A Balic

Michael - maybe you could start a new thread on this, as it is an interesting topic. In the food arts, where do you draw the line? Isn't derivation/coping/stealing of recipes/ideas of other chefs all part of the culinary landscape? Should that chefs of the last eighty years credit Escoffier for popularising dining "in the Russian manner"? To be fair, how many truely original thinkers are there in any walk of life? What do you think? Oh, I forgive you.

John - did he say what type of Fairy Liquid to use. This could be very important. Maybe not, those Frenchies most likely have a more evolved dish-washing-liquid-duck-washing-technique . I am very suprised that pheasant was placed so highly. Not that I don't like pheasant, its just with game like grey partridge, grouse (both not in season?) and blue mountain hare avalible, I thought it would be lower ranking.

Tony - remember Thatcher? . I wish that what you said about Australia was true, but unfortunately it isn't as straight forward as that, there are still a deeply racist element in Australia . My Italian friends are very funny about "foreign" food. One of them is from Siena, when he is in Florence, he is always bitching about the food (eg. This cake should have pinenuts on it, not almonds! What are these people thinking). It is very funny to see. Strangely, on a visit to London they really like Indian food, but not Chinese. We asked them why and they explained that the Indian food comes with bread, which is the "correct" way to eat. I guess there are Plonickii in all cultures .

John - that game tasting sounds extremely interesting, Is it possible to get a opinion on the other types of game that were sampled? I have read the the "special" taste of the woodcock trial is from the presence of tape-worms in the gut (these are not voided). Was there any mention of this?

I dunno Steve, do you really believe that. I have just been reading some culinary history on Italy and it would seem that the tomato wasn't all that popular until the start of the 19th C. I can't imagine Italy with out the tomato now. The "native" cooking of France and Italy has changed a lot in the last fifity years. In Italy you could have considered the cooking of the South as being a different "ethnic" cuisine to that in the North. Now that distinction is breaking down. Interesting thought though. Maybe the English are a more culinary dynamic nation then France or Italy? Some people would most likely argue that point. Infact as an example, we have an excellent Spanish store that has just opened next to our flat in Eninburgh. This is all for the benifit of the native Scots, not for any small Spanish ethnic group that lives in Edinburgh. I'm not sure that that would happen in France or Italy?

Chaps - to clear up the Trocken thing. Trocken just means that the wine has 9 gm/L residual (unfermented) sugar. So they could be wines from a poor year/area that didn't get very high sugar levels or they could have been made from better quality wine and had the sugar femented into alcohol. I have seen Trocken Auslese, but haven't tried. My guess is that they would be pretty unbalanced. Jason I had a bottle of 1988 J.J. Prum Auslese (long gold capsule) and drank it when it was about 12 years old, way to young, it tasted like it was only a couple of years old. I was very annoyed. Have you tried any Australian Rieslings? They are very dry, but are my favorite white wine with Asian (Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian etc). Dr. Loosen - glad I could enrich all your lives.

Well you would say that if you liked sweeter wines. God, don't tell me your a Plotnicki as well Alsace not know for Riesling? I read that and started choking on my Clos Ste-Hune. What German Rieslings do you drink? I had a whole load of 1988 Dr. Loosen that I drank at about ten years of age and they were great. My impression was that they (German riesling) needed at least five years of age to become interesting, what do you think. Oh, and do you drink them with food? The old theroy (opinion of pre-WWII wine writers) is that they didn't go with food very well.

Good. There should be more people eating pie. Steamed Chinese dumpling = pie. Epanada = pie. Samosa = pie. Pizza = pie (Duh). Bestilla = pie. Pie. Pye. Phi. Curses, I think that tutti-nicki has pushed me over the edge. Note lack of internal dialogue.

damn it Wifrid, I went to a lot of trouble to de-rail this topic. Plotnicki - Stop grouping me with the British. I like them, but when given the chance I voted for an Australian republic, not to keep the Queen. Pity more of my fellow Australians didn't follow suit. Yvonne - I am to stupid to find the article .

Cabrales - I'm thinking that anything with pastry is a "pie" and even somethings without pastry are pies. I begining to realise that there is an entire universe of pieness to explore. For instance, I'm still trying to work out if a gratin with breadcrumbs on top is a pie. My heart says yes, but my mind is still not made up. A pop-tart is a pie, but is jam on toast? Is cereal a sub-class of wet-pie? Man, this is just the tip of the iceberg, it's starting to look like it will be difficult to prove that a particular food item isn't a pie.

When is a pie a pie? Sometimes in France they will give you a fish dish (for example) cooked in cream etc, garnished with some sippets of puff pastry (mostly cut into dimond shapes). Is this a pie? If not how much would you have to increase the pastry to contents ration to get a pie? I need this information so that I can construct an argument for the nobility and greatness of the pie, that will send Plotnicki into the egullet wilderness weeping, wailing and gnashing his teeth.

I hope not, I really do.

Plotnicki - will you stop this attack on pies for Gawds sake! I like pie. Where have been in France exactly that you haven't seen pastry enclosed pate? All those liver pates enclosed in Brioche are delicious, for that matter those Lyon sausage in Brioche are really nice as well. Even, sodding Paul Bocuse has several recipes for fish au croute (fish pie to you). I'm hip to your game, you have one of those intolerance things right? That is why you are so bitter. Je accusent tu! Yvonne and Fatguy - I'm reading Boswell's Johnson at the moment by coincidence. He is still at the slagging off Scotland stage in the part that I have read so far. Yvonne I think that the retort to your quote of Johnson was "Yes, that is why England has such fine horses and why Scotland has such fine men!". Marmalade is such a fine thing (Whips,eh?), I love it (not the sweet, un-bitter type though). I'm sure Plotnicki hates it.

Get a new dictionary then. For your amusement take a look at this: http://thirdwoe.com/et.htm

Plotnicki - you are cunning like a fox. I will have to use more camouflage on my pit-traps. For the sake of your further education though, try "eschatological" instead of "eschatorial". What's baseball?