Gavin Jones

Not just subcontinental. I happily recall the times growing up when my mother was over-enthusiastic with the green dye she used to add to the syllabub.

As above. Premium brands are precisely that, brands. Stolichnaya. Zytnia. Wyborowa. On occasion Finlandia & even Smirnoff Blue (though not recently). And don't even think about it if you're going to piss around with less than 1/2 a bottle, Lightweight.

What, as opposed to the "it wasn't saliva"?

1870 your Balicship.

Stop cheating

Surely 1870 marks the date of the Paris Commune. Where notoriously outstanding cooking was to be had. If you like rat mornay.

Having had lunch in the pub I returned to the upstairs dining room. Narrow room, large windows, church chairs & small tables, the sense of space increased by a big mirror one end - reminded me of the French House. A given that you overlook the glamorous chamber of shipping rather than Dean street. The menu had a variety of mains - veal escalope, grilled tongue, sea bass, a risotto - but what grabbed me was the set menu (£12-50 for 2 courses, 15-50 for 3) with Onglet,chips,aioli as a main - I have complete amnesia as to the other choice. The menu also reminded me of the St. John/French House approach, without the complete lack of compromise that meant when you ordered roast pigeon, you got exactly that, no more & no less. Anyhow having sat down & got a dry sherry (Lustau fino) an amuse turned up. It was roast red pepper and black olive lightly bound in an emulsion sitting in a bit of pancake. Pleasant enough - but amuses bouches in a pub? Gimme a pork scratching. Starter was 'Salt duck & white bean bruschetta'. this was really good, a toasty olive oily bit of bread with a small mountain of cooked white beans squished with good quality olive oil & salt duck pieces sitting on top of some rocket. The main was a lump of onglet cut into pieces to exhibit the exemplary purplish flesh, chips (slightly soggy) and a big lump of unctuous aioli. A little bit of watercress acted dresswise as the thong on the onglet. Outstanding beef - it was chewy but so tasty (and it was quite a thick cut of skirt). Having had an excellent glass of Corbieres I had another & excused it with Manchego with rocket & toasted olive bread. The Manchego was relatively young. I might have preferred an older cheese with a bit of Membrillo, but having powered through the Aioli the thought of Eton Mess (the alternative pudding on the set menu) was too much. A coffee washed down a third glass of Corbieres - and I walked out into a downpour. There are around 30 covers and dinner would be best booked - Lunch seemed fairly quiet. Service was friendly and good though not particularly pro. I'm going back.

Great post.

That's good that a national dish is sweet. I was only coming up with Austria.

What is a butter tart. It sounds like it contains 1. Butter 2. Flour 3. Sugar and as such may be the perfect foodstuff.

That is why it's the national dish. In England we have chicken tikka masala. You have turkey. It is not given to us to choose, just to eat.

Jane Grigson, English Food edit: Pretentious idiot

I would be interested to hear No.1's defend of the Post-Beeton recipe regime - if this can be done in a DMZ. With Indian cooking where the range of spicing and the order of adding the spices is very important it seems to me that precise Beeton type recipes would be very helpful. What level of documentation was there of high-level cooking (I'm guessing a lot)? Levels of documentation was discussed on the French v Chinese thread. I believe the conclusion was that there was a fully annotated tradition (which thoughtlessly the Chinese had failed to translate) - but that might be mis-reading.

I have no wish to rehash tedious old arguments. Sandra's response seemed the most apposite, to me. I am deeply apologetic for commoditisable. However I am sitting next to a leaflet which refers to 'architecturalizing the vision', so I have been led astray, no excuse though. Probably it would have been better for John to have written on 'comprehending German cuisine' - it might have lost any sense of cultural cringe.

So his beurre blanc is not commoditisable. And you are in full agreement with John. Or am I completely misunderstanding you?

Is he a friend of Tommy's?

That's very interesting. I have never tried to freeze cheese. Is the structural transformation due to residual moisture and does it happen in hard cheeses? How about other freezing techniques - liquid nitrogen springs to mind.

Cabrales raised the question on what to bring home from France whether certain Food were freezable? My initial response was that high water content items might suffer degradation of the cellular structure following freezing - and soft fruits are hard to freeze to retain structure. On the other hand instanced articles (Poulet de bresse, Foie Gras) sounded to me (muscly, fatty) as though they might freeze well. Thoughts? Opinions?

I'm on the case, Gordo. I hope bigbear has that right, and you're not G. Gordo. Lippy.

This is I think a really interesting question. Those foods with significant water component will crystallise (i.e. form ice) & in consequence damage cell walls and hence the gastronomic quality of the food. I would have thought with both Poulet de Bresse (mostly muscle) and foie gras lobes (mostly fat) that there would be very little potential structural damage to the flesh - and hence that freezing should be a perfectly sensibele approach to the transport. I wonder whether veins in the lobes are likely to split as a result of freezing. On the other hand there is Markman's sad experience with a ripe Pont L'eveque which redistributed itself over a suitcase of John Smedley knitwear as a consequence of uncontrolled pressure changes en route...

Catherine Deneuve. Sorry meant to write cheese.

Steve, I spent some time in Northern Ireland associating with people who'd grown up on small farms - typically with a significant Beef component. I would ponce around in my London way suggesting rare might be better & even on occasion managed to persuade people to consider (past genuine disgust) that "uncooked" meat might be better than "properly" cooked meat. Never a one. This was a place where if you went to the local butcher he would name the animal that you were buying off. I still prefer my beef rare but I would now hesitate to force this upon people who had participated a whole lot more in the entire life-cycle of an animal than I aspired to. And these were people who would drive 15 miles to get the best carrots - no messing they wanted the best food.

Thankyou Steve, very informative. I have drunk Ch. de Beaucastel & Vieux Telegraphe (CNdP) from 1994 and 1995 and strike me as having enough bottle age (but still quite a bit of life in them). Cote Rotie & Cornas really do seem to me to need quite a while (10+ years) to fully integrate & for the syrah to open out. Not that the sensation of licking leather isn't pleasurable, but I like to participate in that separately from wine drinking. It seems it was hard to make a terrible wine from 1998-2000 in the Rhone and some of the lighter wines are delicious at small small prices. e.g. Domaine des Grands Bois2000 Cotes du Rhone at £5 was a gorgeous wine. Also St. Cosme.

Do you dine frequently at, err, Hooters?.

In my youth I ran a small poetry burning society. I think that was essentially this thread. Alternatively one might have viewed it as an additional edit.