Wilfrid

Indeed. Pigeon de Bresse, stuffed cabbage a l'Ancienne, all kinds of clever seafood dishes, an unaffordable vertical of The Grange. Then suddenly it was pasta, a one-page wine list, and gentlemen of a certain age blowing cigarette smoke over their inebriated female companions.

One drawback with horse meat is that it can be very tough. At it's best, it's fairly chewy. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have eaten it raw (tartare) in Barcelona, where - as in France and Belgium - they have specialist horse butchers. Aix, do you know a little family-owned restaurant in Brussels which specializes in horse meat - Au Brabancon? Curious little place, decorated with oil paintings of jolly-looking horses, which serves many different cuts. The owner looked about ninety-nine years old, and very unwell, when I was last there, and I was concerned it might not survive her passing.

I remember liking the cheese. Well, I'm glad you managed to have a good evening despite my absence. Actually, I'm relieved that my excellent experience there wasn't a one-off. Shame the pork wasn't available - it was a winter special, I think. I remember eating pigeon de Bresse at Quo Vadis when Marco first re-opened the place and it was, all too briefly, a very good restaurant.

Not every one, but there are many magazines and newspapers with a whole raft of book/music/art/etc critics (mainly freelance, of course). I can't think of any with a bunch of food critics, but I may be overlooking examples.

Before I forget, I just wanted to cite this remark by Steve, because it goes to the heart of matters: "As to why certain cuisines turned out the way they did, who cares? Yes it is interesting to discuss as a matter of anthropology, but what does that have to do with reviewing whether the food tastes good?" Nothing at all. But consider this: As to whether certain cuisines are represented at the French-style four (three) star dining level, who cares? Yes, it's interesting to discuss how they might be adapted for that market, but what does that have to do with reviewing whether the food tastes good? That's my position. The anthropology and sociology which gets trotted out on these threads is usually a response either to (1) the implication that certain cuisines are crap because they are not being offered in an haute cuisine setting, or (2) silly theories about why cuisines are the way they are. The four (three) star dining world is a rarified little world with a special market - consisting of both informed and uninformed diners. The truth is, very little French food is served at those restaurants - although the cuisine which is served, and the style of service, has a French derivation. Finding out whether fish and chips is on the menu at L'Arpege doesn't tell you whether fish and chips tastes good or not.

I love mackerel. But I think the difficulty for a reviewer surely kicks in when they really don't like sushi. At all. Or even Japanese food. There are some striking disanalogies here between food writing and other kinds of criticism. The 'Sight and Sound' policy makes some kind of sense to me, but it's unusual. Most magazine reviewing films, books or music will be staffed by critics with very strong preferences, which they don't hesitate to make clear in their reviews. And editors generally don't give every book by Salman Rushdie to a reviewer who loves Rushdie - or the opposite. A good editor tries to balance out the coverage between sympathetic or unsympathetic, but there are editors out there who decide that an author/director/whatever is overdue for a bashing, and assign someone they know hates their work. Seems to be quite different for food/restaurant reviewers, right Steven. Maybe it's because - unlike literature or music - there aren't magazines out there with twenty or thirty different restaurant critics. It behoves them, therefore, to employ writers with catholic tastes in food who can be even-handed among cuisines despite their personal tastes. It's really not like that in other areas of criticism.

Hmm. Guess I just haven't had a good one. Edit: you have to type "quote", "qupte" is no good.

cdh, I think I misunderstood you - sorry. Steve, I don't ask you to like pork. You're just wrong about the different quality of ingredients on each side of the Rhine. I wonder if the produce in Alsace got better and worse depending on whether it was part of France or Germany? I guess one main difference of opinion between us is that you think something like gefilte fish fails to penetrate markets because of a fact about its taste or texture. To me that seems crazy, because other markets love their own coarse-ground food, and other foods of which you disapprove. It seems obvious to me that something like gefilte fish doesn't have the cachet that quennelles de brochet do for historical and cultural reasons. If Jews had invented the restaurant things might be different.

Poached a pair of roe in rose wine with a mire poix. Served one hot, with the wine reduced to make a simple pan sauce. Ate the other cold the next day, sliced like a superior fish sausage over a salad.

Pommes Parmentier - parboil cubed potatoes, drain well and fry in duck fat until golden. Season and garnish with chopped parsley.

No, cdh, because that would mean Dutch people would have a problem appreciating non-Dutch food too, which they clearly don't. Steve, German pork is superb. I can't remember any pork in France of comparable quality. You're missing so much. And is it possible that someone might prefer a coarse ground meat or fish product to one as smooth as a baby's ass?

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I think it's on the view that the "objective" taste on the plate is all that matters when it comes to something tasting good, they'd all agree. Of course in real life they wouldn't, and I also agree that you could educate them from here to eternity, and still they might not agree.

I must be misunderstanding all of those. Are you saying that French cuisine uses much the same ingredients as Belgian cuisine? Are you saying there's a radical difference in the quality of the produce between Holland Belgium? Are you saying you can't get sauerkraut garnished with pork products in Germany? Are you saying the overall quality of German pork is inferior? I think I'l go and lie down.

So, when a Jewish person eats quennelles in a French restaurant, they really enjoy it because it tastes good, but when they eat gefilte fish in a Jewish restaurant, they enjoy it - despite it tasting bad - because they appreciate the cultural context? It's much the same with me and lamb stew. I love navarin d'agneau, but when I eat Lancashire Hot Pot, it's not the flavor I appreciate - it's the memory of all those epsiodes of Coronation Street.

Yvonne, you're right, and I'm compelled to be boring and logical about this. If that view were to be taken literally, you should be able to bring four adults together, from different, far flung parts of the globe, serve them a variety of dishes, and have them all agree which is the best. Now, the response might be that if you gave my hypothetical diners an education in what they were eating, then - assuming their palates are functioning fine - they would end up in agreement. But what you are teaching them is a set of critical standards, and critical standards are socially derived. The physics and chemistry of what's on the plate is the same, education or no education.

Gold raved over L'Impero. I can't see it myself. I think the thread Robert Schonfeld started here got it right.

No it isn't. Yassa is one dish, but the cuisine is not based on stews, simple or otherwise. Okay, answer me this. How do you account for people who like both the kind of food you recognize as good, and also the food which you think is bad. Separate neural pathways? Split personalities? There are plenty of such people on this site, but to de-personalize it, how about the millions of Dutch people who enjoy both French food and Dutch food. Or, maybe a better example, how about the many people in Belgium who pretty much split their diet between French-derived Belgian food and Flemish food. I am assuming you think Flenish food sucks, although whether you believe it to be based on simple stews remains to be seen.

Perhaps we should have threads on Dutch and German cuisines so we can point out their merits. I believe I share many of Steve's preferences, and I enjoy arguing with him, but it is a little stifling to find every cuisine raised here for discussion - Senegalese, Tibetan, Indian, Dutch - dismissed with a "that sucks".

And I was thinking there was no such thing as gross food. I did once find a maggot in a soft French cheese - a St Marcellin I thin - which I had left out of the refrigerator on a warm day. I presumed that was a very bad thing and threw the cheese away. Should I have relished it as a delicacy? P.S. Yes, I would advise doing any kind of search using those sorts of terms, Adam.

What happened, Steve? You are scraping the barrel of plausibility this week. The Dutch don't know what "tastes good" means? I suppose the Russians don't have a word for "freedom" either. We are not talking about a backwater, but a highly educated, cosmopolitan nation, close to the heart of Europe. The average Dutch person is going to be very familiar with the differences between French, Belgian and Dutch cuisines, so the idea they can't "tell" the difference is beneath consideration. They don't "care" about the difference? That may just be another way of saying they know the difference, but continue to affirm their preferences. "Tastes good" is a vacuous phrase - by which I mean literally vacuous, it has no content. Big Macs "taste good" to millions. What you actually have is a very wide global variety of cuisines, each with their own standards of merit. There may be no food in Holland you like, but I guarantee there will be badly prepared Dutch food and well prepared Dutch food. Part of what it is to understand an unfamiliar cuisine* is to get a feel for those standards - preferably, I'm convinced, by experiencing the food, and meeting and sharing it with the people who eat it; otherwise by reading and learning. *Just flagging up the relevance here.

Sounds good. Any idea where?

And cheese melted over smoked haddock is comforting. Mild cheese, indeed, and not too much. Isn't there cheese in coquilles St Jacques?

If not City Island, are there other good destinations for seafood? Or should I go back and find ahr's fried clam thread?

Double nonsense, Steve. The Dutch are a very well-travelled people, and if you look at a map you will find that Holland pretty damn close to Belgium and France. The Dutch know the options perfectly well, and there is no problem sourcing the same ingredients as are used in Belgium and France. So, "they don't know the difference" is false. Try to find a Dutch person who can't tell the difference between Belgian and Dutch food. If the following statement is true: "An understanding of a culture and their traditions does not make anything taste any better or worse. Taste is a function of quality and proficency of preparation. A standard that has no borders and sees through race and religion" there must be an explanation of why different cultures around the world have such different food preferences. I look forward to learning what it is. And I think that is very relevant to the issue of approaching an unfamiliar cuisine. Why do unfamiliar cuisines even exist?

No it doesn't. It's dark red and quite pungent. The horse tartare at Ateneu Gastronomic in Barcelona gives you a good feel for the meat. Also readily available in butchers and restaurants in Brussels and in northern French cities like Boulogne and Lille. Recommended. But I bet Flipper tastes like chicken.