balex

Because we know that truffles have a strong taste/smell. And it would be easy to verify this -- scientifically. We know that the human sensory apparatus is capable of detecting that smell. At the moment we do not know that the human sensory apparatus can detect whatever effect the magnet has. If someone says it is raining, I'll take his word for it. If he says aliens have invaded, I might just go and have a look out of the window before I believe him. Particularly if he is a complete stranger trying to sell me anti-alien ray guns made out of magnets.

I don't really understand -- the situation is no different from perceptual testing in any other domain -- for example audio. Take the example of CD players. There is a well understood methodology -- most consumer testing does not follow this methodology at all and is thus worthless. If you take two identical players, and put them in different boxes, experts invariably say there is a difference. You need to control for this effect, which you can do quite easily. As regards keeping variables constant -- how about testing drugs on humans?: there are millions of uncontrolled variables, but you take a large sample and they will average out. I'd be interested to hear whether anyone has any plans to perform a test in a slightly more controlled way. sammy: we know that people often perceive differences that aren't there, particularly when they are primed to expect a difference. There is also a social pressure. ( so ... balex is the only one that can't tell the difference -- it must be a problem with his palate ....). If you want to find out whether the perceived difference (and people DO seem to perceive a difference) is because of a change in the wine, or a change in the perceptions or expectations of the taster then you need to be a little bit scientific. As to why we single out thewineclip .... well he came here, he has a financial interest in it, and he's making a very radical claim.

The standard phrase is 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'. I personally am rather sceptical about, for example, the taste of particular sea salts being recognisable after cooking, but intrinsically it is a reasonable claim since we know that there are chemical differences, and we know that taste is chemically based. Similarly the use of e.g. copper in saucapans is in accordance with well-known scientific principles about conductivity. This wineclip is intrinsically unreasonable -- not impossible, but extraordinary.

I think it depends on what the test attempts to prove. Maybe a subjective and anecdotal positive test of the clip is actually more than sufficient to validate its efficacy - in a subjective sense. If I perceive a difference in my subjective experience of the taste of wine when using the clip, does it really matter an iota whether that perception is, scientifically speaking, illusory? There are two questions: does the wine clip cause a real change in the wine? is that wine change perceptible by expert (or even non-experts)? There is then a third question: does it improve the wine or make it worse? The first two questions are perfectly reasonable empirical questions that can be answered using a controlled scientific procedure of a standard type. The third is a subjective question, to be answered after the first two -- i.e. not just yet. In any event, thewineclip appears to have conceded that there is no real effect, or that he is not interested in whether there is a real effect, so I am slightly losing interest in the argument. These debates have been discussed at length by high-end audio types; a lot comes down to very fine details of how the tests are conducted. As to whether it matters whether the perception is illusory - well it matters $79 or $99 or whatever the current price is. You can make your own wine clip yourself for $1, as long as you don't care whether it works or not.

Let me just lay out how things will unfold from here on in: some people will say it changes the wine; some sceptics will ask for clarification of how the test was conducted, and then conclude that it was meaningless. A flame war will then follow for about 2 days. Then some people will do a better test (proper double blind ABX style test) which will not show an effect. The sceptics will conclude that it is all snake oil, but many people will think that there must really be something behind it all.

The Oriental at the Dorchester is a good bet too -- very good service, good but very traditional food, they used to have some of the really expensive shark's fin, if you like that sort of thing. Good duck as well. I haven't been for a couple of years, though so you might want to get a second opinion.

Farr vintners has Ch. Margaux 1966 in magnums for £1350 a case. So it's a fairly steep markup (say £150 pounds a bottle wholesale) to £800 a bottle. That said, with older wines, there is always a risk that it is dead, and a good restaurant will take it back. (Some restaurants explicitly disclaim responsibility for older wine -- was that the case?). It's a difficult situation -- my hunch is that is you ordered Ch. Margaux from a recent year ('95?) initially, then they probably assumed you were an expert and might be interested in the '66, and assumed you would know the price ratio. That is the most charitable explanation. Did they tell you the price at any time ? Did you have a wine list in your hand at the time? If not, then it is a bit cheeky. I have acquiesced in suggestions from sommeliers without checking the price, and they have always been more or less the same 'ballpark' as the original.

The advantage of making the stock is that with one cooking session you can produce enough stock for several soups, risottos and sauces. I am interested in your recipe though -- do you find that the flavour of the leek and potato survives after such long cooking? I tend to cook it only for 15 minutes or so, to get a nice light flavour. Are there any noticeable changes in the flavour or the texture compared to the shorter cooking?

This is not a good way to test the device because you are changing three variables together -- pouring it first, tasting it first, and using the clip. If you don't use the wine clip, you might also notice a difference between the two glasses -- one will have had a bit longer to breathe, be at a slightly different temperature etc. You should flip a coin to decide whether to use the wine clip first, and flip another coin to decide which one to taste. Not that it really matters ....

I have to confess I was extremely doubtful about the canned asparagus, but this morning I was in Garcia brothers on the Portobello Road (London), and I bought some of these big canned white asparagus (and some pimientos del piquillo), to see what they are like. I also bought some jamon iberico and a half-bottle of sherry because I like to do things properly. The asparagus were really quite good -- I was very pleasantly surprised. Excellent flavour; the tips are a little mushy for my taste, but well worth it. These ones were not that big, they were only about 1cm in diameter. I have always been a big fan of canned tuna, especially the belly. I am summoning up the courage to try some of the clams, and other things. By the way, for any of our English members, in the event that you don't already know about this place, it's a fine shop. Anyway, it's very nice to find out that my prejudices were wrong -- I think these cojonudos will probably be a staple of my store cupboard.

If you can put up with the annoying decor, beautiful and incompetent waiters and waitresses and B-list celebs, then Hakkasan has very good dim sum. A notch (or two) above my last Royal China (Queensway) session -- and only about twice as expensive.

I completely disagree. I like the pasta at la Rosetta -- but only the pasta asciutta, the fresh pasta is a bit indifferent. In particular I thought the dish mentioned above -- which when I had it last year was with scampi not shrimp, was very good. The sharpness of the pecorino worked very well with the sweetness of the scampi. Perhaps it's not so good with shrimp. Some people of course don't like pasta. (pulling on my flameproof underwear ). I agree about the antipasti (stellar) and the service (mediocre and not particularly friendly).

Thanks for the information; sometimes I think I will never really understand Burgundy. I'll post a tasting note when I drink some of it.

I have some wine I bought about 10 years ago that is an Echezeaux 1985. On the label it says produit vinifie' eleve' et mis en bouteille par Henri Jayer and then underneath in smaller writing Georges Jayer Proprietaire a Vosne Rosmanee. My question: what exactly is this wine? I think that Henri Jayer owns some land in Ech., as does his elder brother Georges. This, I assume, is the parcel owned by Georges: is there a substantial difference in quality and or price between the two wines? Which is this? Any Burgundy experts out there? Claude?

I had an excellent lunch at Assaggi in Chepstow Road. Above a pub, it has a rather infomal echoey dining room with pseudo-Rothkos on the wall. It's very small with only about 12 tables, and I think it is very difficult to get a table for dinner. excellent carta di musica and foccaccia to start off with, replenished several times We both had a special antipasto boiled octopus, a few potatoes and some sliced runner beans which was excellent but slightly too soft, we agreed as we polished off the last bits. tortelloni with sage and butter filled with a cheesey filling with a touch of gorgonzola sfolgiatina di pesce: a sort of lasgne with a non-creamy filling of pureed fish Both of these were excellent; but they only had 3 primi all made with fresh pasta, which I thought was a bit weird. I was really enjoying this so I ordered a secondo of a fritto misto di mare, with squid, red mullet, large prawns, and a few deep fried leaves of rocket and radicchio on top. Again very good. Only flaw in the meal was some tasteless tomatoes in the salad of rocket and tomato that my companion had. Finally a delicious panna cotta, and an excellent espresso. Very friendly and efficient service; I liked that you could order your secondo after the primo in the Italian way. Kind of boring wine list: we had a Fiano d'Avellino by Feudi San Gregorio that was delicious. £50 a person which seemed quite reasonable for this sort of food. I haven't been to many Italian restaurants in England, so I can't really compare, but by Italian standards it was good to very good.

I think this is the key point: when I lived in Rome, it was very easy to follow that rule -- and indeed given the provincialism of Italian consumers, this was clearly the best way to get the best food. But in England this rule means no olive oil ever, and living on potatoes carrots and apples for 4 months of the year. For me the argument in favour of localism is not an ideological one, but just a practical one -- if you want fresh vegetables, eggs and fish you should try to source them locally. But I have no urge to buy locally those products where freshness is not an issue -- beef, cheese, honey or whatever.

Is this the same as Australian bush pepper? Inspired by this thread I went and scored some Szechuan peppercorns from the Spice shop just off Portobello road in London; I tasted a bit of the pepper with the owner (I guess?) and we agreed about the numbing effect. He then recommended this "Australian bush pepper" which is a ground up leaf and has a delayed burn. But I didn't get any.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Fidelity to traditional European recipes carries with it the acknowledgment of many differences that might seem less than significant to an outside observer -- an observer who would in turn be viewed as crass, arrogant, and uncaring by those who have developed the traditions that are being dismissed. This has traditionally been a fundamental point of disagreement between Old World and New World culinary thinking. If you make risotto with a highly extracted brown stock produced in the manner prescribed in this lesson, you will not be making something that most traditionally oriented Italian cooks would acknowledge as risotto. You may, however, be making a delicious rice dish that will be viewed as risotto by everybody else in the world. Whether or not you choose to call it risotto or believe it is risotto is less of a cooking question than a socio-cultural one. At the same time, the beauty of the blank-slate stock is that you can fake your way through just about anything with it. For example, if you want to make a brodo (broth) similar to what real Milanese risotto cooks use, what you can do is mix half-and-half meat and poultry stock and water it down to a weaker level of concentration. This will produce an amazingly convincing fake -- good enough to fool my friends from Venice if not the ones from Milan. My understanding is that there is quite a difference between Italian and French stock making. Italian stock (brodo or broth) is made with a high proportion of meat -- to the extent that if you go into a butcher and say you want to make some broth, you will probably have a few chunks of meat and some beef on the bone. French stock though can (or should?) be made with just bones and the few scraps of meat clinging to it. Italian broth is therefore only cooked for a few hours -- since there are no bones, all the flavour will have come out in the first few hours anyway. And it is nice to drink as it is with just some pastini. I think when you make broth in the French way, you start with stock and then simmer meat in it ; only then would you have the stock as is. I guess the stocks we are seeing here are somewhat in the middle.

Does anyone here like Barolo chinato? I have tried several times to enjoy this; I persevered, I showed real grit but I was defeated. And I love amari and Campari etc.

There is a link to a free copy of this article in my post further up the board.

In Britain, esp. Scotland which is where the best beef here comes from, and in Italy the best beef (or what is generally considered to be the best beef) is generally grass-fed. It tends to be leaner than grain-fed beef, but allegedly has better flavour. Here is a link to an article (originally from the New York Times) about this: NYTimes article

Horrible, trendy, and thoroughly indigestible; not fit for human consumption. Is samphire the same as the Italian vegetable 'agretti' a.k.a. 'barba di San Giuseppe'?

There seem to be some extreme positions in the use of technology in wine-making. One one hand you have people like Gravner in Friuli who are experimenting with very primitive techniques and on the other hand you have people using chemical analysis (like Enologix) to optimise the presence of flavour elements that will lead to high scores in influential publications. What's your view on the two extremes -- do you think it is worth pushing the boundaries at both ends or do you feel it's pointless? Do you like the resulting wines? More radically, what do you think the future holds in terms of technology in the long term for winemakers? Do you think additions of synthetic flavors, or naturally extracted flavors will ever be widely accepted in wine? Some winemakers admit to the use of oak chips in a bag; there is probably some other stuff going on that isn't admitted to. What about genetically modifed grapes? This is all still science fiction but these days, science fiction can turn into reality pretty fast. I'd be interested to hear whether wine makers are thinking about this or whether they are still debating synthetic corks

In my opinion, the last great value vintage was 1999. Well made wines, very forward. The distributors in this part of the country (Washington, DC) dumped these wines on the market at 50% markdowns to make room for the 2000s. 99 is wine to drink now. bouncy and complex if fresh. the mouton rothschild i especially liked The 89s are delicious at the moment. I drank a Leoville Barton yesterday that was exactly how I like my claret. First bottle of some cases I bought soon after release -- it's nice when that long term planning pays off.

I read an American salad cookbook when I was staying in a rented house in Italy a few years which had a recipe for a hot sausage and potato salad. As far as I can reconstruct it had slices of frankfurters and boiled potatoes in a mustardy sauce, served hot. To this day I can't work out why it is considered a salad.