Adam Balic

Plotnicki - we should go fishing, as you are so good at baiting hooks. Two bites today!

Or/and that it is a parallel cuisine that looses it's 'focus' once you alter it to suit a foreign model.

I certainly hope I didn't imply this, as they say s**t happens and in a restaurant it can happen to anybody. I know that several people swear by NYC but I have yet to have what I would call a great meal there (well maybe the odd breakfast exception), and I'm still not sure whether it's through poor choice or I just "don't get" New York dining, but it doesn't make me an idiot. BC - sorry, poor sentence structure. I was ranting at the wind, not you! As to NYC, well I've never been there, but I look forward to it. Kikujiro - Thank you, I hadn't read the other posts. Will take this information on board.

Italy doesn't hold that much interest for them. It is books from France, Spain and Australia that hold the most interest with British and American books right behind them. Steve - again, isn't this a case that cooking at this level is French rooted, so you get books which create Native cuisines using French models (be it, Australian, Spainish or Thai). From this position, to get High class Italian cuisine you have to put it through the French tradition meat grinder.

Ron - don't go all melodramatic all over the place on me. If you are going to make generalizations about the topic then, jump on Plotnicki for doing the same thing you should be prepared for a little ribbing. Anyway, I though you would enjoy the chance to increase you knowledge.

Amazing how those starving contadini managed to develop a delicious cuisine while those silly French peasants left it all to the toffs. Well I've aways said that the case of French peasant cuisine was overstated. Must have been their lack of fierce pride.

Ron you may want to look up "Scappi", "Latino" and "Catherine de Medici" before you get to carried away with Italian Poverty food.

Actually BC, Italian food in Italy is near the top of the list for all time fav. foods (I think that I have posted on this in the "Italy" section.) I have eaten funghi risotto mad with tinned mushrooms and boiled non-risotto rice in Venice, but also had amazing soft shelled crab on the same trip there. One dish was terrible one was a great and unique experience (you guess). The implication that I just don't get/like Italian food because I didn't like the former is false and insulting. Italy's regions have a great cuisine, but to imply that people who have had a negative experience are fools, in one way or another, is ignorant and a bit pathetic.

Artusi did a fine job of developing a national Italian Cuisine in the same way that Escoffier did for the French. See link. http://www.firenze.net/events/commercial/artusi1.htm

Steve - sorry I shouldn't have used the word "catholic" as it adds confusion (I ment "catholic" as in "Universal", not as in religious group). I don't think there cuisine has been "hampered", it just developed differently. The development of restaurants in France was a French specific phenomena, so to ask the question "Why didn't Italy develop in the same way" misses the point. It should also be remembered that Italy has been "Italy" for less time then Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom. The development of French restuarant cuisine in Paris couldn't have happened in Rome. It may have occured on a local scale in Italy (Florence, Venice), but they lack of a real centre of power over an extended period of time prevented the take off of the phenomena occuring in Italy. Remember, it was these guys who kick started the develpment of French cuisine. It's not that it couldn't have developed, it just didn't. To answer: Why is it that Italy hardly seems relevant to the world of modern gastronomy? Because modern gastronomy is Francocentric.

So speaks the gluten intolerant. Has a very broad generalisation, Italians tend to be less catholic in the food preferences then the French, even in major cities such as Florence. If a large section of the community won't bother to eat food from the next region, how do you develop dining in a way analogous to the way the French did? (See Wilfrid's " The Invention of the Restaurant" for this).

Try harder, you giving the impression of being a parochial, ignorant snob. After reading peoples comments on their experiences in Italy it is the hight of arrogance to assume that they 'don't get it' or they "just don't like Italian food".

I wouldn't try to wrap my mental palate around Simon's thing with apples if I was you, but you know, each to their own I guess.

Picked up two lovely John Dory (about 1.5 lbs each) from the local farmers market for five quid total. The Fishmonger told me he couldn't sell them in Scotland as they are an English fish (?). Grilled with a peppery Tuscan olive oil seasoned with basil and pinenuts. Served with roast potatoe and garlic. Salad greens.

What? . Oh, I see. Very funny, Peter hasn't actually been to Italy . Good joke, but why did it take so many months to tell I ask you?

Steve - I agree. While I have had terrific dining experiences in both of those cities, in general they are not such immediately obvious 'food cities', like some of the other Italian cities. My question would be if Mathew had said that he had a bad meal in London, rather then Rome, would he have got the "You are an idiot" response that he did?

Oh, you just don't understand at all. Sigh. If only you had been touched by the spirit of precise (but unidentified) Italy like Peter. Then you wouldn't have to be told, you would just know.

Mathew - you poor bastard you went to the "Authentic-like-it-is-in-Italy-Restuarants-that are actually-authenticlly-Italian-but-suck" section of the guide book, rather then the "Authentic-like-it-is-in-Italy-Restuarants-that-are-actually-authenticlly-Italian-and-are-lovely-little-finds-off-the-beaten-track-from-the-what-the-usual-hoi poli (especially Americans)-finds".

I'm with the Italians. Bistecca should be banned as un-authentic. It's just a dish that the poor Tuscans had to start cooking because of all of the English tourists. Damn Imperialists. What point in time/social history/geography are they going to choose as being the most authentic Italian? Should be interesting when the facists start dragging all those shit restaurant owners in Venice and shooting them in the street. Obviously, this will be followed by a push from the Red Brigade to defend the right of all True Italians to cook really bad food for tourists.

"Troll caught" - means fished by cute, but ugly, warty, little men from Northern Europe. "Line caught" - means km long lines with flesh tearing hooks, which drag thousands of Albatrosses to the deaths each year.

Both Felton Road and Martinbough are worth the twenty quid. Some of the other stuff, not so much. Pinot is expensive and when it's good it's very very good, but when it's not it's horrid.

Tah Adam. Tasmania was some good wine, although climate means that Cabernets can be a little hit and miss. Pinots are good, but the temptation is to drink NZ pinots for the same price. Good wine makers are Pipers Brook (Riesling and Gwertz. especially), Cloverhill (fizz) Freycinet (Chardonnay) and Moorilla (various).

The last time I cooked (sat. night) was for our house warming party. I made: - 1.5 kilos of nori rolls, loads of different sorts. - Thai fish cakes. - Deep fried wontons stuffed with pork, dried shrimp, black cloud fungus, chinese five spice, Holy basil, coriander, water chestnuts. - grilled beef in mint leaves. Party started at 9pm threw out the last ten people at 4.30 am. Three garbage bags full of wine and beer bottles (one half bottle left over), crushed glass all over the floor, terrible hangover, great fun.

David Thompson's "Thai Food", great book I really like the colour. Norman Davies "Europe a History", at the moment I am bogged down in the first world war. "Asterix" - Italian language versions (trying to improve my vocab.) Elizabeth Knox's "The Vintners Luck". A nice read from New Zealand.

Saffy - That's a lovely wine, very rose petally on nose. You will be pleased to know it sells for about nine pounds here in the UK.