oraklet

jason, "ok. Can anybody tell me what the hell the difference is between the previous 10 inch chef knife and THIS one?" looks like a carving knife? snowangel, the curvature of the blade on the wusth. 10" "mother" look rather flat near the bolster. can't be good for rocking?

stella, as for killing disabled or surplus (twin!) infants: i simply can't remember my sources except that they are several, and except for one: an argentine anthropologist who told me that, among those doing field research in mixed hunter/gatherer/very primitive agrarian (basically wandering) tribes in the amazonas, it has for long been a known fact. and the only explanation for their living "in balance with nature"...he also told me that there has been some reluctance to reveal this, as it might lessen the sympathy for the "noble savages". apart from this, genocide - attacking and killing whole neighbour tribes - has played a role in keeping down the entire population, if canetti is to be trusted (i think he is). fast growing populations paired with a primitive agriculture will result in a more stable society and, most important, a division into landowners, warriors and slaves/peasants. you can guess how the peasants and slaves fare. and archaeology suggests that the average height diminished with agriculture - increasing to the hunter level only as late as the 20th century. some studies tell us that hunters/gatherers only have to "work" 4 hours a day to live well. but then of course, they don't have doctors, hospitals etc. part of this is surely in the grey zone of speculation. but at least it makes sense...

"about his agrarianism critique--farming actually less efficient than hunting?" haven't read his critique, but it isn't a new idea. some biologists and antropologists seem to think that mankind was forced into agriculture because of a population explosion due to religion's(?) forbidding the killing of surplus children. there seems to be some evidence supporting this theory as well as the idea that generally, hunters are better fed than primitive farmers. farming, though, has the advantage of more stability than hunting.

the way of making luxurious, almost fluffy, mashed ptatoes is, according to anne willan: don't overcook. drain and heat a little to be rid of water content surplus(?). mill - not processor (yes, makes it gooey). milk and butter whisked in over low heat (so that starch swells). add salt and pepper. she says 3 dl milk and c. 60 g of butter pr kg potatoes, and i can attest that it's gorgeous. might be even better with cream!

but peterpumpkino, recipes, techniques, reccomendations etc., all the egullet stuf is expertise and/or opinions. i believe you wouldn't contribute (as you do on a much higher level than i do, admittedly) if you didn't find it worthwhile, and this would only be the case if you feel yourself among peers, and this again is judged in terms of liking/expertise. so logically you must appreciate the expertise/opinions on egullet. i mean, a conversation going "i like this" "aw, bullshit, i like that" isn't very meaningful. i'm not saying this to divert the thread. and i'll withdraw now, having only had la bistecca once. it was lovely, by the way. but that's just my opinion.

excuse me for being perhaps impertinent, peterpumpkino, but given "I do not really care what other people like including you Mr. Plotnicki." why then do you come to egullet?

good honey on good white bread is delicious. but even better it is to get it directly from the bee hive, wax and all, chewing it and then spitting out the wax. nice as sweetener with pork or chicken, too, if used with caution...

anne willan's book. it's tells about it all, in a very instructive way. good deal of basic, classic recipes, too. i spent the first two weeks after buying it reading, reading, reading, because though it is not just theory, reading it all makes you sense what are the groundstones. gives you an idea of where you stand, and what you have to learn. it's cheap in denmark, must be DIRT cheap in usa as it's a reader's digest thing (it is, really).

steve, thanx for explanation of "overextraction". of course, you are absolutely right about the objectivity/subjectivity thing. now, i'm pretty average, and i think the average wine drinking person can tell - and enjoy - the difference in quality of wines. the reason the average person won't buy the very good wine is that they are forced to, or chose to, prioritize. we do - at least some of us - know what we're missing. the very best wines ARE generally worth the price (ok - some of them may be over priced due to demand/availability). i'm not sure, though, that the "nice" are - at least i think they often aren't. i can find a nice beaujolais at 10$, but bordeaux or penedes at the same price is often horrid. and you know, before coming to this board, i didn't even know the names of a lot of the apparently great wines discussed here. i halted my self education in wine about 15 years ago, so maybe that's the explanation: some of them may be "newer" wines?

mogsob, what does "overextracted" mean in this context?

i've seen one guy start off in wine to impress; then finding that he had to be able to throw in the right names and phrases, and suddenly being interested for real. by now he's a connaisseur AND enjoys his expensive wines.

i don't know how others feel, but to me it seems that wines naturally fall in four groups: passable: this is just wine as fermented grape juice. say, a southern french wine. 4-7$ nice: some pleasure besides the thing being fermented etc. could be a plain brouilly. 7-20$ good: makes you glad you spent the money on it. leoville-barton? i don't often have this kind of wine...20-120$ wonderful: the doors of perception open up. have tried it, say, five times. never paid for it myself! cheval blanc, ... 120-...$ "the doors of perception open up". really do, you know.

coop, "Victorinox chef and paring knives. The steel was so hard it was workout to get an edge on them. Not too good." i must say, i never had any problems sharpening my few victorinoxes. maybe different lines? chopjwu12, you can shave with your knife, AND keep an edge when chopping? sounds like fierce knives, surely. dimitri, i think most electric sharpeners are way too brutal. eating at your knives with sparks flying.

i, too, would like to see such a chart (though i realize it can't be very precise). how long, for instance, to cook a chicken at 70C?

for what it's worth: global may be good steel - and the curvature of the edge is very nice - but they're lightweight, and slippery. honestly i think a forschner/victorinox with wooden handle is a better buy for a light knife if you get one of the bigger ones, with room for your knuckles. also, i think they are less likely to give you blisters. as for sharpening bolstered knives: i have just finished resharpening my sister's henckel (had been "professionally" sharpened, urgh) and started the proces by filing off the lowest part of the bolster in an angle of 45 degrees so that the whole edge was free to be worked at. this is the way my sabatiers are made, and it reduces the risk of hollowing the edge. it does, of course, look a bit weird on a heavy-bolstered knife! the new henckels seem to be made of rather soft steel. have to be honed quite often. and henckels are not so well balanced (handle too heavy) as sabs, wusthofs or macs. and a question: what is best, water stones or oil stones?

"The local bakery by my mother's apartment, they bake hand made bread every day. But they are not artisanal in the slightest bit. The quality of their baked goods doesn't fit the definition the food industry has adopted which is that the finished product needs to be of a certain quality." ok, now i get it: your problem with the "skilled craftsman" is, of course, that he may be skilled, but doesn't neccesarily use his skills. let's agree, then, that we can use the word "artisanal" to mean "as good as it can be made by a skilled craftsman".

"Just curious: When somebody calls a product "artisanal" what do you assume it implies, if anything? I'm seeing the word used more and more but I'm not sure there's an actual definition shared by those using it. "(fg) "My feeling is that some part of the increased use of this term refelcts the larger societal longing for its revised view of "the old days", or "simpler times". It also seems more convenient that any of the available adjectives for craft or craftsman."(rs) robert is very close to a meaningful answer in trying to tell WHY "artisanal" is being used. i think a nuance can be added by seeing it as associated with the "slow food" wave. it obviously has to do with a feeling that a lot of products don't taste as they should, and knowing that they would be better were they made with the artisan's care and training. because, typically, industrialization is a way of saving time, and saving time is the enemy of taste. so, in a way steve p is right in saying it has to do with taste (though also with nutrition value). but, as i said a few pages back, making a good product limits the extent of industrializing the process. what exactly are the limits will depend on the product. "An artisan is defined as a craftsman, a skilled worker who will use appropriate tools. As a reasonable inference from that definition a skilled craftsman would not prostitute his ability on inferior materials." (britc.) "appropriate tools", right? i don't know what pop tarts are, but i guess one can imagine that they could be made better by an artisan than by kellog's?

too late for an edit, so it will be here: other sources for knife techniques are our very own bouland's site and the pcd "library", both with good instructive drawings.

"When he has the board full, he removes a razorblade from his mouth and puts small slices on the top of each baguette. That's artisanal. You decide if that's better than a clean factory environment." does it taste good? and don't you think most bacterias will be killed by the heat in the oven?

"There really was a difference, even though the ingredients were the same and it was the same recipe, same proportions and the customers could tell." (toby) so, artisanal = made with knowledge, love and care, wishing to uphold the finest standard of the craft. it seems to me to be difficult to see it as a matter solely of things being hand made. rather, it seems that applying knowledge, love and care, you are forced into using certain methods and ingredients to achieve the results wished for.

"Like Tolstoy said about each unhappy family being unhappy in its own way, novice cooks I have known make unique mistakes." i think, really, that i've made all the mistakes mentioned and many more. i still tend to rely too much on smell, not tasting often enough. and i'm slow. and i still sometimes find it difficult to time the preparation of different parts of a meal. not allways my own fault, though: the medium/small organic potatoes last night had to be boiled for 35 minutes (yes, thirtyfive!) to be tender. the poor duck breast was rather cold in the end, as was the sauce.

what, by the way, is an "E&J drinker"?

a few memories of creepy and not only disgusting but sometimes dangerous bars from my youth: in central copenhagen, friends an i used to go to a bar where you could meet all kinds of weird people, like illegal immigrants and starving artists. there would often be fights. then friends and i would sit under a table, continuing our conversation, while chairs and bottles were flying. somehow those involved in the fights allways stopped before the police would arrive. in the suburbs where i lived, there was a bar with HA-regulars. i once went there with a 2 m tall masai'ish sudanese, and when we were leaving, one of the HAs stuck out his leg, trying to make my friend osman trip over it. but instead of tripping, he jumped (again, masai-style) one meter into the air and crashed down on the HA's leg - you could hear it break - and walked on out of the bar in his usual dignified manner. i, too, left - in a hurry. he later told me that in sudan, you have to deal with thugs without help from any kind of police. he even made me come with him back to that place the next saturday, and there was no trouble this time. osman just stood there at the bar, completely ignoring the HAs sitting at a table behind us. i still don't understand why they didn't shoot us down.

searching for advice on pie crust, i found this beautyful thread, with project's absolutely wonderful post. thank you ever so much, project! edited for the usual spelling mistakes.

i always make my pasta with eggs. anybody got a recipe with water? does it make for a different choice in sauce? any precautions to take when rolled out? (like flouring, which i don't have to when using eggs.)