Gavin Jones

Clearly elitist has the same construction as, for example, sexist. It means to disparage or disadvantage someone purely because of membership of an elite. So someone calling Steve P a snob for not eating frozen food is surely an elitist.

More details on the split by income of food consumption in the UK are available here. [i don't think an interest in food in the uk is elitist - but might be seen as 'snobbish' - I do think trends in food consumption are interesting.]

What does the portrait in the attic look like?

It looked not too full in the downstairs on Saturday when I walked past on the way to try to learn to Tango (failed). ('Be strong, like a man' - I had to run). I too have affectionate memories of his way with a pig's foot.

It's not clear to me that b for p & j for k is a big linguistic shift. The assonance in ducking pee will tend to have the edge for me.

Macrosan, have you been watching the Sopranos? Stick with Leonard Rossiter. I will be along to the Player as soon as the FOG is available in London. Like I need help to structure drinking eGulletarianly. Edit: The Player just off Berwick street is open to non-members 5-11pm (as I recall). Even, at the cocktail hour, it's not too packed.

On the other hand Adam & I have posted some statistics which if you put together with the studies of coronary heart disease suggest certain groups (the obese with a diet of lard for example) are likely to live significantly shorter. And this correlates with social class. So if death is bad then one could make a choice... Still nasty, brutish & short - I'm not sure which egulletarian Mr Hobbes had in mind with those words.

On the other hand obesity might be said to represent a certain sort of interest in food. The following is a class split: Obesity among people aged 16 and over: by social class of head of household and gender, 1998 England Percentages Women Men Unskilled manual 31.4 19.3 Semi-skilled manual 27.9 16.3 Skilled manual 26.4 20.4 Skilled non-manual 19.3 16.6 Managerial 19.9 16.2 Professional 15.1 12.0 1 Percentage who had a BMI score of 30 or more, age-standardised to the European standard population. Source: Health Survey for England, Department of Health

I walked past Cafe 21 a few weeks ago - looked like a good menu. Cheap & cheerful is Pani's on High Bridge a notch above the local trattorie with a Sardinian accent.

Many of the issues which have been discussed bear equally well on sex (I think foreshadowed by earlier posters). It involves internal and external experience, a different set of sensual experience to traditional 'high art' experiences. It is an experience which is relatively common - thus posing the question what is the artistic experience. I've been given to understand that it can have a sublime or transcendent component to its experience. It still seems very odd to consider it art. 'Honey, Let's make a masterpiece'.

You will notice that élite is a French word.

Perhaps not unique to Iraq, but notated from the 13thC 'A Baghdad Cookery Book' and sourced from Iraq are a collection of recipes for rotted bread such as the outline for Murri below which Charles Perry discusses (anthologised in 'The Penguin book of Food & Drink'). Essentially kneaded dough is added to flour, salt and moistened. Then left for a while until it turns black, bubbles and settles. The liquid or the condiment may then be eaten, flavoured perhaps with cinnamon or rosewter. For those of you intending to make these at home be aware that rotted grain products contain significant amounts of aflatoxins, which are virulent carcinogens.

I think Lard isn't elitist. But an interest in it would be so regarded. (Plus I always get confused between elitist and 'elitist' as a term of abuse.)

I've heard decent arguments that the Orange was the forbidden fruit. How about one of those fruits that behaves like a vegetable.

As you'll be performing oral archaeology some notes on the significance within the gastronomic history would be great for virtual tourists. And surely food can't be the sole requirement for significance within this context.

Good call, and Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout may be unfailingly recommended for invalids (& nursing mothers).

So essentially the French Revolution (guillotining aristocrats) enabled France to establish an incredibly rigid social system (as described by Flaubert, Zola &c.). The expression of this system through food is the rigidly hierarchical Michelin system which extends down to Les Routiers where garagistes such as myself may humbly dine. Less rigid societies (such as Italy or America - less rigid in different ways) express this in their dining - so if you want a fancy restaurant, without the (French) social codes governing the interaction, they are the model. Cunningly the English with a similarly highly developed class system never got rid of their aristocracy and so the highest expressions of their cuisine is unmitigatedly awful. If only we'd had a more thoroughgoing revolution we'd be eating better. I think I'm saying if we guillotine LML (of at least the first L) we'll all start eating ballotine of foie gras.

It's Italian.

I think traditional accounts of art (aesthetics) tend to divide into two camps 1) Mimetic. The praxitelean account of art where imitation (= the same as) is crucial. Into this category falls 'Trompe L'oeil' food and somewhere such as the restaurant St. John in London. If you order woodcock - it arrives as the bird (denuded of feathers but precious little else). It has a huge historic tradition where such endeavours as the imitation of God and Nature (and emotions) spring to mind. 2) Transformative. Here the key aesthetic category is probably the sublime. Our experience of ourselves in the world is changed by the radical experience of Art. In the 18thC this might be geology (The Alps, A Volcano erupting). Nowadays it may be those restuarants previously identified as FMJD (acronymising an experience where the last words are jaw-dropper). Food & its experience change the participant. I think (potentially) high-end Michelin dining might claim this territory. Certainly the accounts of El Bulli suggest that Ferran Adria might incline to this description of his work.

So this pushes the definition on to 'the beautiful' whatever that may be. It is not clear to me that Art must necessarily gesture towards Beauty. And this definition doesn't include the 'expression of emotions' which we started with - good. I believe there was a time in western Europe when the preparation of food might have been understood to occupy a position in a hierarchy of Arts - and that would have been the middle ages. Clearly also Art may have a variable meaning across cultures - which will stymie any hope of a common definition. Two instances where Food might be construed to have an artistic purpose are with 1. Taillevant and the use of 'Trompe L'oeil' techniques (of which I know nothing) and 2. In the writing of at least Gertrude Stein & Marinetti where the centrality of food in French & Italian cultures is addressed. I would also be interested in consideration of the aesthetics of food from an Ascetic tradition - Food must surely assume huge significance in a culture of self-denial.

As in the gaseous beer-alike widely available? Go drinking in the 'Kitchen' in Belfast & get a proper pint.

Isn't this rather the primal trope of christianity. The early accounts do seem rather written with this in mind...

Wish I had something to add on the tripe front. Just had 1/2 a pheasant simply roasted, with much butter. A few nondescript vegetables. Dessert: Cadbury's creme egg Am trying to explore my religious heritage such as it may be through diet.

I understand American bacon has to go crispy. However back bacon wants a slightly lighter hand on the pan. You want to use the flavoured fat for something else - often something potatoey (like bubble & squeek), or for fried bread. I fry it and let it sit in a hot oven for a bit while I use the fat to add flavour to something bland that will probably need quite a bit of black pepper.

Foie Gras. I have phases. But it's essentially a one-trick pony. So I'm bored now, will look forward to it again in 6 months time - probably. I'm still awaiting the Pasta fatigue that Dottore P assures me will set in. Oh, I also ate woodcock about 3 times in a week around Xmas - not in a tearing hurry to repeat. Probably why there's a game season. ODing on Offal can put me off for a while too.