[Grand Cru Smackdown]

Excuse me if this is old news here, but I haven't seen a thread on the argument between Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson over the 2003 Chateau Pavie.

I've written a weblog post about this here, with links to various newspaper and magazine articles, and quotes from several other wine writers as well as those two.

The subject: 2003 Chateau Pavie, from the Premier Grand Cru Classé estate in St.-Emilion, Bordeaux.

Robert Parker's evaluation: "an off-the-chart effort", 95 to 100 points on a 100-point scale.

Jancis Robinson's evalution: "completely unappetizing", "ridiculous", 12 points on a scale of 20.

[Lost in translation]

There's a discussion of my encounters with (Canadian) French terminology for mild vs. strong coffee here, which may amuse some of you.

[The Kopi Luak - Cat Poop coffee topic]

The Kopi Luwak beans are specially fermented in the digestive tracts of civets, but all coffee undergoes bacterial fermentation, partly to get rid of the stuff that surrounds the berries, and partly to transform the berries in (if possible) tasteful ways.

There's a fascinating discussion of this in these articles

http://www.coffee.20m.com/MICROBL1.htm

http://www.coffee.20m.com/MICROBL2.htm

http://www.coffee.20m.com/MICROBL3.htm

(especially the second one).

Some other discussion (by me) can be found here.

[Chinese cheesesteak roll]

If you go back to the original post, you'll see that it's been updated with details about the source of the pictured food:

"The place is called Evergreen and is located at 4726 Spruce Street. The telephone number is: 215-476-0371. Cheese steak rolls are only $1.20."

[Interesting discussion of menu language]

I can't really take sides between the "hamburgers" and the "Buck Run Farm’s Grass Fed Beef burger" when the seemingly superfluous words add meaning, whether or not I care about the meaning they add. Redundancy is another matter. The classics are "creamery butter" and "farm raised just about any cultivated vegetable."

Redundancy is a real and relevant issue, though I guess you can also think of it as a form of repetition, which can be effective both locally ("really, really big") and globally (as with repeated slogans or images). Pile-driver repetition of modifiers, redundant or not, supports an alternative interpretation of the White Dog's menu style, suggested to me by Cindie McLemore: the customers are mostly academics, who spend their time obsessed with complex verbal abstractions, and need to be lured back into contact with the world of the senses. If you can do that with a 15-word name for "grilled cheese sandwich" rather than a baseball bat, so much the better.

But I also want to repeat that I'm not really in the business of "taking sides" here. I didn't mean to say "isn't it silly how these people write their menu items?", but rather "isn't it interesting how these people write their menu items?" Monty Python skits are often funny because they connect a ritualized form with content from a completely different context, or juxtapose ritual forms from incompatible contexts; and this can also be a good way to point out what the forms and their contexts are like. It's funny, too, but I meant the undercurrent of humor as a means rather than an end.

[Interesting discussion of menu language]

So, what do you think? Menu writing as cultural posing? As necessary descriptor of tradition-breaking cuisine? As a substitute for a standardized cultural vocabulary of recognized dishes? Or maybe its nothing more than chefs and restaurateurs who say, "Thomas Keller does it, so we should, too" without recognizing Keller's sense of play -- with language as well as food.

I started out to try to write about authors like Matthew Pearl, whose style I had discussed in this post. I wanted to make the point that sometimes style is content, so that an elaborated style and obscure words can be used to try to impress the reader with the author's knowledge and skill. I thought that the menu analogy might help to get this across.

It was a bit unfair to pick on the White Dog. They do have especially elaborate names of dishes, as I knew from frequent experience with their menu, and so it was a target of opportunity. And sometimes I'm pretty sure that their menu phrases are more of a ritual flourish than a real communication of content. For example "wild caught white albacore tuna" doesn't ring true to me, since as far as I know, farm-raised tuna doesn't exist. Perhaps in this case they mean "line caught" as opposed to netted.

However, I do recognize that some of the elaboration of names on the White Dog's menu is a calculated attempt to persuade their clientele that patronizing particular (often local) farmers matters, for social as well as culinary reasons.

As for playfulness, I guess it's also a form of showing off, but there's a difference between playful display of real linguistic skill, which I admire; ritualized unthinking reproduction of a standard cultural patterns, which I register for what it is; and tone-deaf deployment of fancy words to try to impress me, which doesn't work.

I'd characterize the White Dog's menu as an example of the second case. I'm prepared to believe that years ago, the original White Dog menu author contributed creatively to the development of the patterns, but it's pretty routine by now. The examples that I cited from Matthew Pearl's novel seem to be examples of the third type. The subject matter and the plot are interesting enough to keep me reading, but the ostentatious thesaurus-mongering makes it tough going.

[Interesting discussion of menu language]

Hello, everyone. It's nice to greet balmagowry here, who is an old e-friend, and to have the opportunity to make some new ones. I'm glad that people posting here, who know so much more about food and food language than I do, have found some value or at least amusement in my comments on the subject.