Wilfrid

Well, thank you for the rock example, which has made it all crystal clear :confused: And I have had quite enough of Mr Steven "Fat Guy" Shaw poking fun at my Global chef knives, without you starting! I think my answer to your question was concealed in my lengthy post somewhere, namely that I think we appreciate food more and have higher expectations, but that the explanation for this has been increased access to good food experiences through vastly wider availability of good ingredients.

I ate canned corned beef hash last week, and caught myself enjoying it. Smells like dog food before it's heated up, and then carries right on looking like dog food.

Now you've lost me Adam, and I'm a philosopher. If we are to say anything about something's innate value, we have to be able to perceive it. So what's the perceived value? No, sorry, completely unintelligible. By the way, I cook pretty neat sweetbreads.

Belatedly picking up on Adam's original post, I first owe him an apology. I said on some other thread that I had read "Consuming Passions". By chance, I came across it in the library on Sunday, and realised I hadn't read it at all. I think I was confusing it with another very good book, specifically on the history of food in London (no, can't remember the title). I will take a look at it once I get done with "Cuisine and Culture" by J.-F. Revel. And let me try to respond to some of Adam's thoughts from a British perspective. The world wars of course had all kinds of effects on British agriculture, and the food economy generally. One example is that milk production was centralised for some years, and small-production artisanal cheeses were lost forever. Some have since been revived - Dorset Blue Vinny for instance - but you'd need a long memory to know how it compares with the original. During the second world war, of course, imported foods became scarce, and - as I'm sure you all know - rationing was introduced. What you may not know is that rationing continued well into the nineteen fifties. So the dark ages of British food lasted at least twice as long as the war itself. Which brings me to Adam's question about the current increase in interest in food. I think a lot of us do now have raised expectations, and I think an important factor in that must be the steadily increasing availability of a wide variety of food products. Growing up in the 1960s, I can tell you that (outside, maybe, of Harrods or specialist retailers in London), you wouldn't have seen camembert in a supermarket, let alone anything more exotic in the way of cheese. Chinese was about the only well-established ethnic food, and we are talking chop suey style (again, outside of Chinatown). A few Indian restauarnts were just starting to open. In the 1970s, the real excitement was generated not by fresh food, but by the increasing availability of domestic freezers! I'm not kidding - being able to freeze food was considered extremely sophisticated. I can remember the first delicatessen opening in my home town (near London) in the early seventies. I bravely went in and persuaded my mother to buy a triangle of Brie. We didn't know whether to eat the white skin or not. In summary, there has been a fantastic learning curve in Britain through the eighties and nineties (and I haven't even mentioned wine, which was a once-a-year thing in my youth), to produce a (dare I say?) middle class relatively well-educated in food and drink. I can't speak about the States first hand, but let me finish with a reference to Rebecca Mead's unspeakably dishonest article on the British food renaissance in the New Yorker last year. She implied that this was a recent thing ("You can even buy goat's cheese in supermarkets," she trilled), whereas, as I have explained, it has been developing over the past twenty years. I would imagine that the development of food interest in the States, outside the major centers, has been equally slow and gradual, and may even be behind the old Brits in some respects.

I endorse the French Butcher recommendation. Armand Carre is the real thing; his father was a butcher too, and passed the skills on. He used to be the inhouse buther at Les Halles, but now has this small store on 3rd Avenue between 22nd and 23rd. Be prepared to wait; he spends a lot of time on each customer. The selection of meat on the premises always includes dry-aged steaks, and good cuts of veal and pork. A few offal items, typically sweetbreads and brains, are available, as well as free range chickens and capons. If you want to eat game or farmed small birds such as quail, you'll have to put in an order. He'll try to find just about anything, and he guarantees the meat is non-frozen. Also, some good sausages (great saucisse seche), and a few French cheeses. And the homemade foie gras he sold me for Christmas was probably the best I've ever eaten. Expensive? Er, yes, very. Oh, and you should also go to Gramercy Fish next door.

Bux, the pancreas is cited in my more recent US Larousse (1984? 1986?). Interestingly, Spanish speakers use the same word for the pancreas/thymus stuff and also for chick or duck gizzards - mollejas. Sort of confirms Adam's point about the vagueness of such terms.

Yes, hangovers and inebriation bring out the worst. I have always enjoyed satisfying alcohol-induced hunger pangs with Chinese food of the greasy, non-authentic kind. You know, chow mein, sweet 'n' sour chicken, etc. And to be really bad, I accompany it with fries rather than rice. In my youth I was known to bring a bag of this stuff home and eat it out of a saucepan, but I am more housetrained now.

That's okay, I'll settle for being correct;). Seriously, a further complication is that upscale restaurants in the States almost always offer veal sweetbreads. Elsewhere - certainly in London - there's a fair chance you'll be offered lamb sweetbreads. In the latter case, I think (though I may be wrong) that the pancreas is more likely to feature. And Dstone001...I have a horrible feeling that you do mean it. Well, I order sweetbreads, and I expect a lot of other people on this site do too. And what is this fancy French name for fish eggs? Oeufs de poisson? Don't tell me it's "caviar", because that's a word which has been in the English language literally for centuries, and its original derivation is Turkish. If you do mean caviar, I would mildly observe that people also eat a lot of fish eggs which aren't caviar, for example shad or cod roe. (Deep sigh)

Being a snobby Londoner, I am always not only pleased but surprised when I get a nice meal out there in the provinces. I had to go to a wedding in Kings Lynn about a year ago. Arriving the evening before, I had a very pleasant dinner at a place called Rococo. They made the most of a great local ingredient, fresh Cromer crab. One more: on a cold, windy night in Liverpool last year, I stumbled out of the Philharmonia pub and accidentally found a very cheerful, modern, new (or new-looking) bistro called 60 Hope Street (the address, of course). Nothing to travel miles for, just good, professionally prepared and served food, in an area where I'd have settled for chips with curry sauce ten years ago. (Edited by Wilfrid at 2:14 pm on Jan. 11, 2002)

I beg to differ. I believe both the pancreas and thymus are correctly referred to as sweetbreads. I could go and look up a reference, I suppose.

I know La Huitiere, but that doesn't sound like a place where the elegant ambience was more interesting than the food. Now, where is Bux when you need him?

I look forward to the new thread. I did read 'Consuming Passions' a while back, and it does a good job of restoring British culinary history - the reputation for gray meat and soggy vegetables really dates from the 1960s and 1970s - although I am sure it hasn't been stamped out. The 'Nobody' book is one of the funniest things I have ever read, so you may have a fun weekend coming up.

Bux, I could probably work out which restaurant this was if I went back and re-read the Lille thread, but in the interests of time, I wonder if you would mind posting the name. I do get to Lille occasionally, and I am a sucker for elegant French ambience. Thanks :) (Edited by Wilfrid at 4:16 pm on Jan. 10, 2002)

Understood. What I really need to do is go and eat there!

I was about to correct m'learned friend Mr Balic and assert that the British became Victorians in 1831, but I was sensible enough to look it up first. 1837 it was, so Meg would be, what? a Georgian. In fact, I am not surprised that the middle classes ate well in the early 1800s. Indeed, I suspect they continued to do so until around 1914. Take a look at a popular Victorian comic novel, Diary of a Nobody by the Grossmith Brothers. It deals with the domestic doings of an only-just-middle-class family - the husband is a bank clerk - and gives some idea of the vast quantities of freshly cooked food they expected to eat every day. I am sure one reason for this was that any British middle class home in the nineteenth century would have had at least one (and often quite a few) domestic servants. Also, obviously, food would have been bought fresh from local, specialist retailers or open markets. British cuisine was of some stature and interest until the vast changes brought on by the two world wars (and I do not have the time to go any further with this promising beginning...!).

Yeah, pressing down. I forgot that too. Just thought I'd mention that, if you're thinking of trying an "exotic" version with carrots or parsnips, you can probably forgo the precooking, as they tend to cook through pretty quickly in the pan.

I just read Steve's reviews for the first time, and my ego had a great time simply because I agreed with so many of them. There are days here (and I'm sure everyone has them) when I am just amazed at which restaurants other members like/dislike, so this was quite a relief. Just a few comments. Beppe - you are so right; what is so interesting about it? Beacon - I ate there only once, and everything tasted like it had been cooked over a boy scout camp fire. I was worried that might have been deliberate, so I haven't been back. March - faint praise, I thought. Certainly not all the dishes (let alone wine pairings) work, but I think it does the cutting edge thing better than Atlas does (or used to), and better than Union Pacific. And good to see I'm not the only e-gulleteer who doesn't hate Le Cirque. As for Eleven Madison Park, I have eaten there regularly, and have the feeling that there was a decline in the intensity and interest of the cooking after the first year. This happens with a lot of restaurants. The room and the service are still big attractions, but whatever happened to the excitement of some of those early menus? I don't have my old notes handy, but I remember fingerling potatoes with black truffles, various pig's feet deconstructions, and dramatic meaty terrines. Finally, Veritas. I asked before and I ask again - isn't Scott Bryan's cooking just a little overrated? I have found the food to be very pleasant, generally pretty straightforward, and I have also had some dishes go unexpectedly wrong. Could it be that the charming ambience and service, and the great wine list, is making this look like one of the best kitchens in New York, whereas it's actually nothing special? Repeated experiments persuade me that there is better food on the table at the plainer Fleur de Sel in the same neighborhood. I used to average ninety new restaurants per year. A new baby has taken about forty per cent off that figure. Steve has given me something to aspire to!

Reading the above with interest, I think a fundamental issue is raised here. But to get to that, can I first clarify something? Steven S. suggested that Craft, ironically, looks back to those former times when just about everything in a restaurant was listed separately on a (usually very long) carte. Delmonico's is an example, but any of us who have looked at historical menus from Diamond Jim Brady days will know what he means. Steve P. proposes that Le Cirque will, on request, do what Craft claims to do - that is, prepare whatever they have in the kitchen in whatever fashion you might reasonably request. But, but, but... First of all, those old, endless cartes, which list everything from herrings to gulls' eggs, to asparagus, to omelettes, usually list many (most?) of those items as being cooked in a particular manner - usually a traditional, French or French-derived manner. So, what you in fact see, are herrings a la moutarde (I'll figure out how to do the accents one day, I promise), asparagus au beurre blanc, omelettes aux fines herbes, and so on. Similarly, although Le Cirque would doubtless prepare you plain boiled sole and mashed potatoes, they would also surely (and their menu pretty much invites it) make you dishes from the classic repertoire. I am sure you could ask for your sole a la meuniere or Bercy and stand a chance of getting what you asked for. My understanding of Craft - like Andy Lynes, I haven't been, but I have peered hard through the windows - is that what's on offer is something pretty basically different from any of the above. How would I fare in Craft if I asked for the ingredients not simply to be grilled or fried, or whatever, but actually to be made into a dish from the recognised culinary repertoire? Which brings me back to the fundamental issue, which is that one, long-established view of what cooking is about is that it is the art of transforming ingredients. Another, I think more recent view, is that it's about leaving them alone. Happily, no rule says that we have to adhere to one school exclusively. I have to say, however - and I think I am agreeing here with what Steve P. says about "soul" - not a term I would use - that it is the ability to dramatically and satisfyingly transform ingredients which makes serious cooking such a great cultural and historical achievement.

Just got back from my trip, vaguely aware that I had not explained everything very well above. Peter Wolf makes a key point - yes, I was suggesting long strands (hence my mention of juliennes. Little grated bits of veg would indeed give you something more like a latke. I also think of rostis as being fairly flat and broad. Pancake style. The beet rosti sounds great. Very interested to hear that the Swiss use cooked potatoes. I have no idea, after all this time, why I started making rostis using raw veg - therefore I can make no claims for the authenticity of that method. Now I'm home, I must remember to cook some of these things!

Incidentally, one of the reasons I haven't been to Craft is that I know my Beloved wouldn't like it (she's from the cook-veg-until-it-dies school), and I had got the impression that it's a bad option for a solo diner because you should order a whole lot of dishes to try. Any second opinions on the latter? Should I go alone or wait until I can make up a party? Is it a good place to dine at the bar?

I generally use butter rather than cream (truffle butter is a nice treat), and certainly never water. I have tried the long and patient method, beating them gently in a bain marie, but all that really achieved was having egg stuck to the bowl instead of the saucepan. I don't recall it making much difference to the eggs. You can also make them in a microwave. Quick, rubbery and disgusting

Ah, details. I grated the vegetables using a grater. Okay, one of those regular, four-sided graters with holes of different sizes you might use for grating cheese. I probably use one of the medium sized holes. You want the shreds to be thin enough that they'll cook through - certainly not thick chips - but you don't want them finely grated - the mush problem again. Does this help? - about the same as if you were making a julienne. You could do it with a knife and patience, and I think I have indeed done so in the past when no grater was available. Drain in a colander. Then a lot of patting with kitchen towels. I don't have one of those salad-drier gadgets. If anyone knows better ways of getting the veg dry, please say. I guess you could toss it in a warm, dry pan to evaporate any liquid - we are talking about the natural liquid from the grated veg of course. (I really am about to leave...)

I haven't been yet, but it sounds like everything would be improved by the addition of heavy, alcoholic, cream and butter-based sauces :cheesy:

Mr Shaw suggested this, and I have time to kick it off just briefly. I not only make a rosti with grated potato (well drained and dried, please, or you end up with mush), but also make very good rostis with carrots, parsnips, and the like. The cooking method seems to bring out their sweetness very vividly. Not much to the method: grate the veg, season, make sure it's dry; press it into a kind of flat pancake shape, then into a sautee pan with oil. Not too much oil, or again you risk mushiness. Then it's a question of patience, waiting for the underside to start to crisp, caramelise and hold together. You need to catch it before it burns; but try to turn it too soon and it'll fall apart. I usually turn it by upending the pan carefully onto a plate, then sliding the rosti back into the pan, uncooked side down. I am sure someone can describe this better than me. I will add one tip, which I suspect is not traditional, but makes it all a bit easier. You can make the rosti bind and hold together by sprinkling a little flower onto it in its grated raw state, and mixing that in with your fingers. Only a little. I am now off on holiday, and expect to read much more interesting and detailed posts about rostis when I get back!

Thanks for the clarifications. It sounds like when I fry leftover potatoes I should probably call them home fries. Not a million miles from Lyonnair potatoes either. And I completely agree about cooking the onions separately; I have spoiled my Lyonnaise potatoes several times by letting the onions get overdone, brown and bitter. I find they generally cook a lot quicker than the spuds.