A Balic

Andy, you have a stupid blue smiley face? I would get something done about that :).

"Enculturated", like post-modernism, always makes my feel slightly un-easy. Is that it do you think? We like it because we like it? I agree that Montrachet is "better" (until this thread I didn't realise what a great word "better" was) then St. Veran. I guess as a scientist I would like to know the reason why we prefer the complex to the straight forward. But I agree, "Why" is a non-starter. Anyway, it has been a very interesting thread, amazing how many intelligent people use egullet.

Tony, sorry I ment to quote Steven's reply to my last post on this thread. So sorry for what must have been a confusing reply to your post! I'm afraid that I do think these numerical systems to provide context. No wine is good or bad without some level of subjective process involved. While I prefer reading large amounts of text to get my context, I don't think that most people have the time for this. What people want from wine is a dynamic process, the influence that RP and his system has happens to be the here and now of it. Its interesting to read what people were looking for in wine 50, 100, 150 etc years ago, seems to change all the time. eg. Try telling most modern wine drinkers that a sweet white wine is just as exceptable as a dry red wine. I do wonder how long his personal preferences will continue to shape the preferences of the wine drinking public after he shuffles off this mortal coil?

No Roast Beef for me (still I'm not English, so its not such a disappointment). I think that this can be quite a difficult medium to communicate in sometimes. I have largely given up on trying to determine what people are thinking and are more interested in why they are thinking in a particular way. Unless people are very clear about what they are saying and what the context is, the discussions can get very laboured. We should most likely hire Wilfrid to sort all such conversations out for us. Everything we discuss on this site is by its nature subjective, hence your point with words like "best" and "better" etc. All most any conversation about wine tends to inflammatory, which is interesting no? As Wilfrid indicated, we are not really talking about food or wine here, its more about defining ourselves. Oh, on the wine/ food rating system thing, I agree that things provide a context for people to to work within, but do you think that after a certain point people should be able to rely on there own experience? As an example, if you were to drink nothing but Montrachet in restaurants, because it is the "best", would you have any personal framework to know why it is a "better" choice than St. Veran? Is the any difference between knowing that that Montrachet is "better" than St. Veran after tasting the two wines yourself or being told this from an outside source? I think that the best wool would be a sailor in cashmere.

I hesitate to add anything here, as the topic has been so well discussed by some very sophisticated people. Steve - I have no problem with the distinctions that you have made, it was just that I was interested that somebody with your experience had such a strong opinion about the place of French food in the food world. I was interested why this was so and I think that I now know this. I should not have made any comment, as I was/am suffering from "Winter Vomiting Virus", so don't have the energy to make any intelligent comments. Oh, I bloody hate folk music.

I know that this discussion is about restuarants in the UK (mostly), but isn't just possible that saying that French cuisine is the most evolved etc, is showing how ignorant we are (no insult intended guys, I'm not Simon after all) about other cultures cuisine?

I found this site with a couple of slighty different versions: http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/nr0957.htm

I have seen a similar even as well. It was common to confuse Cab. Sav. with Sav. Blanc. Strange really, I would think that the tannins in a red wine would distinguish between red and white wine.

I don't think that the meat will be to gamy, as it is a young, female, farmed "wild" boar that I am cooking. I would love the sauce recipe, it sounds very interesting. Is it Sicillian or Andalusian by any chance? It sounds like it has some Arabic background.

See I was right, its all just a cultural construct! The article doesn't give very many details, so it is a bit hard to make a judgement.

"Skun" It isn't correct English, I know (you can take the boy out of the country, but....etc). Down my way, it is the past tense of skin. We are going to skin the rabbit, we have skun the rabbit. Mind you, "down my way" people also say "Yous people", so what do they know? Thank you.

Thank you both for the birthday wishes, happy birthday to IM. Scarpetta: thank you for the cooking advice, it is similar to the idea I had in my head. With the searing part is that skin on or off? Having an Italian talking about wild boar reminds me of driving with an Italian friend near his home (Rada in Chianti), he always slows down at one bend in the road because that is were the boar crossing is - he figures that if he sees one in time he could proberly ram it with his car and get a free meal. So far I haven't seen him getting any boar, but we did see a porcupine. He didn't kill it though, he said that although it tastes good, when skun it looks like a human baby, so is a bit off putting. Ah, Italy what a great place.

I am lucky enough to be able to get several dozen different types of apples (they are all rare-ish British types so I won't bore you with names). I use a pie dish and a top crust only (not as American as apple pie), using this as a basis I mix several different varietys, some that hold their shape, some that turn to mush, that have different flavours and acidities, to get an interesting pie as I can. I use cloves and coriander (seeds) as a flavouring. The cloves bring out the apple flavours and the coriander gives a slight orange flavour to the pie. Some times I add some poached quince fo interest.

Dstone001 mate, I wouldn't be to hard on (wine)people. I think that the problem is the use of the word "cultural", as several people have pointed out it can have several meanings, so some people have used one meaning in particular then you get this whole "polarisation of opinions thing" going. It is pretty common when discussing wine/beer for the reasons that Wilfrid was talking about in his first post on this thread. I have held several wine tastings and you get this occuring on different levels: "I don't drink wine, because its for snobs", " I only drink red wine, as white wine is common" and most often "I don't drink sweet wine because it is cheap and nasty". As Wilfrid said, its about your perception of your place in the world, wine/beer is one of those ways of defining this for a lot of people. Only rare, self-aware individuals like myself will drink anything ;).

I am sadly saying good bye to my youth tomorrow (I am turning thirty). I am having some friends around to help me not have an early mid-life crisis (and to celebrate the wonderful me). I wanted to cook a pair of suckling pigs, but here in Scotland they cost as much as a full grown porker, so objecting to paying for potential pig I went for a leg of wild boar instead (yes, I know it is an obvious choice, but it is my birthday so I can have a little joke at my self). I will marinate it for several days in a cooked wine marinade, but does anybody have any suggestions for cooking times/temperatures? Low and long or high and short. I favour the former, but how low can I go do you think?

Clearly you know nothing of Northern European beers, Scarpetta. I have a good (Flemish) friend who will sniff and taste beer just like a wine-taster, and tell you which brewery, which year, which hopfield, which variety of hop and so on and so on, and he tells me Dutch and German beers have the same subtleties. He and I had a beer tasting evening in Brussels (with dinner) which opened my eyes and taste-buds to the fact that beer (certainly in Belgium) is as complex and interesting as any wine. This is indeed an interesting thread. The most interesting aspect is that not a single beer expert has posted (ie someone like my Flemish friend). That maybe proves Bux's point. Wine is an accompaniment to food, beer (except in Belgium) generally isn't. So most people here at eGullet will be wine drinkers. My knowledge of wine is limited to "I know what I like". Those whose knowledge of beer is similarly limited should not denigrate it. All this is true, but as you indicated, people here have tended to think of wine only at the good quality end, but do the opposite with beer. What does this mean in terms of cultural significance? Well it says more about us then it does of the relative merits of wine v beer, which is a completely seperate issue to how "good" it is. For instance, I would suggest that the most culturally significant wine in the US in the last twenty years is Sutter Home White Zinfandel, this doesn't mean that it is relatively better then Leffe Triple for instance (no contest there, Leffe every time), but it has had a greater recent effect on the drinking habits of the US public then Leffe has had on the Belgium public. Oh, the last Moretti I had was sitting next to the Arno and it was very good.

I am no more confused that usual :) . Interesting to see how difficult it is to seperate wine v beer in terms of which is the better beverage and which one has the most cultural significance. Wilfrid, your comments about Francis Bacon disturbs me somewhat, I drink Campari, but have no talent in anything, so what does that say? Curses pedestrian again! Ron, I agree completely with your definition of Old world/New world, I wonder though how many others would. I rarely drink Australian wine here in the UK, as the wine that is imported is of the big, bold New world type. For example in Australia I would drink Riesling and Hunter River Semillion, as my prefered Australian white wines. The former is rarely seen and the latter never, but yet there are vast vats of Australian Chardonnay (complete swill, in most cases (not a pun!)) sold here! From this I would guess, that often our preception of what type of wine a country is distorted by what is avalible to us. Can you imagine what the impression of French wine would be if you had only tasted Carignan from the south and Pinot Blanc from the north.

It is most interesting reading these posts to get an impression of what people think about culture and wine/beer etc. It has been a great topic. On the whole, I would have to agree with Bux that beer, although it maybe locally significant to a particular culture, has not had the greater impact on societies that wine has. As what people consider to be the importance of wine changes from culture to culture (classic Greek lovers of wine, would have thought that the discussions on terroir were pointless as we don't dilute our wine, so what do we know about wine?), this may simply be a reflection of the aging and transportation potential of wine verses beer. Wine has been a great item of trade, being transported over long distances. This has ment that wine has had a huge global impact, even on non-wine producing countries, while beer has remained a more localised product. Imagine how different British culture and the interaction of the British would have been without wine. On another note, when people here speak of New world wine, do they mean the US alone or do they include South America, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa etc. Also, in recently re-essablished/re-asserted wine making areas in Europe, such as the South of France, Greece and Southern Italy is it correct to refer to these wines as "Old world". Is a Super-Tuscan an Old world wine for instance?

I have been labouring under a misapprehension, when we were taking about "culture", I took it as meaning ?the beliefs, customs, practices and social behaviour of a particular nation or people?, not about what the upper-middleclasses do in their play time. Bux, I think that I would rather drink your characterless Languedoc red, rather then an overpriced Claret. I would guess that that your sommelier recognised that use of New world wine making techniques, so he was quite right to reject it on that account. No good will ever come from drinking New world wine, it is all chemical filth.

You can do the same "breaking of bread" thing with wine, but it has to be subjected to a process to remove all taint of pretence first.

Excellent points (until you got to the "Under a Tuscan Sun" bit: a hateful book :)). An equivalent to a German beer hall? There is a golden land know as "Alsace", populated by germanic types, where there are places called "Vinstub"which is the wine version of a beer hall. They are great fun. The are similar places in Eastern Europe as well. You can do the same "breaking of bread" thing with wine, but it has to be subjected to a process to remove all taint of pretence first.

FWI here is site with some definitions of terroir (not "terrior", as in my last post!): http://www.wineanorak.com/terroir2.htm As you can see, the concept is a little nebulous. As Ron indicated the character of the wine is greatly effected by its geography/microclimate. So you can have vines growing next to each that will produce very different wines because there is some local difference, like a change in the slope, which effects the soil drainage and the amount of light the vines get, or a change in the local in the soil from, say chalky to clay soil etc etc. Even if you have identicle grapes, picked at the same time etc you can get very different wines from different wine makers, due to differences in the individuals winemaking skill (alot of differences).

I quite agree, terroir is rather important, but it is only one of many important factors contributing to the character of a wine eg. grape variety, cultivation practices, wine making practices etc. You know as well as I do that there are many poor Burgundies being produced from grapes growing in the same row as grapes producing superior wine. Yes, in some cases it is a matter of different terrior, but in other examples it is a matter of the plots belonging to different owners (stupid Napoleonic inheritance laws). "Never" is a very long time, remember it wasn't so very long ago that Lafite was bended with Hermitage to give it some substance, times change. Yes, Mr Parker seems to have a love of the full blown doesn't he. I am finding it increasingly difficult to drink the bolder examples of New world wine, thank goodness Australia still has plenty "undiscovered" wine, with their own particular expression of terrior.

I love them both! I would have to agree with Ron about the subtle differences in wine bit , but I do think that beer can be just as dirverse and interesting as wine. For instance: http://hbd.org/brewery/library/mashtun/belg.html I'm not sure that you can talk about the relative cultural importance of the two, without context. Nor can you compare wine production methods and beer production methods. Terroir is an over rated concept in wine and how can you apply it to beer production?

Jim, thanks for your reply. If anything this thread has highlighted the confusion surrounding this food item. In the US it would seem that sweetbreads from a pig are the pancreas of an adult animal (the thymus from a piglet being to small to bother with, I guess). Most likely doesn't taste as good as a veal sweetbread, especially if the don't bother to make the effort to only get the organ from female pigs. I really must up grade to Wilfrid version 2.0, this one has started repeating me .