Jonathan Day

Toby -- not really. You can see the next steps: Steve will say that El Bulli is really "French" at heart. Someone else will argue that it's really Spanish. Steve will say that Spanish technique is derived from French. Not only will we be back to the measure thread, we'll be back to that thread that was going at about the time I joined eGullet, on how France was the fount, origin and pinnacle of Eurocusine, since it was geographically at the heart of Europe. It's like one of those Indian epics where the universe turns in endless cycles, each bigger than the next. I'm taking your cue and jumping off this one.

No doubt. Now, since you pressed me to answer Steve's question, perhaps you would ask him to answer mine -- which I have asked many times, on many threads. In fact Steve has also posed the same question, without answering it.

It's an empirical statement: "in my experience". Correlation, not cause.

As far as I can tell, there's only one person on this thread who has made that assertion. In my experience most rich people don't have particularly good taste.

That's easy. El Bulli, as you announced to the world. Week after next.

What is his question? How much I have spent on which national cuisine? Measured how? Some of my more expensive gastronomic trips have been to Japan, in part because it costs a lot to get there and because everything is expensive once you are there. Over the years, I've probably spent as much dining out on Chinese and Japanese food as French. In London, we often eat Indian food (I particularly like Kastoori, in Tooting, but eat there less nowadays because the food is laced with "bad" fats. Also Zaika and Rasa Samudra). The trip to El Bulli will be relatively cheap -- discount airfare, one night in hotel, car rental shared with friends. In France, we tend to eat French food -- that's mostly what is on offer -- except that there are Thai and Cambodian restaurants in our town*. The Thai restaurant is good but hideously expensive. Or we cross the border into Italy. Most expensive single meal: Japanese, by a large margin. Next most expensive: French Most enjoyable meals: cooked at home. *Edit: the Cambodian restaurant is in the next town.

Steve, I will be sure to inform you next time I order a pastrami sandwich.

Please enlighten us, Steve. How do we identify a member of the Plotnickiist elite? How do we know whom to trust in the quest for good food?

Fat Guy, get with the programme. It's very simple. Repeat after me: "Whatever I like is what's best for me; whatever you like is what's best for you." --> relativism "Whatever most people choose is what's best. The market decides. Hence McDonald's beats every 3 star restaurant, hands down." --> popularism "Whatever a select group of international gourmets will pay most for is what's best. The select group of international gourmets is selected by Steve Plotnicki" --> Plotnickiism. There you have it.

If the implication is that some Western concept of balance is now invading Asia through a process of "globalisation" (a process which many would argue has had a negative effect on world cuisines, but set that aside), this again seems contrary to fact. Chinese and Japanese cuisines each have highly developed concepts of balance, extending not just to chilli-heat levels, but also to other dimensions: temperatures, textures, dryness vs moisture and the like. I am out of my depth here, but I believe that some of these originate in the Taoist notions of the bodily humours. My point is that the Chinese and Japanese have not been sitting around waiting for a Western chef to arrive to teach them how to balance flavours. Balance has been a theme in both cuisines for many years. With some exceptions, the Western use of Asian techniques has been somewhat crude; for example, I have seen many recipes from 3-star French chefs, published in French cooking magazines, that call for tinned curry powders.

I have not yet dined at el Bulli, though I will in a few weeks' time. I have looked at the amazing book and CD-ROM describing Adria's work from 1998-2002. What you get from that is a sense of a restless intelligence, relentlessly pushing from one idea to the next, but cataloguing progress as it goes, capturing recipes and photographs of the food. The cuisine itself doesn't look particularly French, and in fact it is described in terms closer to a Spanish menu -- and, of course, entirely in Spanish. I will agree that, up to now, the French seem to have invested more energy in classifying and categorising and recording dishes and menus and techniques than many nations (though this assertion may prove false when harder-to-read languages are brought into the picture, e.g. Chinese and Japanese). I personally think that this has more to do with the French mania for classifying things than with anything about their cuisine. It's also the case that, in some social classes at least, "Frenchness" seems to be associated with luxury, elaboration and excess. And hence the view that "French cuisine" represents some sort of apogee, and that, conversely, anything that's done with the kind of care that goes into Trio's work has got to be French. You see the same association in France, by the way: "American cuisine" is instantly associated with McDonald's, etc. There's a funny film, "Cuisine Americaine" about a ambitious young American chef who goes to France and tries to win the patronage of an elderly French chef. Of course he ends up earning culinary stars, plus the chef's beautiful daughter...happy ending. But the conceit is that "cuisine Americaine" is by definition terrible.

Chazzy, what I was getting at was the idea of the rhythm of two (or more) "dinners" at one seating -- particularly in the first progression from frivolités to the mandarine sorbet. My sense from reading Escoffier is that this was a bit more than a palate cleanser but that it actually represented a serious break in the proceedings, a transition from one progression to another. Just reading RyneSchraw's outline of the Kitchen Table menu, my sense was that the menu was somehow divided into two parts or sessions, in the same way. But I may have missed the Trio team's intent here.

I agree with Steve and Robert. Stephanie Alexander has obviously failed to understand all sorts of things about living and eating in France, in particular the ideas that culinary balance may be achieved over a period longer than a single meal, and that climates and seasons have something to do with the selection of foods offered in restaurants. But as Andrew Craig has pointed out, it is not as if Stephanie Alexander is an inexperienced tourist, on paper at least. She has been "in the business" for many years, seems to have travelled widely, and has even published a book, Cooking and Travelling in South-West France. So it isn't as if she hasn't tried, yet at least on this dimension she has failed to understand what the cuisine and culture are about. To me this illustrates the difficulty of getting "inside" a national cuisine and therefore the folly of making sweeping statements about the character of national cuisines when one is ill-informed about what those cuisines actually are. Examples from this site would include the gruesome misdescriptions of Indian, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese cuisines -- "nothing but pasta", "mostly something poured over rice", "shredded ingredients", "minimalist", "overspiced", etc. Which is not to say that cross-cuisine comparisons are impossible or immoral, just very very difficult. My sense is that Elizabeth David managed to get "inside" three national cuisines (British, French, Italian), but this seems to have taken a lifetime of study, years of living abroad, at least reading ability in the languages concerned. How many of those who pronounce on world cuisines, in print and on the web, have achieved similar levels of knowledge and experience? Most of all, "getting it right" requries a degree of humility and a willingness to learn before making pronouncements. I think Simon has put it well,

You can find the essay Robert refers to by clicking here.

Estufarian, I don't think anyone here is hung up on labels -- there are other places on the board where esoteric debates have gone on about the pan-galactic superiority of French cuisine, but not here. My interest in in understanding the experiences and traditions that led up to Trio becoming what it is, and to Chef Achatz evolving his own style of cooking. It didn't appear out of thin air. If you haven't seen it, there is an interview on the webzine -- click here. This attempt to understand doesn't need to lead into an attempt to pigeonhole, nor should it interfere with our enjoyment of Trio and its cuisine. I am certainly going to try Trio, but it's a long journey from here (6363 km as the crow flies) and will require a bit of advance planning.

It may be that Chef Achatz's "menu in two parts" with two dessert flights is actually very traditional. Here is an Escoffier menu, which I posted in the "complexity or clutter in tasting menus" thread in Symposium: Frivolitiés Mixed hors d'oeuvres Caviar frais Chilled caviar Blinis de Sarrasin Buckwheat blinis Oursins de la Méditerranée Sea urchins Consommé aux nids d'Hirondelles Consommé with swallows' nests Velouté Dame Blanche Cream soup of the "White Lady" Sterlet du Volga à la Moscovite Sterlet is a rare sturgeon that lives between the fresh and salt rivers in the Caspian Barquette de Laitance à la Vénetienne Soft fish roes in pastry boats Chapon fin aux Perles du Périgord Capon with "pearls of the Périgord" (truffles?) Cardon épineux à la Toulousaine "Spiny" cardoons Selle de Chevreuil aux Cerises Saddle of venison with cherries Suprême d'Ecrevisse au Champagne Crayfish in a cream sauce with Champagne Mandarines Givrées Sorbet of mandarin oranges, probably served in the hollowed-out shells of the oranges Terrine de Caille sous la cendre, aux Raisins Terrine of quail cooked on a wood fire ("under the ashes") with grapes Bécassine rosée au feu de Sarment Pink or pale snipe, cooked over vine cuttings Salade Isabelle Salad "Isabelle" Asperges sauce Mousseline Asparagus with mousseline sauce Délice de Foie Gras A foie gras preparation Soufflé de Grenade à l'Orientale Pomegranate soufflé "oriental style" Biscuit glace aux Violettes Iced cake with violets Mignardises Petits fours Fruits de Serre Chaude Hothouse fruits

I would add to Robert's list Jacques Chibois's Bastide St-Antoine in Grasse; Chibois also runs Mirazur in Menton, which is more casual than his flagship restaurant in Grasse. I was not impressed by Tetou; the bouillabaisse was not nearly as good as what we had at Bacon, nor was the welcome particularly warm. And it was very expensive.

RyneSchraw -- As before, I am impressed by Chef Achatz's generosity to a customer who is clearly in tune with what he is trying to do -- and by yours in sharing the experience with us. Thank you. Trio's website speaks of "the evolution of progressive French cuisine as it fuses a wide range of global influences". Would you describe the menu you had as French? Or influenced by French style? To me it reads far more "global" than "French".

Following a thread in this forum and a Q&A with Chef Grant Achatz, I have started this thread so that we can continue discussing Trio. Grant has indicated that he will visit eGullet occasionally, but will be unlikely to post very often.

I have opened a new thread in the Heartland forum so that we can continue the discussion of Trio. Chef Grant Achatz has indicated that he will be visiting eGullet but that he will be unlikely to post often. Again, many thanks to Grant for a great G&A.

Grant, on behalf of all of us at eGullet I want to thank you for a thought-provoking Q&A. It's one I will return to and reflect on many times. Several comments from the Q&A struck me as especially memorable: Grant, we hope that you will return to eGullet often. You are seeking to create something new and different in your restaurant. And we are trying to create something new in the world of food media. The Trio/eGullet pairing seems a good one -- like root beer flavours and beef short ribs. We look forward to further interaction with you.

It's paradoxical that we are debating globalisation and commercialisation through what is arguably its most powerful engine, information and communication technology (ICT). These technologies change the personal element in a powerful way. Connection no longer requires face-to-face contact. The proprietor of the best boucherie/charcuterie in our town is personally known to lots of people, and he knows most of his customers personally, including those of us who are away for many weeks at a time: he remembers their preferences, their children, and so on. A "circle of friends" gathers in his shop every evening, to drink and talk. Yet he, and most of his customers, are convinced that this is a dying business. He will not pass on the shop to his children when he retires (and two weeks ago, he suffered a heart attack, and the future of the shop is uncertain pending his recovery). It's just too hard, and the supermarkets far too powerful. The personal element will go away. The small will lose out to the large. I don't believe in the view that national borders will crumble away, or that governments have or will become irrelevant -- this seems almost laughable in light of recent front-page news. But the progress of ICT and the fundamentally more efficient business models it creates, seem unstoppable. And I'm not sure I would want to stop them; my ability to spend significant time every year in a small French town depends on the availability of low-cost travel and also on my ability to stay in contact with work from afar. Both of which require ICT. Of course there are second- and third-order effects. The low cost airlines create demand for flights, and that leads to travel and pollution. Mobile phones make all sorts of things easier, but they are disruptive in all sorts of situations. The internet enables community at a distance, yet we may be spending more time staring at screens than talking with our families. As others have noted, it's easy to see that a chef, working long and hard hours, would benefit from the ability to profit from giving the world easier access to his art. This has happened for years; Raymond Oliver, for example, published a cookbook and went from the kitchens of the Grand Véfour to become one of France's earliest television chefs. It's just that modern ICT makes it so much easier and faster. The result is that, even at the high end, the personal element is getting hard to find. The dinner you eat at ADPA is, in all likelihood, not cooked by Alain Ducasse, or even checked by the master as it leaves the kitchen. You could say that it is prepared by a sort of disembodied spirit of the chef, his know-how and standards captured and encoded in books, training programmes, databases ... ICT again. You can't go into the kitchen and thank the chef, because he's probably on a plane to Toyko or New York. The positive is that his vision of cookery is available to far more people; the negative, the loss of the personal element. For me, at least, the trade-off has not been a bad one (and even if I thought it was, it would make little difference). The challenge is to find ways to re-create the personal over time and distance. That's one reason that the ways we communicate on eGullet are important. This is about creating community over a potentially very noisy medium. At the moment, though, the shop is closed and the circle of friends is silent.

Chef, On this last day of the Q&A, I'd like to ask for your frank reflections on media like eGullet, and eGullet in particular. You found us (how?) and conducted a great thread in the Heartland forum. Then you answered our questions throughout this week. How have you found the experience? What could we do to make eGullet more useful to top chefs? To restaurant patrons? What have you enjoyed? What could we improve? What role do internet media like eGullet have in the world of food publications? Reflections on any or all of these topics would be very welcome. Once again, many thanks.

Another reason for keeping certain dishes in the repertoire is that it can be a lot of fun to introduce friends to a dish-in-repertoire that you have "discovered" at a favourite restaurant. It gives you, as a diner, a chance to re-experience your first taste of that dish as you see them taste it and react. Another way to do this, of course, is to hold a retrospective dinner now and then, where you bring dishes back from previous years.

I have a Bamix (love it), though I think it might be the home model. I was under the impression that the whipping head was the disk without any holes in it, but I haven't really used it to froth yet. Am I wrong? The Bamix instruction leaflet isn't helpful here. The "mixer" (mistakenly called the whisk in the English translation of the instructions; it's called the "mélangeur" in the French and Quirl in the German) is the one without the holes. It's for sauces, mayonnaise, and other emulsions. The "whip" ("fouet" in French, Schalgscheibe in German, mistakenly translated "beater") is the one with the holes -- for incorporating air into mixtures and making them light. It's for eggwhites, cream, frothing millk, etc. You use it to monter au beurre or for anything that you want to make fluffy and light.