Wilfrid

Just had the chance to read Grimes over my tasty deli sandwich, and I see what you mean about the bouillabaisse comment. I have just been reading the French food historian Jean-Francois Revel on the same subject - an austere and rigorous analysis of the dish - and suffice to say that claiming it's a "kitchen sink" dish is a mite contentious.

Yvonne, we posted more or less simultaneously, and your explanations are much better than mine. Blame the Welsh for faggots - good idea. I certainly ate a lot when I was in Bristol, and as the Bristolians had not succeeded in their campaign to make the Severn Bridge one-way, some of these may have come from Wales.

Very similar to crepinettes, although now I come to think they may not always be wrapped in caul. {i}Gayettes I have not come across. Essentially, for those who are still thinking of cigarettes or whatever, we are dealing with quite large meatballs made primarily of mixed, chopped offal. Nice sticky texture, and - in England at least - usually served ina thick brown gravy. I regard these as delicacies, and am certainly not ashamed. I am slightly ashamed of the only burger I will willingly eat from one of the big chains - the Burger King Double Whopper with cheese, which always seems to soak through the bottom half of the bun. I can scarcely enter McDonalds any more, as I find the smell so vile.

The brief write up in this week's New Yorker also said fries. The menu last night said pommes souflees, and I didn't bother to ask about a substitution. I would next time.

I said as an aside in the Deborah thread, that I hope we can get into the habit of posting brief notes on restaurants. The opinions of people on this site, especially as one gets to know their likes and dislikes, are much more useful than the essentially anonymous comments one finds on other sites. Steve P's post on Marseilles is another good example of what I mean. I am not planning to write reviews - I scarcely have time to read them - but here's a note on last night's dinner. I ate in the "bar" between the two dining rooms at Daniel's theater district place. Actually, there isn't a bar as such, just two tall, large, marble-topped communal tables (potentially cramped, but my I was lucky and got some good space). A surpisingly short list of wines by the glass, but eachof them is also available in a useful 25cl measure. I drank a little pot of Daniel's own label Graves, which was fine. I ate the much-hyperbolised burger. The alleged truffle and foie gras filling was pretty muted (and the อ price-tag needs to be muted if the kitchen is soft-pedalling on the luxury ingredients) but it was still a good dish. The contrast in texture, as well as taste, when you get through the crust of charred burger to the soft, deeply flavoured, braised beef filling, is satisfying. Very nice toasted bun, with frisee lettuce (in a light mustardy dressing), tomato, sweet pepper. And it is rich and filling dish - you'd have to be hungry to eat it as part of a three-course meal. Souffleed potatoes are clever, but taste mainly of hot air and oil, and I would substitute fries next time. The service was utterly charming from the greeting to a casual chat with the maitre d' on the way out, and suffice it to say that being incredibly good-looking is no bar to working there (Hi, Claire!). The dining rooms were full, but I had a seamless team of four people waiting on me - in the bar! I had the impression of a high waitstaff to customer ratio. The dining rooms seemed a little noisy, but I'll go back for a full meal some time: the braised dishes looked tempting. (Huh, still too long. I'll have to work on pithiness )

Oh I love faggots, and haven't eaten one in years. Now you're making me homesick (and making all the American readers giggle because they think "faggot" means something else). Now, there's nothing bad about faggots. But the mushy pea sandwich does sound completely disgusting. Random thought: the last faggot I ate may well have been an upscale version at City Rhodes, with foie gras in the middle. And Daniel Boulud thinks his hamburger with foie gras is so smart!

Me too. I must say, I hope more e-gulleters will post notes on restaurants they've visited - not necessarily prolix! Zagat's is pretty useless, and some other sites (City Search, for example, where I see the ubiquitous Mr Shaw is now posting reviews) are unreliable to the extent that the comments are posted by essentially anonymous users. I hadn't heard of Deborah's before, and I now have a pretty good idea what it might be like. More of these revews would be welcome round these parts.

I have never washed a sponge in my life. I throw them away when they get dirty. As has been said elsewhere, there is something about this community which is not representative of the community at large. I would be amazed if cleaning sponges in dishwashers is anything but a very minority pursuit. Maybe I'm wrong.

Well, I certainly get enough pleasure out of beef products to risk the disease. I am unsatisfied with that kind of analysis. We run risks every minute of the day. The question is whether the risks are of any significant magnitude. I mean, I know I have to cross the street every day. I could certainly cut down the number of times I cross the street, and thus dramatically reduce by chances of being killed by a car. But life really can't be lived that way. I do things which are (virtually) infinitely more risky than eating brains all the time. So do all of you. In fact, as I type I am eating some fish from a deli. I am not getting much pleasure out of it, and I am much more likely to choke to death on a fish bone than get cjd. But, heck, I'm brave enough to carry on chomping. (Edited by Wilfrid at 2:17 pm on Jan. 15, 2002)

Hot baked bean sandwiches. Yes, that's a very English thing. Sliced supermarket white bread, right? I used to have lots of habits like that - canned pilchards in tomato sauce sandwiches - but I have to say I've left most of them behind. One that left me behind was Kentucky Fried Chicken family buckets. I used to be able to eat my way through a whole bucket when I lived in the UK, because they came with crisp, skinny McDonalds-type fries. When I tried to repeat the feat in New York, I was offered thick, stodgy home fries, or mashed potato. Just doesn't slip down as well. Another confession would be potato chips generally, and Pringles in particular. I try not to buy them, because the bag/tube, once opened, must be finished. Who makes those garlic fries in the green packs? - they're irresistible.

I tend to have the same reaction to Union Pacific too - maybe I'm ordering wrong. The meal is good enough that I go back from time to time, hoping to have a real eye-opening experience, but I always end up thinking, "Well, that was pretty good." Rocco seems a very nice guy, who is trying hard, so I'm always kind of willing myself to enjoy it more. Odd.

SORRY SORRY SORRY. How did I type 3rd. 383 2nd Avenue between 22nd and 23rd, telephone 725 4165, and it's Arnaud Carre, not Armand. What sloppiness Sandra, if you are talking about the aged French rack of venison, yes it's expensive, but it's like butter. I have rarely eaten better.

How depressing. France without ris de veau. The world has gone mad. Andy Lynes is right about the complete hopelessness of government interventions in these areas. Look at the utterly dopey British ban on beef-on-the-bone. The risks from eating beef-on-the-bone and sweetbreads must be so infinitesimally low that they arguably don't call for government action at all. Governments, however, feel compelled to act, not least because they are worried about law suits if they don't: the simple solution would be to issue posters or leaflets to be displayed at point of sale which would inform the consumer in simple terms what the risks of eating the product are. You could then read the leaflet, throw it in the trash, and go ahead and buy whatever meat (or cheese) you like. You are vastly more likely to die from food poisoning than from cjd.

I'm sure you're right, Bux, and equally I can't imagine someone saying the same after giving up drinking cocktails or spirits. I think the effects of smoking on taste receptors are much longer lasting than the effects of a quick snifter.

St Paul's Minnesota. Dead of winter. Walleye (some kind of white fish) with a sweet pecan crust. I gather it's all the rage in those parts. Disgusting.

Are we at cross purposes here? I find it very hard to believe that sweetbreads are banned in France. What do others say? Bux? I think Adam was trying to make the point that the hypothalamus is not a sweetbread, but is part of the brain. They may have banned brains in France, but again its news to me.

I was introduced to it as long ago as 1978 by my girlfriend at Liverpool University. Very fine pub, and I was pleased to see it (including the lavs) largely unchanged. Thanks for the other tips. I am fond of Liverpool, so I try to get up there every two or three years.

I think I narrowed down the location of "The" French Butcher in my post above :cheesy:

My Life Partner, who is Dominican, likes to par boil just about any kind of meat she plans to roast or bake in the oven. Especially big joints of pork for the party dish perniz. I am always worried that the meat will toughen up if it boils, but it seems to work.

I take your point. I have never seen the term lechecillas before!

Good. let's both shape up and try harder

I suspect there's probably a boring but accurate scientific answer to this question. Unless the cocktail has physiological effects on either the taste receptors on your tongue, or the more complex olfactory receptors in your nasal cavity, which endure while you are eating the meal, there is no reason to claim that the cocktail affects the "palate" ("palate" being a somewhat poetic expression - you do not, of course, actually taste anything with your palate). I suspect the average cocktail has no more than a passing effect on the receptors (a very powerful alcohol might, of course, anaesthetise them for a period), especially if one drinks some water before moving on to the food and wine. And are we being snobbish about cocktails? A glass of champagne or kir before a meal isn't said to impair the palate, although they are going to work on the receptors in just the same way a martini does. The real danger, of course, is getting loaded before you eat, which may still not affect your palate, but is going to have predictable effects on your memory, concentration and judgment. Smoking, I believe, is different. Smoking has a marked anaesthetic effect on the cilia (little hairs in the respiratory) system. I do not know whether tobacco smoke anaesethises taste receptors too, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it did - it's pretty toxic stuff. The anaesthetic effect would doubtless be reversible, but might last a while - until the next cigarette, for instance. Finally, while I don't dispute Bux's point that smokers/drinkers may have good palates, I would raise a sceptical question about how one can tell. Person A may appear to have a better palate than person B, but actually only be much better at describing their experiences than person B. In other words, it is their verbal skill which is better -their palate may be no better or worse. Oof.

Adam's mention of lentils prompted me to mention barley. This can also be cooked in a risotto style, giving big plump grains which pop pleasingly in your mouth.

I can tell you my hypothalamus is disappearing as I get older.

Yes, I too will confess to sausage rolls and pork pies (which in New York you need to buy from Myers of Keswick). Never liked pairing them with beans, though, although my father was prone to stick a pork pie and beans in the microwave occasionally. Oh yes, steak and kidney pies too. In fact, pies generally.