Tonyfinch

Absolutely spot on Wilfred,and before that time parts of rural France such as Gascony and the Auvergne,were as desperately poverty stricken as any area in Western Europe-see the book Garlic and Goose Fat by Jeanne Strang for references to Gascon rural life in the late 19th,early 20th century.

I know the feeling.At my equivalent,New Tayyab,they re-decorated recently and stuck some modern art on the walls.As if this wasn't bad enough the chefs all started wearing toques.TOQUES,for God's sake. Luckily they're sneakily abandoning this abhorrent practice by degrees.

Although I know a little about wine,when I go to a restaurant I generally don't know how much they've marked up any one particular bottle by.Instead I have my own rule of thumb which is about how much I'm prepared to pay in any particular establishment. Generally I will not pay more than £20 for a bottle of wine in a restaurant.If I'm in a "high end" place I might consider going to £35-45,but generally no more. This is less to do with whether I can afford it or not(I've paid a lot more for some bottles I've got at home) and more to do with my own value systems.For me it is just "not right" to spend more on a bottle of wine in a restaurant.Whether the wine is "worth it" or not is not the point. Other people may spend hundreds or thousands-good for them.We all develop our own sense of values and priorities depending on our individual outlooks and we do what we feel is right for us. I was gratified to see that two "high end" restautrants I've been to recently-Embassy and Rhodes in the Square-offering good choice in the £15-20 bracket and very good choice in the £20-£30 range. If a restaurant feels unable to offer a choice at this level it had better be offering something stupendous food wise in order for me to feel that I can bring myself to go there.

That's funny,Michael. I took you to mean that there were many who didn't mind spending a fortune on a bad meal if,in saying why it was bad,it provided them with an opportunity to demonstrate that they had a fortune to spend. Not that I agreed with that,but maybe you're not the misanthrope of the Swiftian school that I was beginning to think you were.

Thanks for that.Any eating suggestions?

Monsieur Fat Guy.If the French could hear you describe their belle France as "a tiny nation in perpetual economic crisis" whose restaurants are "hardly relevant at all" and then understood that you meant it KINDLY in context,they would guillotine your head from your presumably ample torso and serve up both in two different sauces.We would then find out whether YOU were relevant to modern cuisine or not.

Er..dunno.Natchez, Mississippi.Is that the same place? But at least you replied.

But how much influence has French cuisine REALLY had,even in Western Europe? When you travel round Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece discernible French influence is,in my opinion,pretty hard to detect in the vast majority of places,even "high end" places. In fact its probably only in Britain and the US and parts of Canada where you find a substantial number of French restaurants outside of France and where French cuisine can be said to have any substantial influence at all. Admittedly those are pretty big, affluent markets but the burning influence of French cuisine outside of those is a myth.

We seem to have been here before,but the world is not divided up between people who are interested in fine food and Afghanis who have never heard of Ducasse. The opera analogy is a good one.Top opera singers are world stars and earn fortunes.But most people don't go to the opera.They prefer pop music,or blues or jazz or whatever.They are just as interested in music as opera fans,but in different styles and types of music.They may even go to the opera once or twice as a special occasion ,but their true day to day tastes lie elswhere and always have done. This has always been the case with French haute cuisine.Like opera it will always be there and it will survive as long as enough people enjoy it and can afford it.But young chefs ultimately will be influenced by what people want to eat.This has changed over the years as multi cultural influences and holidays abroad have broadened people's culinary horizons.Thus,at the top level,restaurants like Vong,Nobu,Nahm,The Sugar Club,would have been unforseeable in London,as would places like Zaika and Bombay Brasserie and even St.John. Like opera,French haute cuisine does what it does brilliantly,but it has always been a minority taste(if only because of the expense) and its trickle down influence is strictly limited outside of France. Even in France,I still contend that the overwhelming majority will not have eaten in a 2 or 3 star restaurant,and even if they have it will be rarely,and for that special occasion only. In Britain there have always been more Italian restaurants than French ones,and still are. So,no the light has not dimmed on French cooking.Its just that there was never a time when it burned as brightly as a lot of people seem to think it did.

Steve,I REALLY don't need you to tell me who or how to respond to anybody or anything.I'm sorry that you're sorry that I and others responded to LML but there you go.S'funny,but I don't FEEL that I've been sucked into a "prism" right now.Maybe I'll realise in the morning and my whole world will have turned bad......

The rest of the world ALWAYS ate curry and sushi,or whatever the equivalent of curry and sushi was in the past.Even today the majority of French people have never eaten in a two or three star restaurant. 99% of people in the world do not eat,have no interest in ,and have never had an interest in French food,let alone French haute cuisine.These restaurants run by the likes of Ducasse and Gagnaire and the others that Americans especially go on and on about do have a trickle down influence,but only to the point that it affects "fine dining" for those who have an interest,ie the overwhelming minority. Top French cuisine IS opera in the sense that 99% of people never go to the opera AND NEVER DID.There was no golden age when French haute cuisine was at the top a perch from which it is now perceived to have fallen.It was always food for the wealthy and privileged AND STILL IS.This doesn't mean it isn't brilliant food,just that it cannot have lost its relevance because for the overwhelming majority it never had any in the first place.

You seem to believe that there was a past golden age when it wasn't ever thus-a middle aged person's indulgence if ever there was one. When and where was this time? Having ambition and courting publicity are not sins in themselves.Which restaurants do you hold up as ones that square the most with your values?

Its hard to talk about Paris and France as though they were one and the same entities.Culturally,artistically,politically Paris has always been divided from the rest of France to a greater degree than any other European capital and its surrounding country. The black jazz musicians may well have been welcomed in Paris,but they sure as hell wouldn't have been in most of the rest of France. Rural France is deeply agricultural and deeply conservative in all senses of the word.With the post war rise in American (English speaking)culture and post colonial rise in immigration,rural France has curled up into the foetal position and tried to pretend that none of it is happening and that one day it will all go away.It is no accident that the French are the only Europeans who pretend they can't speak English when they can-hence their absence from boards like this-to admit it would give credence to it all. There are lots of good restaurants in rural France,but they are pretty mired in a particular style,as you say.As food and wine tourists we love them and we don't want them to change,but I must admit the first thing I want when I return from France is to see some black people that aren't selling cheap watches and to eat an authentic Lahori style curry,and that's when I'm glad I live here (i.e the UK) and not there.

Just found this thread-mind if I chime in?(Well I'm going to anyway). I don't know the people you're talking about but everything Steve is saying about France is spot on.They are deeply entrenched in ultra conservative traditions and resent heavily everything that is going on around them.They especially despise the English and Americans for establishing English as the world's lingua franca,they despise the cultures of their former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean,despite the beauty of the areas they elect Fascist councils in the Vaucluse and other parts of the South and their obsession with hierarchies and classifications means that other cuisines can only be inferior in the natural scheme of things. I am totally with Steve on the curry powder issue.It is a symbolic issue.It is the snooty dipping of a toe into waters they are too cowardly to swim in.Sprinkling curry powder onto the cream sauce for the scallops is about as far as they go.Why? Because to REALLY begin to explore the glories of Indian,Chinese,Thai etc. cuisine is too threatening for the French.Instead of embracing other culinary cultures and technique they cringe with the fear that their position at the top of their own self-created hierarchy may be threatened.This is a prospect they cannot face. Actually if they allowed themselves to relax,they would realise that there is no threat.Culinary prowess is not a competition,and there are brilliant chefs and brilliant food in France and surely always will be.However they are in danger of fossilising as other countries "move on",(Steve's Club Gascon example is a good one) and soon might find themselves doing nothing but upholding a set of culinary (and vinous traditions) that nobody outside is much interested in anymore.

Michael.The only way not to become middle aged is to die young.And since you celebrated your 43rd recently,as noted on eGullet,it would appear you have every intention of getting there-and good luck to you. The affluent classes in Western cities have been spending large sums of money eating and drinking out(and doubtless moaning about it) since the turn of the industrial revolution.The number who can afford to do it now is far greater than at any time before(whether that makes them "middle class and middle educated" or not,I don't know) and our communications systems mean more get to hear and read and write about it than ever before. So there will be a "zeitgeist" and fashions in food will come and go,and chefs will rise and fall,and people will moan and praise and hey-ho so what? Whether there is a place elsewhere where restaurants "bond with earth and culture" is a matter for debate,but make no mistake-they need they need the likes of us and our money just as much.

You've...er....got some competition in that town,haven't you?

Flying into Atlanta this Summer and driving down to Orange Beach Ala.where we're staying in a condo.for about 10 days before driving up through the Mississippi Delta through Natchez,to Oxford,Claksdale and on to Memphis and across to Nashville,before dropping down to Atllanta and home. Any suggestions,fine dining especially,very gratefully received. Stellabella,where are you in Georgia? Maybe you could cook the Majumdar Bros. dinner for my wife and I instead (well,if you don't ask you don't get right?).

Basildog,do you want to retain anonymity? If not I'LL post the name of your place which you were kind enough to provide privately.No-one could then say you were advertising (not that they would).

Where's your place then?

Steve,two good accounts.So there are people who eat in the Dorchester Grill Room.Still think your little B plusses at the end are redundant though.

Had a very disappointing meal at St.John last night.No squirrel on the menu but there was "rolled pig's spleen",which I managed to pass up.The place was jam-packed with people queuing to get in.Our food came 3 minutes after we'd ordered,it wasn't hot and was presented in a very slapdash manner.A tepid hunk of lamb leg with no sauce offered and two shrivelled carrots was overpriced at £18.20.and £3 seemed a lot to pay for a table spoon sized extra of pease pudding.The house red was the roughest I've had in a restaurant for a long time. Staff were rushed off their feet and looked a bit frazzled.For the first time in numerous visits I left this restaurant feeling ripped off.

I agree.The food has been through a process,even if its only taking it out of the package and arranging it on the plate.That process constitutes the value added by the chef/restaurant which is the whole point of eating out.Therefore we don't resent the mark ups in the same way as wine,which has been bought and stored(not always properly)but otherwise has had no value added to it.

Naaah.That's my mum.

I like cooking at home.It has loads of obvious advantages.Therefore I've got to the point where,apart from my cheap local Pakistani place where I eat twice a week,I only want to eat out at places where they serve food that I would not or could not cook at home. These days I would never go to a restaurant to eat,say,a grilled steak,or roast chicken,or ordinary pasta or any "plain" food. When I go I want complex,worked "foodie" food,stuff that tests the chef and gives me a "food experience" which I wouldn't otherwise have.I see absolutely no point in paying restaurant prices otherwise.

Cabrales,if youre prepared to give me your e-mail address I can send you all the details rather than boring everyone else.