Adam Balic

That's what I said.

Look, you can't just pick a few varibles, haphazardly, and hope to get a conclusive answer to a complicated question, especially when the question itslf hasn't been that well defined. Why are oranges, "orange" and strawberries red? Is it because strawberries come from Peru? I mean really, come on.

Not much of a cornerstone, this is the period when a great deal of English cooking books were published specifically for the middle-classes (not so dissimilar to what is occuring now). Where is the evidence that English cooking was "crappy" at during this period?

Who is saying that a 19th C. French peasant ate "well" compared to their English cousins? Where is the data?

Spiced Sweet-corn on the cob, then you can serve it has "fresh grits", to go with you faux fried chicken. Or does corn have too many carbohydrates?

Plotnicki - haven't we done this one to death? It always ends in tears with the rest of us shouting "Pie!" at you.

Jim - one of the things we bought recently in Italy (Cinque terra) was "Cedro-cello", obviously made from Cedro (citrons), but at the green stage. Pale green and slightly spicey - very nice. Have made Blood-orange-cello myself (Blood oranges are the same species of orange as those used to make cointreau, although a different strain), nice but only turned out slighty orange-pink not red. I love kumquats, I bet you liqueur is fantastic!

Jim - one of the things we bought recently in Italy (Cinque terra) was "Cedro-cello", obviously made from Cedro (citrons), but at the green stage. Pale green and slightly spicey - very nice. Have made Blood-orange-cello myself (Blood oranges are the same species of orange as those used to make cointreau, although a different strain), nice but only turned out slighty orange-pink not red. I love kumquats, I bet you liqueur is fantastic!

McVities? I would go for a Bath biscuit and cheddar or maybe a Lime flower tisane and a madeleine.

Oh, sure they had several attempts at monarchy (I know this from all the book learning I have), but the light-hearted, off the cuff comments I made were a reference to my belief that during much of the 19th much of the hot French cooking action was occuring outside of France. Escoffier would have be just some guy, if he hadn't left France. Careme ditto. BTW before French chefs came to England too many chefs spoiled the broth (Hehehe).

Wilfrid - BYO is becoming less common in Australia . Restaurants stand to gain to much by having a licence. Still at least it doesn't have the criminal mark ups that I have seen in the UK. Cabrales - depends on the resturant. Cheap restaurant = cheap wine, Expensive restaurant = rare or special wine.

Nope. I like my version better.

Yes, we call the being "cheap".

Corkage can be steep, make sure wine is worth more then corkage. Different places have different practices. On place in Melbourne would charge every person in the group $5 if even one person brought a bottle of wine (their way of saying that they didn't like BYO). A real advantage of corkage is that you can drop off the wine beforehand and get it decanted for you so that it will be ready for the meal. If you are concerned about the sommeliers, then tip them. Sometimes they can get a little over excited if you bring in something very good/rare. I had the experience of having a sommelier hovering around our table on the chance he would get a taste of the wine we had bought. Very annoying. Sometimes a good idea to bring a special bottle or two, but to also order the restaurants wine. Often when you ring up to ask they will say, "no we don't do BYO, as there is no need as we have a very good selection of wine". In this case, if you wanted to bring something special then you ask them if they have any 1889 Constantine Muscat, or whatever you were thinking of bringing. If they don't then try to force the issue. I like BYO, another great Australian invention.

Wilnicki then is it?

How about this. Catherine de Medici (and others) brings haute Italian cooking to France from Italy, were it had been established for some time. French Upper-crust like, cuisine waxes in France, wanes in Italy. Society realtively stable, wealthy and epicurian at the top end for some time. Many highly trained chefs working for French toffs. French toffs have heads cut off, unemployed Frenchies look for jobs with the nearest bunch of living toffs (=English). Britain rules world, takes fame of French cooking everywhere. Mean while new class of French toffs develop, along with the invention of the "restuarant" re-establishment of French cooking back in France.

Butter tarts. Not bear paw then?

Italian="Not French"? I thought that was English cooking (Plotnicki 2:5, "Sermon on the mount").

Yeh, well a did say about 6 pages ago that the above wasn't the point of the topic.

I think that the original point of confit was to preserve meat, so you would use fat from that animal that you had killed to get the meat. I was thinking more of a modern modification, long, low temperature cooking, completely immersed in olive oil. Have done this with venison (is a very cheap meat in Edinburgh, I was given a large amount of it). If you brined beef, wouldn't you get salt-beef, which is a totally different thing to steak? The idea of the modified confit was to get well done steak, that was still tender and not a compete waste of time.

Could you "confit" a cut of beef and cut it into steaks and finish it in the pan, so that it would be 1). Well done 2) Tender? Have done this with a pork shoulder (very good) and loin (bit dry).

Thank you all for what has been a very interesting discussion (well, for me at least). Actually, the real issue (again for me) was if food or a paricular dish could be considered as something more then simly a commodity. Yes, if you are going to stick something in you mouth, then you have every right to say what that item will be. Also, restaurants are in the business of making money, both of these issue do mean that the customer is "always right". But, those issue aside I was wondering if the food itself could be considered, on some level, could be considered, well like art (yes, yes I know art is also a commodity) or a thing of beauty in its own right. The Vatican has hacked of all the man-bits on their collection of statues and covered the offending area with plaster vine leaves, this has not improved the atractiveness of the statues, so I thought that maybe over-cooking the Bistecca was a bit like that.

What is "too much" alcohol? I have seen (and tasted) Zins with alcohol in the 13% range up to the really BIG Zins with 17% and higher. I guess that "too much" means that it is an unbalance componant (irrespective of the actual alcohol level). Many Zin. tend to taste unbalanced to me, but it could be that L just don't like the "Zinfandel" flavour. It is one of the very few wine types that I would choose not to drink. Yes, they have a wide range of flavours (like most wine), but I just really don't like the wine at all. Except for that lovely Sutter Home stuff .

Even if the diner is ignorant of what are the inherent qualities of the dish? Yes. I don't agree, the diner should eat something else.

Oh, sorry I see. I'm guessing that they have been informed that Bistecca was famously good. The problem being that it has a famously good steak, and maybe they just don't like steak that much. Also the Bistecca they were given was grilled over charcoal, maybe they a use to a cookin method or cut of meat that you can cook till well-done, but is still relatively tender (fillet?).