Wilfrid

Tony, I'm not convinced. Chinese, Korean and Japanese cuisines arrived in the States and the UK for reasons other than tourism, and I suspect the same is the case with Thai and Vietnamese cuisines. Certainly, in the latter case, there has been substantial immigration from Vietnam to the west over the last twenty odd years. I don't know anything about Thai immigration, but I'd be surprised if it isn't more to do with that than with holidays to Bangkok. If I'm right, such cuisines catch on when they are discovered in the country to which they've migrated and not in their country of origin.

I will very briefly repeat a point I made yonks back. I've yet to see a good example of a cuisine migrating from one country to another as a result of the experience of tourists. Give me one. Please.

And it makes nonsense of the useful phrase, " like sardines in a can".

I just remembered there was a touch of authentic Puglia (says Root) in that which lurked beneath your lamb chops, Yvonne. What I thought looked like bubble and squeak turned out to be mashed beans with some green leaf mixed in - can't now remember what. A Puglian specialty, apparently.

Fair point. I guess I wouldn't think of Spanish, Greek and Argentinian as ethnic, but I may be in a minority. There are Chilean restaurants?

Convenience for someone Manhattan-based is the only reason I can think of. Arthur Avenue and other Outer Borough locations will appeal more when we cease to be battered by blizzards and storms. I had meant to start the project back in January, but travel intervened.

I hadn't thought about this before, but I must say I think Pan has a very good point. Where I come out, now that I have thought about it, is that "ethnic" generally does mean non-white in this context (the Protestant bit is a red herring). I suspect very few people think of Italian food when they talk of ethnic cuisines, and I'm not convinced German, Austrian, Swedish or Australian food is generally termed "ethnic" either. When it comes to a replacement term, I think we should first ask ourselves whether it's a categorization we want to continue to use. I'm in two minds. The example of "race" records is relevant: no-one would want to revive that, yet "R&B" is still used as a very wide and imprecise term for "black" music (yes, there are a few white artists who would fall into that category, but you get my point). I think "R&B" is considered a useful and non-offensive term. So maybe a synonym for "ethnic" wouldn't be so bad. Steven's non-Western is about the best suggestion yet, and it wouldn't be the first time Australia and New Zealand have been considered part of "the West".

Are you pregnant?

Just kicking off the dust here, I see I ignored Rozrapp's advice by dining at I Trulli on Friday evening. I was accompanied by my Beloved and the Johnsons, who ate lightly - clearly saving themselves for Prune ( ). I'd sampled some of the wine flights, along with passable salume and cheeses, in the Enoteca next door (they also have a wine shop, Vino, right across the street), but had never entered the restaurant. It's surprisingly large - three fairly spacious rooms, decorated in a simply, mock rustic style: tiles, unforgivingly hard chairs. There is a gesture towards the region of Puglia in the restaurant's name and cuisine: I Trulli, I gather from the inestimable Waverley Root, are little beehive-shaped houses, with conical roofs, found in the Puglian countryside. Eggplant is found in much of the region's cooking, although caponata seems to be a Sicilian specialty: I was served a neat turret of chilled caponata with panelle, or chickpea fritters. I expected the fritters to be fried crunchy; they turned out to be two soft, light discs, sandwiching a disc of goat cheese; a sort of savory Oreo. The dish was subtle but good. I tasted some of Yvonne's rabbit pate, and thought it well-flavored; one might even have suspected a wild rabbit was involved. We inserted appetizer-sized pasta dishes. I need to concentrate on what pasta I'm ordering; this was flat stuff, a bit like tagliatelle only wider, served with generous chunks of duck meat. I now see it's called lanache. If the pasta course is supposed to be about the pasta, this was quite unremarkable. I liked the meat. My Beloved was very enthusiastic about her ricotta-stuffed ravioli, and I suppose they tasted good if you like that kind of thing. I chose the roast rabbit because there was talk on the menu of a honey glaze. Didn't notice it. It was just competently roasted domestic rabbit, leg and saddle, with some fairly boring white beans cooked in tomato sauce, and several other unnecessary vegetables. One true Puglian delicacy (According to Root) turned up with dessert. Fichi mandorlati or almond-stuffed figs, served with a glass of moscato. With the savory courses we took a Negresco 2000 - a fruity, quaffable and frankly cheap wine ($28) I'd grown fond of on a previous visit to the Enoteca. As someone who very rarely eats Italian restaurant food (not counting San Domenico which, as I said elsewhere, is really trying to do something else), I took this meal to be a benchmark for slightly above average New York Italian cooking. It was a nice, filling meal, with no excitement or surprises. As this thread rolls on, I'll be interested to see whether I upgrade or downgrade that rating. I think some red sauce next time out.

What could anyone have against room temperature tuna?

Different experiences. My Beloved, a hearty carnivore, gave up meat - it tasted disgusting to her. Weirdest craving, heavily salted passion fruit. Very strong, sharp tastes were popular generally. Anchovies, raw lemons, etc.

Main Entry: pa·tron·ize Pronunciation: 'pA-tr&-"nIz, 'pa- Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): -ized; -iz·ing Date: 1589 1 : to act as patron of : provide aid or support for 2 : to adopt an air of condescension toward : treat haughtily or coolly 3 : to be a frequent or regular customer or client of Number two above. Thanks to Merriam-Webster.

Sounds right to me. I have been drinking various Sierra Nevada beers on draft over the last few months. Their web-site seems to list only their bottled ales - presumably for the mail-order market - but I can assure everyone that the Celebration Ale (6.8 in the bottle) kicks like a mule from the tap. And the IPA (5.6 in the bottle) will give you a buzz.

May your knob never creek, Ron.

My entirely unresearched, instinctive belief has been that a number of the very popular American draft beers, such as Bud, Miller's and Coors, are either slightly weaker or at least not significantly stronger than popular draft British lagers, but that there are many readily available draft American beers which are indeed stronger than those - Sierra Nevada IPA, Sam Adams, etc. Now that may be nonsense, but I'm not sure what we mean by "usual" strength. It would be helpful to have a graph plotted showing comparative strengths of a dozen of so popular US and UK choices, as I expect there's an overlapping range of strengths. Could someone get on that please?

From years ago, I would contend that it was at least better than the Charlotte Street/Rathbone Place ventures, but my memory is fallible. Another slightly better than average Greek taverna was some joint near Exmouth Market. Ring any bells with anyone?

Interesting: the for and against camps seem to be numerically quite balanced - so far as one can tell from this thread.

Now I'm on firm ground.

I'm on tenterhooks now. I rated it pretty highly.

Just beat me to it. This place. It was indeed a cut above the average High Street Greek, but I was probably last there even longer ago than menton1.

Vmilor, there is much interest in such informed contributions (especially if they don't seem to contradict what I've said ). I look forward to reading more.

I just scrolled through the first four pages of this thread again. Essentially, eight members made similar, substantive complaints about Klc's piece (in no order: Laurie, Toby, Ruthcook, Suzanne, Maggie, Retired chef, Stella and Robert Schonfeld); they each put it their own way, but were raising much the same points. No edited journal would have published every one of those contributions, because they are duplicative. Seven members defended Steve, again making similar points about Schrambling's own aggressive style. Dave came out somewhere in the middle, I think, and G. Johnson raised a slightly different issue about the lack of citation in the article. The rest was the usual backchat, much between Fat Bloke (with his fifteen contributions) and Plotz, and more or less successful attempts at humor. Certainly, none of that would have been published by an edited journal. If you reduce this thread to its substance, it may be exemplary for a food web-site, but to suggest it is pioneering new ground in the interaction between writers and their readers is just nuts. Steven, if you didn't waste your rhetoric trying to bolster such a fatuous claim, I wouldn't have to waste my lunch shooting it down. Still, as long as we're keeping Soba out of mischief.

I am surprised you aren't embarrassed to reveal the narrowness of your cultural purview. If by "degree of engagement" you meant word count, then there's nothing to discuss. If eGullet has anything, it's word count. I thought you were making both a quantitative and a qualitative judgment. If so, I only hope someone from the New York Review of Books is looking in and learning something from us. You've also given me a great idea: public gatherings where an author can talk about his book to a large audience of readers, then take questions from the floor for an hour or two.

Why doesn't someone just e-mail her at her web-site to check us out?