oraklet

et la detaille qui tue? honestly, i drive everybody else who may happen to be in my kitchen half crazy with my preparations. i know that i'm so messy that if i don't met en place(?), things will end up veeeeery bad.

this weekend the in-laws held a great big get together. at breakfasts it struck me that they don't eat cereals. oh, how i missed it. most cereals are way too sweet, though. i like kellogs corn flakes with milk, or the danish equivalent of quaker oats with raisins and milk. alas, this danisk variant has become much poorer over the last three years (hard, tough), so i started importing the swedish ones. and now they're down the drain, too. i think they don't use scandinavian oats anymore. the kids, of course, can't have too sweet cereals, and it's a constant fight to keep it relatively healthy. and one of my friends has muesli with ice cream and cocoa milk for sunday breakfast. well, at least sometimes.

wilf am i right in feeling that you contradict yourself (somehow): "The monarchy was restored after Napoleon's reign, and France was ruled by a king or emperor right through to about 1870. If you open any page of Proust, you will meet a galaxy of wealthy nobles," versus "the state of France after the Napoleonic wars sent very large numbers of French chefs scurrying abroad, and particularly to England, to practice their craft." anyway, you guys still seem to overlook the fact that fine french dining is based on the same techniques as "grande mere". and though the revolution was fought through by soldiers, peasants and workers, it was spurred by the bourgeoisie. as all revolutions i know of. the poor may wish to start revolutions, but they don't have the networks or the initiative to do it. english industrialization started off with the small farmers seing their product, wool among other, suddenly becoming practically worthless with the opening of new markets and production methods. this happened, if i remember right, in the mid-18th century. hundreds of thousands were chased from their land as they were not able to pay their debt. most of them found work under the conditions we know from dickens and dore. many died from starvation. it is true that there were beggars and poor people in france, too, but the migration was at a quite different scale, keeping france an agriculture dominated country. the other important difference between england and france lies in the role of the state. a centralized state will create a class of relatively comfortable bourgeois and petit bourgeois. now, i think it must be fairly obvious that this combination of 1) a stable class of bourgeois spread all over the country and 2) easy access to good rural produce, is what lead to cuisine grande mere (no, i don't mean to say it was inevitable, wilf). and though i don't agree with plotnicki on the ideological conclusions, i feel he's right in seing it as the basis. the nobles of proust, and for that stendhal, are a bit ridiculous, aren't they? living in their hollow worlds of still lessening power, trying to keep up appearences.

malawry, it is a pleasure to follow your reports here on egullet. i have a question about pasta-dough. you write that "Unfortunately, this didn’t leave me quite enough time for all the resting and drying required for the pasta if I wanted to avoid gunking up the pasta machine with wet dough." this gives me the impression that the dough is rather more wet than i would prefer to make it. why the wetness?

wilf i'm sorry, i can't at present quote from any source but my memory on the prosperity of england v. france at the said time. there are some circumstances that will speak for it, though. the english rural population were incredibly impoverished during the industrialization, and so was the ever growing working class. it should be remembered, that to the farmers who had been chased away from their land, the only alternative to starvation and the road, was the terrible conditions in the big cities. now, in france, this social upheaval did not take place to the same extend. in the wake of the revolution, the farmers actually owned their land, and could make a living from it. and the tradition of a strong and widespread state carried through the revolution, so that a good deal of the middle class were employed by the state, departement or commune. their wages, of course, were for the most part not grand, but they were stable. these, i believe, are facts. and i believe they're relevant. as for the restaurant, i must have misinterpreted some of the earlier posts: i thought the chefs saw themselves out of employers because of the guillotine, thus having to cook for the common man. anyway, i'll see if i can find some sources, but my time is quite limited by work, wife and four kids.

i did the stock-in-drain thing, too. may even do it again, if i know myself right.

"then goes onto the astonishing changes wrought by the Norman invasion when they brought with them Mediterranean ingredients" now, wouldn't these ingredients have been introduced by the monks and their monasterial gardens? that, at least, seems to be the case in denmark.

jaybee, those dehilleron knives, how do they look - i mean, are they in the classic french style, or lighter/heavier?

an extreme simplification, and also an effort to unify parts of plotnickiism and wilfridism: in this debate, there is some confusion about the wealth of france v. great britain in the second part of the 19th century. at one time, england is said to be the richest nation in the world, at other times the french are seen as the wealthiest. this seems contradictory, but isn't. it's a question of distribution of wealth. in france about 3/4 of the population were economically comfortable - whereas england had it's huge rural and urban working class living under more or less horrible conditions. also, as lizzie points out, we're talking about many levels of cuisine. in england, with its extremely wealthy upper ten, haute or grande cuisine could flourish, but cuisine grande mere was dominant in france, be it at home or in restaurants. the reason that chefdom was (and is) still dominated by the french, may well be that fine and grande cuisine grows out of the techniques of a sound and reasonably stable cuisine grande mere (and not vice-versa). this is, of course, more of a summing up than the result of historical, sociological or philosophical studies. p.s.: the development of the restaurant being a result of the revolution, as well as the importance of the encyclopedic obsession of the french, are some of the other strains of this debate that have been most enlightning. thank you, everybody!

shooting from the hip: 1) in the second part of the 19.cent., france was not industrialized at the same speed as great britain. thus they had less migration from the countryside and smaller towns to the big cities. 2) a much larger proportion of the french population worked in the administration of state/province/commune. these two factors may have led to a more stable and well-off middle and lower-middle class (including farmers), who had the tradition, time and money to eat well.

in the 19th centuriy, how would the eating habits (and the techniques behind them) of a french or an english bourgeois be part of his feeling french or english? it has of course been partly answered, but it could be of further interest, as the bourgeoisie were probably those who carried on the basic techniques (cuisine grande mere as i've been lucky to be exposed to it a few times - dear memories*) of french cuisine - in france. my bid is that to be a true frenchman, you were/are supposed to appreciate good cooking and wines. and nine out of ten french bourgeois of my acquaintance have lived up to this - stereotype. as for the rest of the world, good cooking is mostly a part of celebrating one thing or other. and jaybee, i hope you will pardon me for having unknowingly repeated your wise words from some other thread. *oh how i wish i had the time to cook that way.

indeed food is associated with power - and guilt. that must be the reason for cretan (and later) bullfights or the assyrian kings' lion hunts. by standing face-to-face with the prey, it is given a fair chance of winning on behalf of all the other prey that is just slaughtered in unfair ways, and at the same time the human (if he wins...), representing us all, can say: "look, we are not such cowards after all, and we win any way." though that is not the way we consciously think of it today, it is still with us in many forms (just think of the efforts to slaughter pigs, cows, chicken etc. in a "humane" way). and most of us, i think, have been through a phase of life (mostly in our tender youth) being aware of the horror of killing animals.

jaybee, "reynaud" - that's very close to the french word for fox, if i remember rightly? well, i did sense a joke, just couldn't see it. woods and trees. but at least your explanation had me smiling

to whip the cream or not? ice cream/glace/gelato made with whipped cream does not melt in the same way on the tongue as it does when un-whipped. all the little bubbles of air prevent the taste from coming through as intensely as when the ice cream melts "on the spot". and maybe this is the basis of the confusion gelato v. ice cream. when the cones-guy states that ice cream contains a lot of cream, this may be because traditionally, american ice cream is made with whipped cream, whereas the low content of cream in gelato may reflect that traditionally the italians will create the structure of their gelato by gently heating the egg+cream/milk mixt. a procedure i think you can find in e. david's italian cooking? but what do i know of american ice cream apart from haagen dasz...

from catarina to louis seize, the french court was the most brilliant of europe. during that time, france was politically centralized, and it became the richest and most powerful state, thus leading a lot of other kings and princes (being at war with the french king or not is irrellevant, really, when it comes to raffinement) to copy its style in politics, food, furniture, dress, architecture, art etc. the danish kings, for instance, imported french court architects as well as huguenot craftsmen. even after the revolution, there was such a deep-rooted tradition of raffinement, and such general wealth, that france continued to be on the lead. only with the upcome of mass culture and the political dominance of usa, the scene shifted to some degree. for all the interesting details, isn't it this simple?

jaybee, this really demonstrates my lack of english/lack of knowledge of american(?) culture: "discovering Reynaud's incursion to your booze supply." i'm lost.

macrosan, "is this really true, that women have more refined senses of taste and smell than men ? Or is it an old wives' tale ?" jaymes seems to agree, and at least she did some research, whereas i simply relied on what i think i've read somewhere...plus experience. but this is not very scientific, i must admit!

"veritable breswick" sometimes appear on ebay auctions, and inevitably fetch sky high bids. ebay is not the place for a good buy in carbon steel, as there are too many crazy collectors lurking around. wouldn't a diamond or ceramic "steel" sharpen rather than hone?

few years ago wife and i left half a bottle of laphroaig at in-law's cabin for them to drink (and be educated by). response: "it tasted of fox' piss" "???" explanation: they had had it as scotch-and-soda. and it must be admitted that getting to like it that way would be hard work. like most good whiskies it benefits from adding just 1/4 amount of water. older whisky (17-21 years) i drink more as if it were a good brandy, cupping the glass, thus slowly warming it, smell it, sip it, cup it, smell it, sip, cup, smell mmmmmmmm. one glass may take an hour or more.

basically, women are better at tasting and smelling and remembering tastes and smells than are men. (also, women taste and smell better...) that doesn't necessarily make them better cooks or eaters. my mother is a better cook than i am, but my wife certainly isn't, and her sense of smell is almost hysterical. and my father has a fine nose for wine, even though his smelling capability is rather low. and on another matter, music: i'm born with a slight hearing handicap. that doesn't keep me from singing in key or from distinguishing nuances in classical music that few others would notice. i don't get the finer details in jazz, though. all this tells me that "one's palate" is a matter of temperament and education more than of physical capability. and i don't think that a sense of absolute pitch is an unquestionable advantage or blessing when it comes to appreciating or performing music. just like you could say of rubens that he was too great a draftsman to be a "really interesting painter". (though a great artist, of course) smoking, from what i've read, changes rather than diminishes the sense of taste (and smell). this agrees with my own experience: i started smoking at the age of 26, and my sense of nuance is finer than it was then. but the few times i've stopped smoking, i found the taste of some food ingredients slightly different. as for robert parker, he has been discussed in detail on another thread. though my experience is quite limited, i tend to agree with those who find that his palate is perhaps a bit too "modern". at the time when i could afford a few more bottles of fine wine than now, i found hugh johnson more trustworthy. but then, that was in my youth.

oh dear me, i now notice that i wrote that sorbet does not contain sugar. i meant to say EGGS.

i have often, succesfully (meaning that everybody else seems to love it), made what is called in franco-danish "parfait-is": whipped cream with vanilla plus whipped eggyolks with sugar, both gently mixed together, and freezed. to prevent excessive ice-splinters from developing, it is stirred with a wooden spoon after half an hour. only problem is: THIS IS NOT REAL ICE CREAM! TOO AIRY! DOESN'T MELT THE RIGHT WAY! so i've tried to avoid whipping the cream, and instead i've heated the mix carefully (i've been told this is the italian way of doing it). but for all my care, it either falls apart due to too high temp., or it ends up being too hard when freezed. please tell me, someone, how to solve this problem? oh, and i know: i definitely will have to get hold of an ice cream-machine. as for the distinctions, how about this: 1)sorbet does not contain milk, cream or sugar, whereas glace may contain some or all. 2)glace is french, ice cream english, and gelato italian for the same thing. gelato...does that not literally mean "glacé" or "iced"? and by the way, don't they have "sorbetto", too?

getting back to budweiser: funny to see how the budweiser story has changed with time. the version i heard was about a good guy and his bad brother... now, budvar is an excellent beer. as are most czech beers, like staropramen, urquell, and the king of them all, REGENT! find it, drink it, enjoy it, and spread the gospel: regent rules.

and now it is oraklet who is in danger of being eaten by the wilf. just one last defense: investigating in kommas is, i believe, supposed to reveal something that has to to with the meaning of a text. it's a question of "what does it mean" as opposed to "how does it work". i know this is over-simplyfying it, but then, i'm not a trained philosopher! it's a good thing we've got you lurking around the flock, wilf.

well, f.g., i think we actually do agree on most of this. what i mean is, you can study greenhouse effects without being personally involved (and that is what i meant by using the word "political"). this is hardly possible when it comes to most of the humanities. and i must admit that slowly, slowly i'm being convinced of the greenhouse effect - in spite of the politics involved.