Tonyfinch

I think you can like examples of things even if you don't like the genre. I mean I don't like opera but I think Debussy's Pelleas and Melisande to be a beautiful piece of music. However I could never be an honest opera writer on that basis because I would be out of sympathy with the whole kit and caboodle. Andrew Sarris cites Sight and Sound magazine in the 60s which only sent a reviewer along to review a film if he/she liked the director's films. Since nobody liked David Lean's work, Lawrence of Arabia was left without a review. The editor defended the omission on the grounds that it was the critic who was most sympathetic to the director or the film who would write the "best" review, even if it meant saying it was a poor example of that director's work. A review from an unsympathetic critic was useless. Does that sound heretical to anybody? If the answer is "yes" then you believe that FG can review the mackerel because you believe in the critic's ability to transcend his own tastes for the higher good , as it were, or is capable of having his/her tastes changed? I'm highly dubious myself. You're the food writer Steven. Tell us what you think.

I think your use of the past tense is telling there.It indicates that you don't see cuisines as being in ongoing development. What you see is a finished product. This is why you feel you can deliver definitive judgements. Context is vital if you see things my way because it can explain where a cuisine falters and give hope for better things to come. For example if there economic development in Africa led to better roads and transport infrastructure and more schools people wouldn't have to walk so far and the cuisine would utilise less fuel foods and be better balanced. If irrigation and water distribution systems work properly land can be more fertile, grazing land can be of higher quality whih would lead to fatter cattle and sheep which would lead to tenderer and more flavoursome meat which in turn might lead to a wider use of cooking techniques than braising. To me all this is inextricable. It's not just a question of it either tastes good or it doesn't. Food either tastes good or not good but cuisines don't. Some African food is delicious and some is not. Same with any other cuisine. In order for a greater proportion of it to be more delicious than not, you work to create the conditions under which more delicious food can be produced and distributed. And that might mean facing up to some very entrenched vested interests. It's either that or or its throwing up your hands and telling Africans they've got innately crap taste and that they need their taste buds and neural taste pathways re-configuring, along with the Dutch, the Germans, the Austrians, the Greeks, the Poles, the Bolivians, the Protestants............................

Well I'm sure Mrs.P's hatred of Thai food is genuine but what is it based upon? Or your friends' dislike of Indian food? Do they see the problem as being with the cuisine or as being with them? Is it like Portnoy's mother with the bacon " Bacon can kill you. I ate some once and I nearly died" We used to have the same problem over here with garlic. When I was younger people would express their hatred and loathing of garlic in extreme terms. Neither my parents or anybody we knew cooked with it. My father still believes that the only thing it does is make your breath stink. But most people here now don't cook without it. They love it. So what has changed? Well garlic hasn't has it? People have. Through education, experience,travel, literature. People are constantly broadening their culinary minds and it is an ongoing process. To me all opinion and judgement about cuisine results from the INTERACTION of the food itself and the attitudes, experiences, prejudices, hopes etc. etc. that I bring to it at any given point in my life. The fact that Mrs P hates Thai food does not mean that Thai food is awful, nor that Mrs P. has awful taste. It's that right now the INTERACTION between Mrs P and Thai food isn't one which is working to either's mutual benefit. It may change if she's open to it. This is why it is only possible to deliver ongoing opinions on cuisines and not definitive judgements.

Er Steve I think you doth protesteth too much. If you read my last post I do not quote you as saying Indian food is crap. Nor do I think you think that. If I thought that you DID think that then believe me I would not even be involved in a discussion with you.

Excuse me? It is the so called "jugdgements" that you hand down on cuisines that are the "sweeping generalisations". "African food is crap". "Indian food overspices". "Austrian food stinks". These aren't "judgements" in any sense that I understand the term. They are merely opinionated generalisations based upon a handful of meals in a couple of ethnic restaurants MASQUERADING as "judgements". Some of us understand that it is tricky making such generalisations because we recognize that in cuisine good and bad can co-exist. I'm not going to conclude that African food is crap because someone with virtually non-existent experience tells me it is. I'm going to refrain until I have acquired some understanding of the cuisine. Which may include actually eating a fair amount of the stuff, reading about it, visiting Africa and trying a range for myself, visiting a few different African restaurants etc. Along the way I can offer my opinion but I don't try to kid myself and everyone else that I'm doing any more than that. And what is my opinion? It is that African cusine will be improved when people don't need it to sustain fourteen mile a day walks in the blazing heatand is therefore less dependent on starch and carbohydrate. If you think that historical, social and economic conditions do not have an influence on cuisine development then you end up having absolutely ludicrous discussions about whether the Dutch or the Austrians or the Germans or the Africans or the Greeks or the Jews have all got something congenitally haywire about them! If you seriously think that that is a more fruitful avenue for discussing the topic than looking at culinary conditions in context then you'll just end up hitting a brick wall, as you already have when all you can say after all the bluff and bluster is that you really don't know why some cuisines and tastes appear to differ so markedly from each other.

GREAT NEWS! I'm off to tell the Dutch and the Protestants IMMEDIATELY!!

A friend of mine's 18 year old daughter recently went on a three week holidy trip to France to the Ardeche. She came back and told me that she had a great time but the food "stank". She's not a teenage food loony so I expressed suitable indignation. She went on to say that they had lots of "greasy" omelettes, horrible gritty mussels, that she'd tried frogs legs and snails and found them "gross" that the steaks were like chewing shoe soles and the frites were limp, greasy and cooked in "rancid" oil. She and her friend took no guide books. They just fetched up in places that "took their fancy" My point is that its possible for all cuisines to "suck". You have to be guided. Why else do tourists roam through France clutching copies of Michelin and Gault Millau? OK these girls were on a budget but we all know that with a bit of research and effort they still could have eaten brilliantly. So FG, in the absence of a Michelin guide for Tibet or Senehgal I suggest you first catch that food guru you mentioned. There ARE sources of good food information for these and similar countries. I find it hard to respect those who condemn out of hand with no experience and having made no effort. if you do those and it STILL sucks........well then it probably sucks.

Steve, I was framing it in terms of "help". It was you who mentioned "helping" the people of Africa cuisine wise by being "honest" and telling them their food is crap. Since 99% of sub Saharan Africans are black that summed up as particular image in my head which would be disingenuous to say you didn't understand. No-one is "making excuses" for "poor cuisines". I'm saying it is possible to understand and explain why cuisines have developed as they have. That once you do understand that your understanding of the society can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of those aspects of the cuisine which are delicious and enjoyable. You may also be in a better position to understand ways in which the cuisines could be improved. Just walking around holding your nose saying "this all sucks" doesn't sound to me like the way to approach helping or improving anything.

This is so obvious it surprises me that it needs to be dscussed The idea that something either tastes good or it doesn't is bogus. And we all know it. Take cheese. Tastes good to half the world's population. Tastes like repulsive rotted vomit to the other half. These are culturally, socially and geographically induced preferences. You can tell a Japanese that he's "wrong" for disliking cheese until you're yellow in the face, just as he can rail at you that you've got crap taste for not appreciating some dried out fermented fish paste-it won't change either opinion. What WILL change opinion is a willingness to taste things within a context, a geography a specific milieu, to see cuisine's place iagainst the background of the society from which it springs. It's possible then that the Japanese living in or holidaying in England may be prepared to try cheese and begin to see how it could occupy a place in cuisine. The cheese isn't changing. He is. He is broadening his culinary mind. The other night at St. John I tasted the braised squirrel with its pureed guts on toast. I didn't like it. Others loved it. But I could understand its place on the menu in the case of that particular restaurant and the wider context of "English food" and I was willing to try it. Context is everything with cuisine.

You're all assuming that the premise is correct. It may be but what if it's the customers perception that has changed. We all have a tendency to indulge in a bit of "fings ain't wot they used to be" nostalgia. People have a wonderful experience and when they try to repeat it its never as good as it was the first time. The natural impulse is to blame that on the provider, in this case the restaurant, but it may be if you analyse it objectively that absolutely nothing tangible has changed at all. But you have. You're seeking the thrill of the new again and by definition that particular place can't provide it because you've been there before. The France board on this site is chock full of this. Scan it through and note just how many times our American colleagues tell us that they went to such and such a place and it wasn't anything like as good as it was when they went X number of years ago for the first time. It doesn't appear to enter their minds that this may not automatically have to do with a decline in the restaurant but MAY be about with the impossibility of rexperiencing already experienced things with the same intensity. Hence the pressure on restaurants to constantly re-invent and to update as was touched upon on the sadly ignored "Old Repertoire"thread. A restaurant may not actually be declining to be perceived as declining. It may just be staying the same.

Although the range of produce and cooking techniques is limited in a place like Kenya, such food that is commonly eaten is usually locally or home grown, very fresh, free of processing, artificial flavourings and e -numbers, organically produced, very healthy and very tasty. In terms of everyday quality (as opposed to quantity) your average African who is not subjected to famine or food shortages is eating much fresher and healthier produce than your average American or Brit. All markets are "farmers' markets", virtually all non-imported produce comes directly from local growers so that there is minimal time between the product coming out of the ground and going into the pot. Chickens are all genuinely free range and have a full, rich gamey flavour, much nicer than bog standard British supermarket chickens. Fish and seafood comes out of the sea and into the pot. Herbs spices and seasonings are used straiight off the bush. Meat and dairy are eaten in relatively limited quantities but roasted and barbequeued meats and fresh fish frys (Tilapia, Grouper, Snapper) are a common feature of Sarurday night social get togethers. Salads and legume dishes are ubiquitous and various.Fruits are fabulous. Roadside chargrilled sweetcorn is sprinkled with salt, chilli and lime. True this is not "refined " cuisine. but in the hands of a skilled cook it can be healthy, nutritious, vibrant, colourful, full of flavour and delicious. For someone to dismiss it all as "crap" is as pathetically an ignorant a statement as any that has yet been made around here and I fear for the American culinary mind and soul (not to mention body) should Steve's lfetime battle eventually result in triumph.

Really? Listen to me Steve. Rich fat white man does not help skinny poor black man by wagging his fat bejewelled white finger in his face and telling him that he thinks his food is shit. I didn't know we were talking about how to help Africa but If you really want to know I can deliver a lecture on it which will lead to a world where Africans don't have to eat a ton of carbohydrates every day in order to keep going because, they don't have to walk fourteen miles a day to work or to school or to collect fresh water etc., we can talk about land management and irrigation sysytems, energy distribution and transport infrastucture, political corruption and climate variation etc.etc.......but I won't because it'll make your head swim. But the truth is one's not making any kind of mega-statement by saying that some sub-Saharan African food is delicious. Why should it not be so? Is it so beyond the parameters of your philosophy that some African people know how to cook? And know how to turn the ingredients available to them into delicious meals? Doe it THREATEN you somehow, the idea that you can eat lovely food in Africa if you know where to find it? In your Quixotic crusade against "relativism" (I do admire a man with a little cause-no matter how daft) is it really neccessary for a national cuisine to be either "crap" or "not crap"? So you didn't lke the food in Austria. Does this mean ergo that it is impossible to get good food in Austria? This reminds me of that great scene in Portnoy's Complaint: Portnoy's Mum: "Alex. NEVER EVER eat bacon. It can KILL you." Portnoy: "How's that?" Portnoy's Mum "Because I ate some once AND I NEARLY DIED!"

The reality is that cuisines don't either taste good or taste crap. It's possible to get both great food and crap food and points in between in most countries, rich or poor. True you might have to look harder for it in some countries than others but every where in the world there are people who know how to cook and who know how to make the most out of the ingredients and equipment at their disposable. In East Africa, where I've spent a fair bit of time, African cooks will argue for hours on the right maize meal and right consisitency for Ugali (polenta) to eat with the braised chicken with herbs dish and which herbs to use and in what combination. If you know the right people or strike lucky you can have a terrific dish. Eat it in the wrong place and you'll conclude that all Kenyan cuisine tastes crap. Along the Mombasa coast Arab influences imbue the cuisine with a spicy richness and fish cookery is considered an important skill. What is juvenile is an approach which says "such and such a cuisine is crap" without looking at the parameters and contexts of the cuisine's development and the widely varied skills of those who cook the cuisine. So no. Cuisine doesn't only taste good or taste bad. It can taste good sometimes and bad other times. Sometimes to find the best you've just got to know whose food to go and eat and where to eat it-no different to France, really

Correct. In very poor countries without a developed restaurant culture cuisine is still all about maximising the potential of food to provide energy and nutrients to sustain long and hard working hours. For example the majority of Africans who work in cities cannot afford cars. Public transport is chaotic and unreliable so its not uncommon for a city worker to walk seven miles into the city to work and seven miles back afterwards. That's fourteen miles walking every day in heat before you've even taken the energy spent working into account. Children often have to do similar distances to reach schools. You cannot sustain that kind of energy output on foie gras and chicken with truffles and cream-even if you could afford it. You need fuel food-lots of energy providing starch and carbohydrates,lots of vegetables and fruit and legumes. Meat becomes relatively unimportant for such a lifestyle so sophisticated and elaborate ways of cooking it don't develop and it tends to get saved for those occasions when food can be treated as a pleasure. Just saying "it sucks" compared to, say, French cuisine is juvenile. The cuisine tells us about the society from which it comes and where that society is in terms of economic and social development. In that sense cuisine is always fascinating if one is interested in the world and the cultures outside of our own familiar ambit.

Absolutely. I have no problem with that. Or with David Thompson taking Nahm to haute cuisine level. I've haven't eaten there mainly because it gets very mixed reports, mostly of the very interesting but very variable variety, but I've read interviews with Thompson and his passion for and commitment too the highest expression of Thai cuisine is undoubted. It's just a fact that a white Australian chef will find a visa and work permit easier too come by in the UK than an Asian with comparable skills. And an EC chef does not now need these at all. I was just pointing out that that is just another in a wide range of factors which mitigate against equality of opportunity and which may have a bearing on the way chefs and cuisines develop in different societies.

Another problem for professionally trained and professional chefs coming here from India to work is the whole rigmarole of obtaining visas and work permits. The truth is it is much easier for a David Thompson to obtain these than it is for any native Thai chef. Insitutional racism is ingrained throughout British officialdom and is embedded in its bureaucratic procedures. Having said that, Britain is far more enlightened in this respect than any other European country, but these Indian chefs speak English and they don't want to go anywhere else. Being able to cook, even at a high level, is not seen as an important enough skill to warrant allowing Asian chefs to come into the country to ply their trade. Fay Maschler touches on this point in her review of two new Indian restaurants in today's London Standard, both of which feature renowned chefs (though not in the names of the restaurants,alas) She says the restrictions have eased recently and that this will mean that they should encounter fewer problems in being allowed to a) come here and b) stay here. Maybe home office officials have decided that they like curry enough to recommend an easing of restrictions on Indians whose skill may lie in the culinary dept. Meanwhile Maschler's column features a large photograoh of one of the reviewed chefs-rare for a review of an Indian restaurant. The name above the door isn't far away...........

I can't speak for the other Londoners but I'm just waiting for one person-a professional reviewer perhaps -to say "This is fantastic. Absolutely great. Cutting edge food which is amazing and delicious. Yes its expensiive but in my opinion its worth every penny for a unique and wonderful experience" If I see a review like that I'll book up and go. Has anybody seen one?

That was Chowhound Jon. Because it was at that meal that I first heard of egullet and lo......life changed forever. Since every other post I put up on Chowhound is deleted these days I have to face up to the fact that they don't love me any more and that they only wanted me for my body in the first place. I'd like to remain friends but friendship is a two way street. I think its time for us to say goodbye forever.

Ok this is where I see where we are. We agree that the most expensive and most highly regarded restaurants in the world are those where the individual chef is the main attraction. Many of those are French or French style restaurants. Some-El Bulli in Spain, The Fat Duck in England, are not French as such but use French style techniques. Some- Nobu, Nahm, Vong, Locatelli- are not French at all. No Indian restaurants in the West are at quite this level---yet. Where I disagree with Steve is that he appears to be saying that this is because a spice based cuisine cannot reach this level however talented the cook. I say it is perfectly possible for Indian food to soar to this level, that there are many socio/cultural/racial/historical reasons why it may not yet have done so, and what's more that it WILL do so in over the next decade or so as Western educated Asians broaden their aspirational base. Time to wait and see who's right.

Well there I do agree with you. Cheffing is not yet seen as a worthwhile career by aspirational middle class Asian families in the West. It's a bit like Jewish families. Can you imagine a Jewish boy telling his parents he wants to be a CHEF? "Do me a favour.. Jewish boys EAT. They don't cook...At least not for a living...Not even Jewish GIRLS do that....Do me a favour......buy the restaurant and employ else to cook in it...... do me a bigger favour....buy a CHAIN of restaurants and employ lots of people to cook in them" The problem with that is the restrauteurs who own the restaurants don't neccessarily give any more of a stuff about food than they do about ladies fashions, or any other products. It is business pure and simple. The chefs are lowly paid employees from poor backgrounds and there just not the same opportunities and career paths and cultural and personal incentives to follow the dream of being a top Asian chef. This is something I deeply admire about the French. They have long seen being a chef as a noble and worthy ambition and have created a system which allows those with the talent and commitment to get to the very top and become internationally renowned.Who knows how many potentially marvellous Asian chefs have never progressed because there was no possibility of doing so? But it's getting there. I predict we will see a couple of Indian restaurants reaching the price points of Nobu and Nahm and Vong in the next decade or two and a couple of chefs will have their names above the door or somewhere in the name. And I'll be the one organising the first e gullet event there.

I think you have unwittingly answered the question with this sentence. No Indian restaurant is yet named after the name of the chef. Why is Tamarind called Tamarind and not after the name of the chef as per Gordon Ramsey? Why are top Indian and Chinese chefs not as well known as European chefs? It is doubly ironic that it has taken a Western chef- David Thompson-to elevate a Thai restaurant to the haut cuisine price point in London. Could a Thai chef not have done it? Why not? Do they lack business acumen? I don't think so. I think there are a host of reasons for this. The innate quality of the cuisine is one, but only one. Are we culturally and attitudinally ready to accept a restaurant called "Cyrus Todiwalla" (chef of Cafe Spice Namaste) as readily as we accept one called "Gordon Ramsey"? Actually I think we are closer than we've ever been but anybodywho has paid a visit to CSN on a week night will still be embarrased and appalled at how the wealthy drunken city louts behave towards the Asian serving staff. Here at least Britain still has an empire and can lord it over the darkies. The same people would be cowed and intimidated at Gordon Ramsey's and one can only hand it to the French for occupying that niche in the social stratosphere when it comes to gastronomy I think this is a fascinating subject but is probably so off topic that its one for another thread.

If we're allowed partners/spouses (spice?) Fahro would like to come.

I think this is a very telling point. If we take Michelin as the arbiter of what is and isn't haut cuisine you will notice that there are several criteria that a restaurant needs to meet to get a star which has nothing whatever to do with the quality of what is actually on the plate. One of these is sequential coursing. Another is pre- plated food and another is the Bible like wine list. Although alcohol is openly available in India it is not an alcoholized culture in the same way as European countries or the States. The cuisine rarely contains any alcohol and it certainly does not see alcohol as an indispensable adjunct to it. Indian restaurants in the West do not, as a rule, invest heavily in lengthy wine lists. The'll keep a basic list but that's never going to meet the Michelin standard, which appears to require vast numbers of wines from just about every wine producing country. God knows why. I mean what on earth is wrong with a short limited range which has been hand picked to go especially with the food? Do customers really want to be confronted with a tome which takes half an hour alone to read? But anyway the couple of Indian restaurants in London that do have Michelin stars have had to develop lists like that and then attempt to convince customers that the 1982 Chateau Whatsisface at hundreds of pounds a bottle is just what they should be thinking of drinking with their meal. This has obvious knock on effects in terms of overheads and costs and I'd rather see that kind of money going into chef training and development because if we're ever going to get meals in restaurants like the one I described above then that is going to be what has to happen.

Yes, I don't want to upset our man Fergus as he runs a great restaurant, but to be honest the steak and kidney pie was a disappointing example of the genre.The filling needs to be chunky and thick and viscous. This was indeed very watery and thin. I think with a dish like that you DO need to thicken it with flour or another agent, and the restaurant's apparent unwillingness to do so detracted from the dish IMO

I'm in. Now let me see.....that's one suckling pig for me......and one.......FOR EVERYONE ELSE! That'll work nicely.