Adam Balic

I assume Bellini's are postable?

Bresse north of Lyon is famed for its poultry The chicken in particular is now widely available, but turkeys, pigeon etc are also available There is a remarkable little store in Ille de Louis ( sp?) in Paris that stocks only Bresse products here is a helpful link http://www.dupainduvin.com/deli/market/bresse.html S Tah, mate. I have actually been to Bresse and seen the chickens (no breasts though), but I didn't know about the other poultry. I wonder if the do mail order Capon?

What is 'Bresse pigeon' is it a particular breed of pigeon or species or is it another name for 'squab'?

ah, this is because you can't tell the difference between 'crap' food and 'non-crap' food. It's easy really. What Steve eats = 'non-crap', entire population of planet minus Steve and people who PM Steve = 'crap'.

'brought to the table with mites and maggots round it so thick, they bring a spoon with them to eat the mites with'. This is Daniel Defoe describing Stilton served at the 'Bell Inn', from where the fame of Stilton spread. Now I have heard of a French cheese that is rind washed with the cloth that has recently been used to clean a ladies, um, genitals. Has anybody heard of this? Almost impossible to do a google search on the topic. Kind of makes sense, vaginal tract is full of lactic acid bacteria, same as in yogurt, so I guess it may give a cheese a tangy flavour.

Oh year I forgot: Tommy, Angel Food Cake contains no Angels either. There are loads of examples like this, confusing though isn't it.

Depends on the horse. Nice fat Shetland pony should be no problem. Horse fat is used to make killer chips/frites/fries, so they must have a decent amount of it, maybe internal though. Although, no need for excess fat in tatare and if the horse is killed correctly and the meat is aged well, there should be no problem.

According to Alan Davidson's Dolphin (mammal) was once regularly on sale in Genoa in the form of a cured meat. The interesting thing about it was that it that the meat was black after curing, even when sliced thin, so it would look interesting plated up.

'No illusions' is a illusion for tourists.

Sure, sure, you doggy-bag a suckling pig and I will arrange the rest. Using V&C white peaches would make the make for very expensive Bellini. Also the peachs are a bit rubbish. White peachs are too delicate to transport well, so they are picked before they have ripened enough.

Yes I can see this as a very valid form of food writing, but people don't go out to eat food, no matter how good it is, alone in sound proof white box. I get the point that you are making about externalities being an important part of the food experience, but should be maintained at a critical distance, but at what point do you stop seperating he externalities from the matrix? Would there be any point in making a critical analysis of drinking 150 ml of 1989 Ch. Y'quem, out of a paper cone, blindfolded, in a room by yourself? Would not the addition of externalities not make the food writing bit much easier/better? If it is true that in a given situation externalities are extremely important to the entire food experience, how can you be really sure that you are getting all this as a food writer, if you lack the experience/education etc? I think you have a very tough job.

Sounds all a bit bollocksy to me. But it gives me an idea: maybe, later in the season, a comparative bellini tasting session should be held using: a fresh yellow peaches pureed by hand b fresh yellow peaches pureed by machine c fresh white peaches pureed by hand d fresh white peaches pureed by machine e frozen white peach puree f any other suggested permutation Anyway, a ripe peach is pretty easy to puree by hand, literally. v g blood peach, which is a strain of white peach h white necterine (which are also peachs) i yellow necterine (again, a peach) Although I think that yellow peachs are inferior for Bellini making.

I think that this is a goal for the strict analysis of taste, but in practice how easy is this to do and how consistant can you be?

I think that the objective v subjective thing can be left for another day. However I would have though that there were plenty of examples were the taste of food was altered (subjectively or not) by symbolism and sociology. To take the Emperor's shrimp thing, OK maybe it doesn't make the shrimp taste better, but in more subtle ways how do you as a food writer escape from your particular 'Fatguy' world view? I read you three point example and I get that, but there must be examples that fall ouside this analysis. OK, the Emperor doesn't change the taste of the shrimp, but what it all that stuff is fundimental to the cuisine? As a food writer, how do you seperate the 'objectively, the taste of this food sucks' Fatguy form Fatguy writing about a particular food culture, which the non-food componants play an important part of a meal? Let's face it nobody eats food in complete isolation to non-taste/smell imput, so shouldn't this be a central issue in food writing?

Have just been reading Waverly Root's and Paula Wolfert's comments on "Cassoulet". It would seem to me that Stellabella's friends recipe is just as much a "Cassoulet" as muct that is called "Cassoulet" in the South of France. I think that chickpeas and chitterling sausage would make a good basis for a cassoulet". What else to add though? Maybe salt pork? Confit of wood pigeon?

Where you get this? I LOVE white peaches. 'Bellini me until you drug me honey'. Jasmine tea & white peach champagne cocktails are also nice.

Adam - To be informed you have to have a worldview of cuisine. The Thai people you are referring to do not have that worldview. They have a great cuisine, which takes advantages of the great techniques that are involved in Thai cooking. But the other perspective of the same cuisine is that it is limited on an overall basis because it is isolationist and only looks within itself. The cuisine doesn't improve. It is stagnant. If you take the British chefs who have been at the forefront of modern British cuisine, people like Gary Rhodes and Paul Heathcote, what inspired them to raise the level of British cuisine is their experience of eating other cuisines outside of Britain. Go eat a roast chicken in France, or a veal stew in Italy and the clarity of flavors hits you in the face. Chefs do that and they go back to their own country and they say, how can I get my Bubble & Squeak or Sausage and Butter Beans to have the same clarity of flavors. And they improve the local cuisine because they adopt techniques they source elsewhere and they impose it on their own cuisines. All of a sudden they take the way the French prepare their beans for cassoulet and use it in Sausage and Beans and poof, the flavor is amazing. This is the phenomenon that drives cuisine. From what I see, it is not happening in Thai cuisine at the moment, unless David Thompson is doing it. Nor is it happening in Indian cuisine outside of Tabla and Zaika and the others in that genre. But interesting cuisine, depends on this to happen over and over again. Now this I can agree with. Although, without knowing the details of the cuisine in question, I think that 'stagnant' is a touch to strong . Still doesn't mean that spices are a negative influence to refining the cuisine though.

Adam - But how can you say I am uninformed. I have the worldwide food press at my fingertips including what diners on this board write. Bourdain just flew all over SE Asia and he highlighted one single restaurant as being among the best of the world. Why do you not think that if what I am describing existed out there, I wouldn't know about it? Informed people don't make generalisations and expect that to be enough. And I'm guessing that would be the Western food press you are refering to. I notice that Bourdain didn't say that Thai people don't "get" cuisine for instance or that all that SE-Asian food could be improved by reducing the 'spicing' level.

As I have have repeatively said, I have no problem with some cuisines being 'better/superior' then others, based on a number of different critieria. What I am saying is that you make to many un-informed generalisations to say that cuisine X could be improved by doing Y to it. It may very well be true, but that is all. I absolutely are not trying to draw that opposite inference to you, I don't see the world in such a black and white manner as that. This isn't about my personal politics etc, it is about me saying to you that when you make a definative statement about a cuisine or spicing etc then you have better have definative proof. That has nothing to with me being jealous of you or political correctness, it is about making a valid point, backed up by more then your personal opinion. For instance when you say that too much spicing is a negative thing, it isn't a valid statement. What does 'too much' mean? What spice? etc etc etc. It isn't about comparing blue jeans and Haute couture, it is comparing European Haute couture to Asian Haute couture for example. In the former case it assumes that one is inferior to the other, the second allows this possiblity, but importantly, requires the two to be examined critically before such opinions are made. And by critical I don't mean examining Eastern Haute couture using European values either. I'm afraid that your views seem to be in the former camp, as your examples demonstrate.

Let's see it has taken ~200 years to develop the restaurant scene to the point where it is. It would seem from the second and third party ratification that I have that it is onle in the last ~50-30 years that the US market has known its arse from its elbow in terms of ability to appreciate fine cuisine. On the otherhand the fact (?) that there is no demostrable industy built around cuisines of India and Thailand, in countries that have had very little significant exposure to these cultures, indicates that these cultures cuisines are in some way 'inferior'? I don't think that this is 'proof' of very much at all. To take a leaf from your book and take one example to build an entire system of belief around it. Thai cooking. Many, many cookbooks, very few in English. One 'market' acclaimed Thai restaurant in the world (ran by an Australian). English language chef cookbook published by said Australian Thai cuisine cook, has many many recipes culled from Thai language cookbooks. Therefore, Thai cuisine in Australia Thai chef's restaurant is dependent on ability of Australian chef to translate Thai into English, therefore, the thing that is holding back the development of more market acclaimed Thai restuarants is not the use of to much spice, but the lack in ability of most chefs to read the Thai language. I believe that this is called sophism and therefore, has much similarity to your arguements. In addition there are many models of food preparation, some of them even on a very sophistcated levels that are neither 'restaurant' or 'home cooking'. You know, you mention that creativity has no boundaries, but much of you points involve pigeon holing and placing restrictions on creativity, by building a hierachy of bestness. It may be possible to to this, but not if you are not suficiently informed on the system that you are placing worth-judgements on.

Well stop making sweeping gernalisations then. I'm not saying that 'we' as a collective group can't draw some conclusions, I am saying that you cannot make absolute claims based on the limited amount of knowledge (as broad and insightful as that is) that you have. I know that in the correct context you believe this to be true, as on numerous occasions you have said things along the line of 'you can't have an opinion of high end restaurants when you don't go to them' and 'are you one of those people that claims a $10 bottle of wine is just as good a $100, when they have never tasted one?" etc etc. Fine, but if so, I can see no case where my lack of knowledge of high end food culture, is in some way different to your lack of knowledge on the ethnic cuisines etc that you offer such ready and authorative opinions on. This is becoming something of a mantra. To get back to the original topic and your example. Even I know that in some of the many various high end Indian (+others) cooking there is a very important emphasis placed on the rice, in terms of flavour, texture, colour and aroma. Books and people I have spoken to mention that the origin, variety (or sub-variety) and age of the rice is extremely important. If the chef at Zaika presented the rice as a risotto then he was, as you say, responding to the market by presenting an Indian dish in a more conventional manner, however, twenty years ago this same 'marketplace', would not have known the difference between 'Arborio' and 'Uncle Ben's'. The marketplace became educated though and there is no reason to see why it can't be in the case of [example] Indian food. To be frank, much of this food described sounds like refined versions of food that have originally been dumbed down and in this instance I can seen much in you point about food being improved by reducing the spice levels to bring in other flavours. But, there is so much variation in the various cuisine types that get lumped together under the term of 'Indian food', that I see your statements about Indian food being 'improved by' and reflecting 'what the markets want' as generalisations based on very little knowledge of the subject matter.

Adam - But folk music is an inferior form of composition to symphonic composition. And I'm not using the word composition in a casual manner. There are rules of composition and that governs what is considered better. Same with cuisine. When the chef at Zaika is trying to make a higher Indian cuisine, he says for example, I am going to take a basmati rice pilaf, a certain style curry sauce with vegetables in it, and sauteed shrimps, and instead of serving them on three different plates. I am going to prepare them in a way that combines them like a risotto or a paella. His aesthetic statement is that he is improving the cuisine and moving it beyond simple ethnic cuisine, or folk music as in my Stravinsky example. Now what he created might not be any good. But that really has nothing to do with the fact that it is judged by a standard we call cuisine, that has rules just like formal composition has rules. And when I go to his restaurant (and I mean me in this instance,) I weigh how good the cuisine is. And not only compared to other Indian cuisine, all cuisine. Steve - you are not totally informed on all cuisines that stalk the earth. 'Indian' food may be an example of this. So when you do this: you are not actually doing anything of the sort. You are weighing what you are eating a restricted assortment of Indian food against what you actually know about food in total. You know very little about Indain food, so how on earth can you judge it? That thing that the chef at Zaika is doing, it is a 'traditional' way of cooking a pilaf, he hasn't moved anything beyond the 'simple ethnic cuisine' (that I can tell from your description). Look up a book on Persian cooking.

But popularity, and price point, is how every level of the market is gauged. It isn't like this criteria only works for haute cuisine. It works for cheap places too. The best places are typically the most crowded, and/or can charge more money for what they serve. Steve - I actually said 'dumbing up', which is a rather different then to 'dumbing down'. And as a further correction, actually I have eaten in some of 'these places' and have enjoyed them a great deal. But enough of the wonderful me, Steve, as I have said before I repect your opinions and you have a very good point about something being improved by taking a 'rustic' version of X and tweaking it to make a refined version. But, you examples of Stravinsky etc really don't work at all. It assumes that X cuisine is inferior to cuisine Y and for cuisine X to really 'get there', it has to be shoe-horned into the cusine Y model. Fine, I'm sure that works in many cases, however, it assumes that all cuisines are inferior in comparison to Y and that is quite possibly that saddest thing that I can possibly imagine for the future development of food, served in one of 'those places' or not. This is especially sad for me because as far as I can tell you are one of the most food experienced people I have spoken to and yet, you basically are saying that if it isn't Y cuisine then it has little to offer. Why on earth would anybody be interested in that sort of bleak, comformist creativity? Eating a meal can be one of the most rich and rewarding expriences anybody that is humanly possible, experienced on many levels. The implication that you repeatively make that really 'getting' food invoves eating a certain type of food in a certain type of establishment is, in my opinion, very wrong and not a little bit insulting. Waverly Root may have been a snobbish old fellow, but when he chose to write about the food in France it was about much more then simply restaurant food. I would hope that I could aspire to be like that. Why do people eat exquisitely prepared meals? Mostly for reasons of 'lifestyle', not the food. Infact, I challenge you to find any one of these people that able to sustain my level of interest in food on my level of 'lifestyle' choice.

But popularity, and price point, is how every level of the market is gauged. It isn't like this criteria only works for haute cuisine. It works for cheap places too. The best places are typically the most crowded, and/or can charge more money for what they serve. Steve - I actually said 'dumbing up', which is a rather different then altogether to 'dumbing down'. And as a further correction, actually I have eaten in some of 'these places' and have enjoyed them a great deal. But enough of the wonderful me, Steve, as I have said before I repect your opinion and I

I wish longevity was a substitute for good cuisine, let alone creative cuisine. Go to Egypt if you want to see an ancient society that has crappy food at every level. Or should we make a list of all of the ancient or established societies with bad food, or food that hasn't evolved in hundreds of years? How about Germany? Or Holland or Russia? How about Bolivia? You can't even eat the fruits and vegetables there as the ground is contaminated. Not only do they have to be washed, they have to be washed with chemicals. Actually Steve I did say "gastronomic history", you should read about it sometime. I believe that the process that you talk about ["...the end product was slanted too heavily towards traditional cuisine, and not firmly entrenched in the concept of the restaurant which is fusion."] is a process of 'dumbing-up'. It is still possible to be amazingly ignorant even if you are eating in a refined restaurant. n.b. Steve. I am not saying that you are ignorant, I am just indicating my view that many people that spend a great deal of time and money on food etc, have very little knowledge about what they are spending their time and money on, therefore, the 'marketplace' etc isn't a measure of anything other then popularity.