Ptipois

Noix de Saint-Jacques vs Coquilles Saint-Jacques As winemike wrote, noix de saint-jacques = no coral, coquilles Saint-Jacques = the whole beast, and then it has to be mentioned if it's still in the shell, white meat only or with coral. Note the absence of capitals in noix de saint-jacques (saint-jacques becomes a generic name) and their presence in coquilles Saint-Jacques. Langoustine, langouste and homard Langoustine is generally translated as Dublin Bay Prawn or simply prawn. However, in some cases, prawns can be large shrimp. The old-fashioned "scampi" appears sometimes, more justifiably in a Mediterranean context. Langouste is rock lobster, homard is just lobster. Volaille vs Poulet Fowl, poultry vs chicken. However, when the poultry is of the noble kind (volaille de Bresse), the term is used for chicken. Lobster (Brittany vs Blue vs Scottish) Breton lobster = in France it is also called homard bleu but it's true that all lobsters start more or less blue. I've just noticed a darker blue shade in live Breton lobsters. Nothing to add to winemike's info. Bar vs Seabass Bar is sea bass, or at least the East Atlantic version of sea bass. Note that, in Mediterranean waters, it is called loup. Chicken (Bresse vs Blue Foot) Bresse chicken is a bluefoot, and bluefoot in France is gauloise blanche, so Bresse chicken is a gauloise blanche. Other gauloises blanches are bred in France but they are not necessarily Bresse chicken. If DeGusto passes by, he may correct or confirm that. Beef (Kobe vs wagyu). What kind of beef/steak usually served in French gastronomy? There is no wagyu beef in France except frozen in Parisian Japanese stores (btw Kobe beef is a variety of wagyu, wagyu being Japanese-style marbled beef). There are many types of cattle bred for meat. French meat falls into two categories. Some marbled meat that can be aged — normande, limousine, salers, bazadaise, simmenthal, etc. — and the charolais type, generally preferred (wrongly IMO though there are fine exceptions), unmarbled, doesn't age. I'm not crazy about charolais in general. In the South you may be able to find bull's meat (taureau) which, though unmarbled, is extremely tender and tasty.

Well, between the Roman conquest of Gaul and now, there's been a few messed-up periods for sure, but also quite a good stretch of well-spiced and subtly perfumed Middle Ages, an interesting Renaissance, a no less interesting Age of Enlightenment, a decided turn after the French Revolution, and so on. All periods with their own very special kinds of hedonism (and many foreign influences). And the Gauls did teach the Romans a few things, too. They were gourmets and stubborn. They shucked oysters, hung up the sausages to dry, grew green lentils in the Massif central, invented the wine barrel and made beer and honey wine long before Julius Caesar came over. Even if the Romans hadn't been there, I'm sure they'd have found a way to get the message to us through the ages.

We are still talking about haute cuisine, not regional idigenous cooking.I think that even if we decide that "cuisine" is haute cuisine and "cooking" is what you call "regional indigenous cooking", and use that distinction to clarify the debate, that won't make it much clearer, because the confusion is built into the terms, lurks and pops out at the most inconvenient moments. IMO this thread revolves around the fact that French haute cuisine has imposed itself to the rest of the world -rightly or wrongly- as the highest form of cuisine AND cooking too; that this situation based on a highly professional, codified and socially limited style has come to absorb the whole concept of French cooking, regardless of the complex, multifaceted, layered phenomenon that can be described as such. That, parallel to that, French cooking is said to beat all others regarding its "excellence from top to bottom", which I am questioning, not to bash that excellence but to insist on its relativity (first of all, France certainly has no monopoly on that, and this excellence can be totally lacking in many circumstances that distinguished diners and non-French gourmets happily have no access to). So on one hand, we have those who claim that French haute cuisine is the best cuisine in the world, which I disagree with, and on the other hand, we have those (who can be the same) who claim that French indigenous cooking is also the best in the world, bringing up the "excellence from bottom to top" factor. I disagree with that too. Again, not to say French cooking AND cuisine are inferior, but that there is no reason other than historical, political and financial, plus the power of habit, to declare them absolutely superior to all others. What do you do when you visit France and seek for good food, with enough means to afford it and a bit of knowledge and contacts to make it easier? You're putting yourself in the right condition to avoid bad food. Well, I can find great food too in the US in the same conditions. That is exactly why I think generalizations like "this country's cooking is better than this other country's cooking" are doomed from the start. I thought I had made myself clear on that one. I lived there, got married there, cooked there, worked in a restaurant there, and though I was too busy to travel as much as I would have liked, I got to see a few places (Midwest, California, Northern New England) and found nothing there to invalidate what I've written previously. Moreover, I learnt to really care about food in the US. Which proved extremely invaluable for me when I came back to France and, some years after, began working as a food writer. I can honestly say that my American experience was an advantage, for many reasons (and I have to add that it's not complete, and gets updated regularly). Without it, I probably would still not be getting the whole picture and I might well not have a clear idea of French food's true worth and importance compared to the rest of the world, but I damn right would believe I do, like so many French people and, unfortunately, many non-French people as well.

I feel a bit lazy at the idea of replying to this post, though I appreciate its enthusiasm which would be so emotionally gratifying for the French in me if it weren't so misinformed. Suffice it to say that I'm getting tired of seeing "high-end cuisine" amalgamated with the term "cuisine". So much confusion springs from that. (Kiwichef, maybe you should read the feedback.) However: Oooooooooo I wouldn't be so sure of that! You certainly haven't been in many professional French kitchens, have you. (Edit: DocG, great post!)

Agadir is indeed the best place to get argan oil. Remember that oil from toasted seeds is for cooking and oil from untoasted seeds is for cosmetic use (face, body, massage and wonderful sun protection, and healing after a slight sunstroke). Don't miss amlou, which is a paste of argan oil, honey and ground almonds. It is eaten as a dip, with bread. Power food (served to mountain travellers when they reach a village) and you won't be able to touch Nutella after that. A complete hammam + Berber massage at the Argane Spa (it is located in a hotel) is a wonderful experience if you have three hours to spare. Make sure you can go to bed straight after that. I've found food in Agadir to be so-so, but they do have good steaks and côtes de bœuf at the Casino restaurant. My recommendation would be to go along the coast to the North: Agadir harbor, and even farther to Aourir and Taghazout, for beachside restaurants serving good grilled fish and simple Soussian fare like tajines and grilled meats. Aourir has banana groves and the bananas are small and delicious. My favorite pastry shop is Tafarnout, I no longer have the address but everybody knows it. Some pictures of Agadir and the Souss region in several posts of my blog: 1 2 3 4 5 Agadir may not be the best-looking city in Morocco (far from that) but it has a nice feeling and good lifestyle. It is also the best place to explore the fascinating Souss region. And boy, those beaches...

I'll go check with the chef when I have a chance. I may come up with the "secret".

This "months in r" thing is quite outdated anyway, originating in the days when transportation to inland locations was slow (oxcart or at best horsecart) and naturally oysters kept better during cool and cold months. Actually oysters are fattier and tastier in June and July, which is the time when people of Marennes and Oléron like them (and shuck them while making fun of the Parisians who, because of that "r" myth, eat oysters at their worst time). This is not the only factual error and misrepresentation that can be found in this article — Cancale being described as "a charming fishing village" and "oyster capital of France" (give me a break) was a lot of fun —, but the whole piece is so solidly built of gross clichés and terrible writing that I won't go into details. Once again, it's the kind of journalistic writing about France that brings flush to a French forehead... But I'm used to that now.

Yes, the same excellence from bottom to top* that I found in the US using the same discriminating skills as you showed in France. My point exactly. What you are explaining actually is that, exposed to the phenomenon of bad eating in France, you were able to avoid it successfully. Therefore you have no true knowledge of its nature and of its extent, because you had a choice. What I've been trying to say here is that, unless you (not you individually, but most eG members as a crowd of discriminating food lovers) weren't raised in France from babyhood, had to go to school there, partake of food in many different households of various social levels, worked in offices as an employee and not as a "cadre", experienced supermarket food, "baking terminal" bread and many types of collective catering, plus the growing number of French people who can't cook an egg, you will never have as clear and defined an idea of what bad food in France can be as I have, and will not have an opportunity, in that respect, to be fairer to other countries, including the "Anglo-Saxon" ones. My point is also that I have somewhat found variations from one country to another regarding this "excellence from bottom to top", but I never found them to be of much amplitude, once the discrimination I mentioned was applied. And the more I know foods all over the world, the less I believe in those variations. I must also say that France, in its present state, though it rates high, is not rating the highest. In this "excellence from bottom to top", I do not only include the quality of food, cuisine and products. I also include what I call the "foodie" factor — the extent to which ordinary people will go to find and get the best, and avoid bad food. There again France does well, but not best of all. (* edit: "excellence from bottom to top" were Docsconz's words, not mine.)

What color was that rice? Yellow? Did the smell and taste remind you of anything particular? It might have been Spigol, a commercial mix of saffron, paprika and a few other spices used for rice dishes and paella. Which Bar à Huîtres did you go to? The one in Montparnasse or the one in St-Germain?

It would be unwise to take the French globalizing approach of "French cuisine" at face value. Now or then, French defenders using that term before the rest of the world quite possibly did/do not know what they are talking about. If they did, they would use a plural (French cuisines), or make it quite clear that they were/are only referring to a certain type of French cuisine (the ex-aristocratic/haute/international one) — and they never do. I certainly feel that way in the presence of anyone who serves me the "French cooking/cuisine is the best in the world" mythology. If there is any such thing as French cuisine, it can only be understood as an astounding millefeuille of many layers. As for when the term of "French cuisine" began to be used in a globalizing manner, I have no precise idea, but it is not likely to be earlier than the French Revolution and is certainly a 19th-century thing. One word of caution about my use of French cooking/cuisine indistinctly: in French, there is only one word and it is "cuisine". The distinction doesn't exist in French so I'm not adopting it here.

Quite right, and it can indeed be linked to that interest in folk things and traditions that ran through French literature, journalism, music, etc., from the late 19th century to, roughly, the 1960's. The trends were complex and sometimes intermingled: on the right side it was about romanticizing the national roots (the Pétainist streak, to rough it up), on the left side it was about giving the rural classes their rightful place in the shaping of the national cultures ("the nobility of the paysans"), and also, on a scientific level, there was a premonitory impulse to collect and collect all the traditional rural material as possibly could be collected because it was already known that this cultural heritage was likely to be lost someday. Of course cooking was part of that interest: from the late 1800's to the 1950's, thousands of rural, country and traditional recipes were gathered and collected, helping to give France's culinary culture a solid, sound, earthy face until the arrival of Nouvelle Cuisine in the 70's. But, as a codification, it was never really successful. What was important was collecting (i.e. enriching the corpus) and absorbing (i.e. putting to practice). Codifying was not the aim. Technical, regional, historical variations were happily taken into account (because they meant more ways to cook the dishes). If there was any codification, it should rather be seeked in the world of haute cuisine, écoles hôtelières, urban dining, and top-class restaurant cooking — i.e. international French cooking, which is a category in itself, and the one you've been referring to indeed.

I see what you mean, and I agree with it to some point, but not fully. Bad food on a daily basis is not a new phenomenon in France — but it's a matter of class and society, not just of food. Hence my admiration for Tim's post, which I found to be right on spot, and all the more precious because those questions are so rarely discussed in that light. The French have always been perfectly able to cook and serve dreadful food throughout the ages, and they still do, and that is certainly not going to stop. It all depends on the socioeconomic context and people who visit France with the fortunate purpose of experiencing its food just do not have access to the whole picture. Non-French people who gather on a high-quality food forum like eG have, happily, no experience of it, partly because their itinerary is not likely to include that and also because they can afford not experiencing it. They travel for, and they get led to, good food, whether the decisive factor is guidebook stars, reputation, word of mouth, eG tips, and the usual privileges that come with food travelling. That is all very good, but it is not likely to give the traveller a fair idea of the way the French really eat and it certainly can give no faithful notion of "excellence from bottom to top". Those who claim that French food is intrinsically superior to all others have never have lunch in a Flunch cafeteria, or in a Sodexho-catered business cantine, or shared meals with kids in some school restaurants, or taken a close look at what people at French supermarkets have in their shopping carts. What I want to stress, also, is that this situation is somewhat worsening, particularly in the suburbs (though it is balanced by the recent occurrence of good, cheap ethnic food joints), but that it has always been there. I do agree with that notion of "excellence from bottom to top". It does exist, but to a certain point and only in certain social contexts (just like in England and in the US). It does have to be relativized to the benefit of non-French culinary cultures, up to and including — yes — the Anglo-Saxon-based cultures. Because once the experience really becomes "bottom to top", then you realize that bad food in France is just as common as in those countries and is to be found in the same context. Everywhere, expertise and food knowledge (not intellectual superiority, just knowing the subject) make the difference. I have spent two years of my life in the US, I had a bad meal only once in a while (and it was always at my in-laws), and I never went to a fancy restaurant.

Could you quote here just one paragraph, sentence or word in Tim's posts where he bashes French food? That would be helpful because I haven't seen that anywhere. This proves, I'm sorry to say, that you do not know much about good British food. Cannot blame you, for it is not very exposed. Which brings us back to Tim's thoughtful observations. I think it is very fine to defend one's heritage, I do that too when needed. But before you do that, I believe you should know what other people's heritage is really about.

To answer the first message of this thread, I was going to suggest L'Entrecôte as well, not the one in Saint-Germain (where I have never been), but the one in Porte Maillot, boulevard Pereire, right near the RER station. The actual name of the restaurant is Le Relais de Venise and it's considered THE steak-frites place in Paris. Not having tried the other addresses of the same name (Relais de l'Entrecôte) I cannot judge them, but the owners of Le Relais de Venise insist that their place is the original L'Entrecôte and that the other restaurants (including the one near Opéra) are knock-offs. They may well be very good too but (another thing Le Relais de Venise insists on) they do not have the recipe for the "secret sauce". As Felice described, there is a fixed menu: salad with walnuts (no blue cheese in the original place if I remember well), noix d'entrecôte with "secret sauce" and perfect French fries, and absolutely luscious desserts if you're still hungry; all of that served by quick-gestured, motherly waitresses in black dress and white apron. No reservations, just wait in line outside, and the line can be long indeed. I've seen people waiting outside of that restaurant in freezing cold weather. This place is interesting because it serves French beef at its best.

Yes, this is wonderful. Thank you Janet!

Though I'm not usually sympathetic to the idea of a chocolate-filled galette des Rois, last night I bought a tiny ganache-filled galette at La Maison du Chocolat and it was heavenly (as passersby on rue François-Ier could see on my face as I was covering the front part of my coat with flaky crumbs).

As Brit as you can get, perhaps, but that's not the important point there. The French audience isn't interested in his britishness or non-britishness: if they were, all other authors like Delia or Nigella would have done equally well, or he would have been rejected with them. It's just that they want to read and taste something new and fresh, and French publishers had been giving them very little in that respect for years. I'm not sure it says that much on the French audience and the internationalization of food either. The French are like everybody else, they have to shop for cooking and cook for eating; and they have day jobs just like Americans and British, and like everywhere else small shops are disappearing and big supermarkets are taking over, and French shopping carts are as full of junk, frozen and processed foods as anywhere else. Lunchbreak cafeterias and collective catering are just as dreadful in France as anywhere else. Just because we invented lièvre à la royale and potage saint-germain centuries ago, that doesn't make the majority of us super-heroes once we have to reach for our daily food; and that doesn't make us able to reproduce that kind of cooking when we come home at 7 PM holding the kiddie fresh from day care on one arm and shopping bags on the other. What the French want from a TV food show is fresh ideas, practicality, speed and common sense. Plus a certain ability to bring a little sunshine and originality to the everyday table with easy-to-find ingredients. Plus a bit of openness to other food cultures, which the French cookbooks have been lacking until a few years ago. That they were absent from French-published cookbooks doesn't mean there wasn't a need for them. And Jamie Oliver has all of these; that is all the French audience was asking for, britishness being only a detail for them.

I translated the Delia Smith books for Hachette. Actually the publisher picked only a number of recipes from each book in order to make one book out of three. I do not think the book sold well. No other Delia book translation was attempted by Hachette after that. You have to know that Hachette Pratique is directed by an Englishman, Steven Bateman, who was at Dorling Kindersley before he arrived at Hachette. Which means that his choice of translating British books for the French audience was motivated at least as much by his own idea of what a good food book was as it was by a solid knowledge of what the French readers wish to buy as a cookbook. In publishing, you never really know what is going to work out, anyway. However much you study the case, launching new books is always a hit-and-miss affair. It is a difficult question: when to throw something new to the public and when to confirm them in their familiar ways. Most never do the former and stick to the latter. Steve did the former and that's rare enough to be praised. I also translated one Nigella Lawson book for the same publisher. Didn't sell, experience not repeated. But the Jamie Oliver books worked out beautifully and sold quite well. They still do. Rick Stein's book on fish is considered a classic, but I do not know if it sold very well. It is, at any rate, very much respected among French chefs who know about it. I do believe it is still in print, as are all the translated Jamie Oliver books. I do not know if the Nigella and the Delia books are still in print. The French are only partly interested in the British "food wave". I suppose that the Delia and Nigella books did not do very well because the French public did not particularly wish to be reminded by British food writers or TV figures how to do what they already knew how to do; on the other hand, Rick Stein is seen as a serious professional and Jamie as someone who really brought something new, not just to the English food scene, but to modern cooking in general. Which may explain why they do well here. I should also add that Jamie Oliver, in France, is more famous from his TV shows than Nigella is, and that to my knowledge Delia's tv series were never shown in France. I'll stand corrected if they ever were.

I am coming to this discussion a bit late, only to express my approval and admiration for Tim's initial post. As I read somewhere about something else, it is something you'd like to tattoo on your chest. There isn't a word in it that I do not wholly agree with. As a French person trained in the muti-faceted arts of French cooking (and cuisine, for those who insist on the precision), but who has also travelled quite a bit and lived in the US for years, I too believe from experience that it is pointless to judge that one cooking — French cooking for instance, or any other — is "best of all", or even intrinsically superior to most. I also like the way Tim sets his subject into its geographical, historical, and political background, and how well he does it. It is not only honest writing, it is also a healthy scientifical approach. So few food writers do that. So few of them are actually able to take those aspects into account. But they are essential, at the risk of smashing a few illusions or destroying some masks — which is always for the better, disturbing as it may be. I do believe that French cooking is wonderful and unique, and that the French have a tradition of caring for food, produce and nutrition that belongs to them only. That for some historical reasons — some of them, but not all, indeed based on the intrinsic value of some French preparations and dishes — that cooking became preponderant in the wealthy Western world is one thing. But that doesn't imply a superiority of any sort. But I also do believe that many other cultures have an approach to food that is just as wonderful, and sometimes even more, than the French. When it comes to finesse, technical fastidiousness and sensorial acuteness, some cultures could teach the French a lot of things they don't know. The way, for instance the Cantonese have always worshipped their food, beverages and ingredients; the quasi-religious way the Japanese can seek, pick and savour a well-chosen piece of fish or top-quality fresh vegetable: there is enough there to make the proudest Lyonnais gourmet blush, and the fact that the Lyonnais gourmet will probably refuse bo agree with me is explained by the stubborn, hermetic local temper. But that the same closeness of mind regarding a so-called superiority of French food can be expressed by non-Lyonnais gourmets (US, British, etc.) is more difficult to explain and certainly finds its logic in something other than just food. (Note to our Lyonnais friends: Lyon is only picked here as an example. I might have chosen Caen, or Toulouse.) And these are just a few examples. In almost every place I've visited, I've seen, experienced and tasted things that made me wish "we had the same thing in France". I've had simple meals in America that were far better than much haute cuisine I've had back home. There is no superior culinary tradition, there are just culinary illuminations within each culinary tradition. In some traditions, they seem to be more common than in others. But between a perfect beef rendang and a mediocre beef rendang, there is the same difference in level than between a perfect poularde demi-deuil and a bad one. At least, I see the same difference. Culinary illuminations: no culture has more access to them than another, not even the French. Of course, historical factors like puritanism and defiance towards the senses can make a lot of difference in the way nations experience food. But this is cultural, and subject to change. No nation is naturally deprived of gourmetdom. The illuminations can be found everywhere, running through every world cuisine, and they all set the level at a rather immeasurable zenith, making each cuisine the best in its own right. And this is not just opinion, it is a fair estimation of the skill and care needed to achieve those illuminations: the successive stages and conditions leading to a perfectly ripened Stilton cheese; a Boston clam chowder made and served just as it should be; a real Turkish stuffed mackerel; the lièvre à la royale du Sénateur Couteaux; the corned beef hash and poached egg they serve in some coffee shop I know in New England; the Niçois ravioli made in the traditional manner, from daube de bœuf and sardo cheese; a complete Dahomean gombo with market-fresh ingredients; a perfectly balanced Thai green curry; a properly baked lamb and vegetables casserole in a Greek taverna, and the honey-sweet, slightly fermented bread that goes with it; etc. — I see exactly the same skill, the same talent, the same value, the same amount of civilization in all of these. And that is why, proud as I am of my native cooking with deep experience of its many aspects to justify my pride, I never could honestly write or say that French cooking was the best in the world, let alone that it was better than British cooking. Because I also know enough about British traditional cooking to know how wonderful it was, before it was eclipsed for the reasons described by Tim. Henry Miller wrote in The Colossus of Maroussi (a book I found pretty silly apart from that very sentence): "I prefer a bad Greek meal to a good French meal." Why I agree with him, I do not know. And I do not wish to bash French cooking, far from me. But for some mysterious reason, having many times experienced the wholesome goodness of ordinary Greek food, compared to the fussiness I have often seen in "good French meals", I perfectly understand what he means.

It much depends on the availability of the produce and on the regional traditions. In the Southwest and Périgord, many households make their own foies gras, confits and rillettes. And I've known Parisians with strong ties to their native Périgord to go back there every year in November to prepare "les foies gras", and drive back to Paris with their trunks full of sterilized jars. Goose is milder and more delicate, duck is slightly gamier and (IMO) tastier. It's quite true that geese are harder to raise and Périgord always made it a specialty. One of my Périgourdin friends used to sneer when I'd tell her that foie gras was being made in other regions like Vendée or Normandy (that was about 15 years ago). She'd reply: "Sure, but they are doing it the easy way, they only do duck."

One advice I sometimes want to give about France: just relax. It's not a very formal country, and even the formal ones amongst us (I don't know many) don't really care if you do this or that any other way that you're supposed to. Many people don't even notice, or think of it. Many people don't even know how you're supposed to do things — when you are, that is. I always remember my ex-husband (a waspy New-Englander) as we were staying with some Parisian friends (originally from the country) long ago. We had spent a lot of time at their place and one day, at lunch, he took a piece of bread and started mopping the gravy from the communal gigot dish. I wouldn't have noticed if one of my friends hadn't cried out: "Oh, Brad, that's wonderful! Some bad manners at last! We're so happy!" I think this is not an uncommon attitude in France, though it is more common in the country and in the popular classes. It is one of the aspects of the French I like the most. About foie gras: yes indeed you do take little pieces and eat them on your bread one after the other, but this is particularly due to the texture of mi-cuit foie gras, which is firm and not easily spreadable. Also, they often serve it on toasted "pain de mie", which is soft, so spreading is out of the question*. When foie gras is spreadable (like foie gras mousse), well you do spread it. I think it has little to do with manners, at least originally. * By the way, pain de mie is certainly not the best bread to serve with foie gras. The tastes and textures don't fit together. Better choices would be fresh crusty baguette or ficelle, or proper pain au levain toasted on one side.

Also, those places are notoriously the least interesting, foodwise. At Costes restaurants the food is correct but standardized and unremarkable. But they don't cater to people who care for food, their point is elsewhere. If these were considered the epitome of the "Parisian" restaurant, there would be some reason to worry about "Parisian cuisine". I'd also add many, many more categories to the ones you and Dave defined, or rather say that some places fall into categories, some happily don't. If Paris restaurants could all be defined in categories, the food scene would lose much of its interest. You know it's alive and healthy when each of many places is a category in itself.

This one is right. I'm just lazy with accents Which is Aizpitarte (much nicer to say out loud, too).

Ferran Adria, from an article in Madame Figaro, March 2006, roughly and quickly translated: "Judging by some questions I am asked, everyone must think I'm the pioneer, the creator or the main representative of so-called molecular cuisine. But I have never mentioned molecular cuisine of any kind at El Bulli. We never attributed a scientific origin to our creations, which all were born from purely culinary research — attentive observation and curiosity being part of our baggage as cooks. Please allow me to be radical: I believe this is all a marketing operation and I think we should not cheat people into believing that so-called molecular thing is a form of cuisine." At the time (March 2006) I observed that these statements were closely following some other public statements by Professor Hervé This, who was posing as the inspirer of "gastronomie moléculaire" and particularly of Ferran Adria's work, thus minimizing the latter (in a "he owes me everything" fashion). It was pretty clear to me that Ferran was setting things (and, I believe, This) straight. As for "Parisian cuisine", this is a much tougher subject than molecular gastronomy because of its complexity. I seem to remember there was a thread about it here. Parisian cuisine: is there such a thing? Yes, but it is awfully hard to define, chiefly because it is a historically diluted concept and it needs some research. It is much more difficult to grasp than, say, Marseillais or Lyonnais cooking, chiefly because 1) most landmarks of Parisian cooking have become part of an indistinct repertoire of cuisine bourgeoise-cuisine de bistrot, with a direct pipeline to haute cuisine, all of that labeled as "French cuisine" without any mention of origin; therefore some of it has become international, some of it national, but very little remains labeled as Parisian. And 2) After the French Revolution, when it recuperated the classical Ile-de-France aristocratic tradition from former château chefs recycled as restaurateurs, Parisian cuisine probably had more defined contours than it has today. But with the Industrial Revolution, the "exode rural" and masses of people settling in Paris from the Provinces to work as factory workers, home servants, artisans, café, brasserie and bistrot owners, cooks and waiters — Parisian cuisine became a patchwork of dishes, many of them taken from the Auvergnat and Alsatian répertoires. With the added influences of home cuisine bourgeoise and festive brasserie cuisine that culminated during the Belle Epoque (1870-1914, to be generous), it took the aspect of an interesting mess, which it still has today. It does exist, but it has no logic.

All the Aoki pastries I've had so far were very pretty but definitely too sweet. Too much sugar kills the taste but the cakes sure look beautiful.