restaurant. I see that it's now run by the Patina Group (I've had good experiences with them in the past in L.A., but that was many years ago and thousands of miles away.) But I haven't actually eaten at the Grand Tier in probably 20 years. I remember it as incredibly convenient. So I'm wondering - has anybody eaten there recently, and can you comment on the food?

Sorry for the flippant remark. I like Telepan on 69th & Columbus. They have a really good deal on their 4 and 5 course menus. I find most of the other restaurants in the few block radius to be hit or miss unless you go high end. ← No, it wasn't flippant at all! I started it after all. I tried Telepan last year and had a dreadful meal, though.

Well, if you're a block away and reasonably priced, can you suggest some good places for pre-opera dinners? ← I AM reasonably priced but it's reasonably priced for the Lincoln Center area! ← And can you suggest any other restaurants in the area, or are you suggesting that I keep going back there before the opera and try for a good night?

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't find the St.-Georges St.-Emilion (I think it was) that you had mentioned previously. I was looking for it, having had some very delicious ones (and thinking very highly of your opinions, btw). Out of curiosity, I had asked our server about the wines. She had told me that the Argentinian Malbec was too big and heavy for her, and it turned out to be thin and bitter. I could have used some help choosing a replacement red, and don't know why at that point she didn't offer to send over somebody who could've helped. She also told me that the Gevery-Chambertin was delicious, which it was not. I guess it's my own fault for not asking for a wine person, if they have one.

Well, if you're a block away and reasonably priced, can you suggest some good places for pre-opera dinners?

Yeah, it's been confusing me too. That's why I posted the question earlier of whether people are considering Jean-Georges a "French" restaurant. I think we're into a lot of apples vs. oranges in this thread, not the least dimension is whether we're talking about people who live in Italy, or people visiting Italy as tourists. So I'll throw in my two cents as a tourist in Italy, not a native... The photos you posted look fine to me. I would be able to deal with a delicious meal like that, probably, and all the more so if it were truly delicious. I was not able to deal with the meal that I got many years ago at "San Domenico" in Imola, next door to Modena, however. Whatever the hell it was (ego?), it wasn't Emilian, nor was it even vaguely "Italian". If I can make the veer, I would say that I don't really consider Jean-Georges to be "French" restaurant. But I like it. That may be because it's in New York, and I associate that with "melting pot" cuisine, which to me means that, since I'm twelve minutes away, I'm not necessarily giving up a meal to go there, and besides, it's not the case that I feel that I want to eat "American" cuisine, whether or not there is such a thing (don't mean to open that can of worms) - I'm just saying that if I'm in Italy or France, it's to eat as much of the traditional cuisine as I can. If chefs want to stretch it to the extent that Jean-Georges stretches "French" cuisine, I can usually deal with it, though if they go too far, I'm gonna be hateful that I could've been having cassoulet, or tortellini bolognese, because those are things I can't really get in New York as good as I can in their country of origin ("normalmente"). Personally, I don't want to eat anyone's 'deconstructed' or 'molecular' food when I go to Italy or France. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time in Germany and if somebody were to offer me really good molecular Italian or French food there, I'd jump at the opportunity!

May I ask you to reconsider the post that started this thread... And ask if you're sure you're using the word "contemporary" in the same way that she is? I think you and she are talking about two different things.

Well, with the best intentions, and in very good moods (these can matter, I know) we went to Landmarc in the Time Warner Center for dinner before "Lucia" at The Met, and had a thoroughly lousy meal... One of us started with the daily special of "Insalata Caprese" (mozzaella and tomatoes), which I did not taste, so I can't comment on: and two of us (who eat a lot of foie gras) had the foie gras terrine, and apart from the 'fleur de sel' sprinkled on the top, we both found the foie gras way too salty to eat, and said so to a pretty much uncaring server. Now, I only make this comment because of how much good stuff I've heard about the wine program there, including what we were told during the meal. We found a half-bottle of Hugel's "Cuvée Les Amours" Pinot Blanc, and asked if they had it in a full bottle; we were told that they did not, but that "we have Italian Pinot Grigio, which is basically the same thing". [No, it certainly isn't - if we had been talking about an Alsace Pinot Gris, I might have to allow the comment on a technicality, but it was a Pinot Blanc!]. But more on the wines later. After tremendous discussion about the foods, I opted to continue with a half order of the "crispy sweetbreads", and my partner had the "frisée aux lardons", while our guest sat out a mid-course. The egg, though poached, was hard-cooked, the yolk completely solid, not runny. (If this is some law in NYC, I hope someone will tell me.) It made a lousy salade. The sweetbreads were something that my local (and not very good) Jersey diner could have made just as poorly. (This from someone who eats a lot of sweetbreads.) I considered warning my partner, who had ordered a full order of them as his main course, but thought that if it was too late for them to let him change his order, I might be better off not saying anything in case he happened to love his. At this point, we decided to get some red wine, and I chose an Argentinian Malbec, mostly in honor of our guest who had ordered the "hangar" steak. Now, we drink a lot of Argentinian Malbec, and there was no excuse for this one - it was thin, yet harsh and bitter, and I had to break it to our server that we couldn't drink it. So I ordered a Gevrey-Chambertin, which though not terrible, was also not terribly good. And now we were on to the main courses. Our guest's "hangar" steak: She didn't specifically comment on it (she would've if it was great) but afterwards she asked if our meals were as disappointing as hers was. My partner had the full portion of crispy sweetbreads, and asked why I hadn't warned him and I answered that since our complaint about the overly salty foie gras didn't seem to matter, and since we had just sent back a bottle of wine, I doubted that they'd have let him switch his order, and didn't want to influence his perception of it with my feelings about the appetizer portion. And yes, it does look like something from the "Anti-Dinner Gallery of Regrettable Dishes"! I had the liver with onions. There had been much discussion with my server, suggesting medium rare for the liver as a minimum, which I agreed to (having wanted even less cooking) but it arrived well done Aside from the overcooked liver, this dish actually kind of worked - the crispy smashed potatoes, the peas, and the tomatoes worked with the vinegary sauce and the liver, and as I had already adjusted my expectations downward, I was able to get some enjoyment from the dish. However, I just don't get it. It was an all-around lousy dinner, and we went in with open minds and great attitudes. I expected a good "bistro" meal, not "haute cuisine", and certainly didn't get either. What gives?

So now at this point in the discussion I have to ask a question, mostly to get a perspective: Do we consider Jean-Georges a French restaurant? Anyway... Hey, I got that!

FG, I think you're setting me up here to walk into a trap with your superior brain power and verbal skills! I didn't mean to eat it the first time a guy experimented with it. I meant to say that at the point where somebody took veal from the calf in the neighbor's backyard, and sage from his garden, and experimented with the idea that a quick sautee in butter and a toss of herb would bring out the best in both ingredients and elevate them to a new level of deliciousness... I want somebody to recreate that sensation in my mouth by recreating that excitement of culinary discovery after it was perfected. That's what I meant by "as if". Yes, a line cook at a restaurant like Jean-Georges would get it dazzlingly right each time. But as I posted earlier, a line cook at Babbo today would phone it in, and I know this because I've eaten "phoned-in", lifeless, one dimensional 'classic' dishes there. I've had them in Italy as well. But I also have a friend on Capri who's a cook, and one day he invited me to his home for lunch and made "Scallopine alla Sorentina". It couldn't have been simpler. Some fresh veal, a slice of prosciutto, some astoundingly fresh "fiore di latte" melted over the top, a dash of wine, and simplicity never tasted so good. But I know that the line-cook at the place in town near the train station, that's in all the guidebooks, makes a less exciting version of the identical dish. Edited to add that I walk happily into whatever trap you set, FG .

Well, I missed a day or so, and I'm not really following the thrust of the "generic" thing going on in this thread. However, I can help clarify it, because I think that you only have to gather the Chinese Takeout menus in your area, to see that they're all the same standard menu; every one has the same basic categories and dishes; every one has Moo Goo Gai Pan, Chicken with Broccoli, Kung-Pao Chicken (with a hot-spicy asterisk) etc. in the "Chicken" category, and pretty much every one even has the same "House Special" dishes, i.e. "Gen Tso's Chicken", "Orange Flavor Beef" etc. In some cities in Italy, at least in olden times (30+ years ago) (I'll give Rome as an example) these menus were given, with all the standard "tourist-Roman" dishes printed on them and the prices blank, and the various restaurants would fill in the prices for those dishes they offered. So every menu had "prosciutto e melone" as an antipasto, and certainly "Saltimbocca" as a primo piatto, though I can't remember all of them, nor can I find a photo of them. But they actually were in 4 columns, with the dishes translated into the most popular tourist languages. "Prosciutto and Melon" became "ham with melon" in English. And strangely, or rather 'un-appetizingly' to say the least, "Bistecca alla griglia" became, in the German column, "Gekochte Fleisch". But I'm not sure that "generic" is the right word, or that it's being used correctly in this discussion. Yes, all the dishes on the standard-issue menu for a city or region certainly catalog the traditional dishes of that cuisine. Whether the restaurant cooks them with care and love and they are vibrant and great, or whether they crank them out by formula with industrial-quality ingredients for the tourists and don't care what they taste like as long as they follow, perfunctorily, the 'recipe' for the dish, is another story. But as some of us have been saying, the cure for somebody making deadly dull, lifeless, rubbery Saltimbocca alla Romana is to take the highest quality veal, some fragrantly fresh sage, and make the dish as if discovering that combination for the first time. And as I have said, if a Roman-born and -raised, and -trained chef goes to the market and finds ingredients that, thanks to modern transportation and refrigeration methods, his grandparents never saw or tasted, I don't have a problem if he cooks them in a way that follows the culinary tradition in which he's been raised and steeped, and finds a way to bring out a new dimension in that ingredient. And though I've said it enough times that even I'm tired of hearing it, I will accept this scenario as a natural course of culinary evolution, but I would have a problem with being told that my plate had beads of veal-protein, butter foam, and powdered sage and that I was instructed to take some of each on my spoon. I realize that for some people this is an exciting dimension (I'm thinking of the Doc), and I don't deny the validity of that for them; I only speak for myself when I rant on like this.

Well, isn't that what this whole thread is about? Replacing sinful, excessive amounts of decadent creamy sauce with freeze-dried, dehydrated, pulverized "Parmigiano Cream Dust" (to go along with a small mound of dough and a small amount of chopped meat, which represent the 'de-constructed tortellono'?)

Many (many) years ago I dined at a 2-star establishment in the countryside outside of Dijon, in the Burgundy region. (It may have been only one-star, but I don't think it exists anymore.) It was very beautiful and elegant, although the servers were women, and their dress was not formal. I was younger then, and it was one of my early fine-dining experiences. For the beginning of the meal, I ordered a half-bottle of a local "Aligote". The brought a full bottle, and a fancy looking bottle it was at that, and I was afraid of what the price might be, so I called over the sommelier and told him (in something resembling French) that we had only ordered a half bottle. Dismayed (or so I thought), he said "We don't have this in half bottles. So you can drink to here" and then he picked up the bottle and drew a line with his pen about halfway down the label. No sooner did he set the bottle down, then he picked it up again, studied it very carefully, and re-drew the line about a quarter of a inch higher, and said "to here". Then after he started to walk away, he turned back, picked up the bottle again, studied it some more by holding it up to the light, and drew a third line about an eighth of an inch lower than the original one, and set it down and smiled at us, and we realized that he had been joking all along. Fine dining and gracious hospitality cannot exist without a sense of humor, of course. I was too young to realize that then.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a Filetto di Manzo con Aceto Balsamico is a classic preparation. At least, I ate one at Ristorante Fini in Modena in 1974, and I don't believe they were even allowed to do anything innovative by order of the local food police then. Well, I searched, but I don't, alas, have the photo of that dish. But I do have the first course from that meal, a sampler of three traditional local pastas. I know this isn't relevant to the discussion, but I thought people might like to see a photo of pasta in Modena from 1974: They are the ubiquitous green gnocchi in a cream sauce with Parmigiano-Reggiano, agnolotti (don't remember what they're filled with) in an obviously similar sauce, and something that may be lasagne, and which certainly has something like spinach in the filling. I do remember it as gooooooooood. (And if there's any crossover from the photos in restaurant thread, at least you know one person who's been photographing what he eats in restaurants since 1974, long before there were bloggers.)

Well, I have to tell this story... In the 1980's I stumbled (in a NJ wine store) on a Vincent Arroyo Cabernet that I thought was one of the best wine's I'd ever had - it had all the rich concentration and raw excitement of a rough-and-tumble Cahors (from the southwest of France) yet the flavor of Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine buyer for the store, who had been in Napa working the harvest for somebody, had tasted it and bought it for the store, a completely unknown new wine. I then had some of his even more intense Petite Sirah, so under the pretense of a business trip I trumped up to get myself to the West Coast, I went to visit him. It was then a tiny operation (I don't know how big it is now), and Vince was happy to see us. And I clearly wasn't somebody who'd stumbled in by accident to have a photo taken with the winemaker - I had called in advance to arrange a time for a visit, and even though they weren't technically open for visits when I was there, when I explained that I'd had some of his earliest wines and wanted to meet him, he told me to "come on up". And when I asked questions about the wine, he sort of shrugged, extremely modestly. He was indeed flattered by our love of his wines (this was explained to me by a neighbor who had dropped by when Vince went down to his cellar to get one of his last bottles of his very first vintage for us to taste - the neighbor told me "I've never seen him do that before". And still, he wouldn't talk about his emotional struggle with each vine, his emotional torment with each season's weather, or whatever hard work and sacrifices he had to make to produce wines of such extraction. He was thrilled that we loved them, and thrilled that we admired the balance of concentration and soft tannins, but he was definitely of the opinion that what was in the glass spoke for itself. And the same held true for several subsequent visits. Yes, we got to tour the vines, and yes, we got to taste wines in barrels that were new for him never bottled before by him, and we got to taste the same wines from different types of barrels when I asked to do that. And when I questioned something about one of his wines that I'd had, he brought out that exact wine and vintage in full and half bottles so that he could explain a point to me about the aging of the Petite Sirah grape. But he never talked about himself, his struggles, his hardships, or his emotional involvement on "babying" his wines into adulthood. And I appreciated his modesty. It made what was in the glass, which was remarkable to begin with, all the more impressive.

Nedicks and an orange drink! Where is that when I need it ????? I remember them well from the corner of Macy's. But I'm going back, what, forty years?

Well, (gulp), I was gonna say KFC, but now I guess I have to try Popeyes.

I think that's true because chefs and cooks can lose interest in cooking a dish, and when they do it by rote, the energy and excitement that's missing in the cooking is severely lacking in the the diner's mouth. Jean-Georges has been making many of his "classic" dishes for ten years. (The young garlic soup with frog legs, the turbot with the Chateau Chalon sauce, etc.) But each time they make it, they give it the same energy and excitement that they put into it when it was new, and that comes across in the dining room. I think a lot of things fall out of vogue because kitchens become complacent, and then people think the need a "new" type of cuisine to bring the excitement back. But they don't. They just need a chef dedicated enough to keep the excitement in the dish he's making. It's what they say of actors who get bored in part and want to change it each night: don't. You may feel bored, but it's the audience who's paying money to be entertained, and you have an artistic obligation to find the way to reproduce the same thing you did six nights ago, and three nights ago with a new energy each night. I know somebody will say, "but the chef gets bored making the same thing", and I'm saying that whether he is or not, he still has a professional obligation to make it just as well as he did when it was exciting for him, just as the Jean-Georges kitchen does with their classic dishes. Last year I had a Bolognese sauce at Babbo that one of my party likened to what's in the can of Chef Boyardee meat ravioli, and we all had to agree that that was a very accurate description of that batch of sauce. But I don't think the answer is a molecular Bolognese, or a deconstructed Bolognese. I think the remedy is to make the sauce as if you had just tasted a great rendition of it in Italy for the first time, and were trying to make a batch that captured that same excitement for your patrons. Now, I'm not saying that chef's shouldn't create new dishes as well. But to go back to the opening post of the thread, "I've wrestled for 2 seasons with how to sophisticate the classic combination of melon and prosciutto. I've tried pulverizing dried prosciutto, I've tried melon sorbetto, melon aspic...but nothing comes close to the texture and flavor contrasts of the original dish. For me, this exemplifies what I try to do in the kitchen....respect the original dish, while attempting to seduce the diner with a new rendition that is equally satisfying. I haven't found the answer yet..." I think that there are many dishes that don't need to be improved upon - they just need to be made with as much energy and respect as if they're being made for the first time, so they'll come out tasting fresh and exciting. If you want to take ingredients that are now in the market that weren't there twenty or thirty years ago, and find delicious ways to cook them, fine. But I'd still rather have prosciutto and melon to start than prosciutto dust and melon foam in it's place. Side by side I might be able to appreciate, but not instead of. I couldn't agree more! ← markk- Your brilliant comment about acting got me thinking(always a bad thing ). When I go to a performance of "Richard III", I am not interested in what comes next-I know the story-rather I am interested in seeing this particular troups take on a classic. They can dress their actors in cloths from the 1930's, but I want Shakespear's dialog, nothing is gained( in my opinion) by giving it a "contemporary" twist.Good actors and chefs have enough of a challenge creating great versions of the classics, they don't have to reinvent them. ← Well, not to wander off-topic, but it was my own love of opera, and having seen a production of the Rossini opera "Semiramide" (Semiramis), which takes place in ancient Assyria, set on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise (oh, I kid you not), that made me think of that. As in, oh, you know, why don't they just get some singers who can Rossini's music great, and an orchestra that plays it great, and leave it alone. I'm not opposed to the idea of somebody writing an atonal opera that uses smashing panes of glass and fog horns and is set on Mars, as long as I don't have to go see it. (Or eat prosciutto dust and melon foam as my dinner before it. )