A Balic
-
Posts
394 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by A Balic
-
-
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?
-
John-You have brought up an additional good point which is when a country has an indiginous cuisine that is weak, it is easily overcome by the cuisines of immigrants that move there if those cuisines are more interesting. It is true in the U.S. Whatever there was of traditional American cuisine has very much fallen by the wayside to things like pizza, bagels, pastrami, spare ribs, sushi etc.(that is in big cities with immigration.) And it's the same for England with tikka masala. And in Germany, kofte kebab has become the national dish. Notice how in France, Spain and Italy ethnic food has become popular but not to the extent that it overshadows the native cooking.
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.
-
Everything with Riesling has to do with residual sugar level. And you NEVER see a high alcohol reisling from Germany. I mean the highest I have seen is like 11.5 and thats rare. High alcohol in a German Riesling would be considered a flaw. Most are between 8 and 10. Alsatian Riesling tends to be a lot boozier (I've seen em as high as 12.5 or 13, which is why I consider it inferior). It tastes like gasoline to me. Alsace is really known for Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Gris.
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.
-
By the way, let me refresh myself by saying I agree with Steve Plotnicki. The pie discussion, which is interesting and deserves a different thread, has nothing to do with his valid question about the influence of British gastronomy on restaurant culture outside Britain.
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.
-
I don't much like game pies or Taillevent, but I suppose if the clever French get hold of anything and waste enough time in the kitchen mucking about with it they can make it taste pretty good. I'm sure whatever they're serving at Taillevent is hardly recognizable as an English game pie, though.
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.
-
Adam,
That is a fantastic link.
It *must* be the team from The Onion, mustn't it?
-----
W
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:
-
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?
-
"gentlemen's gentlemen" are you talking about a butler or a homosexual here? I've made the mistake of confusing the two before so I just want to clarify.
-
No, I think that somebody else should be sent over the top. What about Simon, I mean what has he got to loose right?
-
Adam-Alas, finally someone is on the right track. That's how I imagine all British cooks throughout the Victorian era acting. "What, take all that time to make it better? You must be joking." or "Did you say strain the soup? Doesn't it taste better with all those bits and bobs in it?" Or my favorite one, "If the French do it that way I'm going to do it this way." Now this is how culinary tradition is born.
Do you know, having done a lot of reading on the subject of food in the 19th C. one of the things that stands out is that the big names in British cooking at the time (lets call it Victorian) were female, while the French big names were male. Do you have any theories about that Plotnicki?
-
Jason how sweet do you like them? Prosecco doesn't seem to fit the bill of a sweet wine to me (unless there is a sweet version for sale in the US). Many champagne houses produce a sweeter style for the US market labeled as "Extra Dry" (go figure). What about Asti spumante? Yeh, most of it is not great, but there are some good houses making good wine.
-
My one and only contribution to this thread
What have you done with Simon, you bastard. Are you part of a Cornish/American/Feminist/Plotnicki/most-of-the-civilised-world hit squad? What are you ransom demands? If it is for less then five quid, I might consider bargining you down to three quid. If you are serious please post me and ear or something.
-
Adam-Fox Creek Sparkling Shiraz was one of the most deadly things I ever drank. I opened a bottle, poured some, and even before I tasted it the people in my house were screaming about the color which was black as mud. Nevertheless I was brave enough to taste it. Pure piss. The bottle was immediately poured down the drain. Now if you want a good sparkling red wine, try a Bugy de Cerdon from the Macon. Extremely delighful and sells for something like 10 pounds a bottle.
As for Gewurz and Asian food, it depends on the cuisine. Even though I'm not a big fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc's, they do go well with Thai food because of their grassiness. But if we switched to Chinese food I would prefer a Gewurz.
I completely agree with you on the Fox Creek Sparkling red. FC wines are over extracted to the max., but Americans like them that way so they sell well. I sayed in Macon for a few weeks a couple of years ago (outside of Cluny). I had a few sparkling reds there, nice wines, very pleasant in the sun. The Australian Sparling reds I was thinking of were the more age worthy types. 10-15 year old sparkling show reserve shirazs from Seppelt, very nice. But they may be a local taste?
-
Plotnicki - just for you I dug out some quotes from a British cookbook published in 1833 (Before Escoffier and Careme had tarted up everything, especially the latter). In the French cooking section of the book:
"It will save much trouble to admit at once, that the French are the greatest cooking nation on earth. They, at least insist that it is so, and perhaps they may be right.....there is one cause of superiority so obvious that it musr be mentioned, -namely, the extreme patience and anxiety with which the most restless people in the world upon all other occasions, attend to the culinary processes. A French cook will give a half-day to the deliberate cookery of a ragout, which an English one would toss off in a half-hour."
And I really like this:
"The French have reduced the art of preparing forcemeat to fixed principles......and these they laboriously compound, with a degree of patience which goes far to redeem their national character from the charge of fickleness and levity." She then goes on to suggest that French pies (pates) should replace the British pies with all haste, so you may be related.
Cute, no?
-
Oh, we have Sparkling red wine in Australia. It's very good. No doubt some American will "discover" it and steal it from us (Note how effortlessly I slide in to parochial mode).
-
Tommy - all those other darling Japanesy fishy things.
Steve - suggesting that gewurztraminer goes with Asian food is the last refuge of a scoundrel. No condiments? I would rather eat British food. Also about the stout thing, it's only beer and its not like they were downing cases of the stuff. Better then no nutrition supliment at all. Anyway, my French friend drinks a glass of red wine and still breast feeds, so it must be OK.
Wilfrid - it is a little sweet isn't it. I prefer my beer to me Blonde.
Fat guy - is there anything that sparkling wine doesn't go with?
-
Actually I had the best fish and chips of my life in New Zealand. Blue cod and chips, chosen from what was effectively a wet fish counter, fried to order and eaten overlooking the seal colony a few miles north of Kaikoura. I was on honeymoon too.
Yes, the ambience may possibly have coloured the memory ;-)
Adam
Struth mate, that's 'xactly the kind of Fish 'n' Chips I'm thinkin' 'bout. Blue cod (Blue eyed cod, Blue eye?) is a great fish, nice big juicy flakes of fish. I bet that was all you culd think about during your holiday, that and seals.
Kellers "Oysters and Pearls" reach Isle of Wight!
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Posted
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.