balex

Oh my god all the people who agree with me are gone! That, my friend, be objectivity. Yes but it's a long way from objectivity to a points system. The problem with a points system is that (if I can get slightly technical) is that it is a total order. This means that for any two wines A and B either A is better than B or B is better than A or they are of equal score. Now clearly this is rubbish -- there are often pairs of wines which are not comparable in any meaningful sense. Parker gives Petrus 96 the score of 92 points, and he gives Yquem 1991 91 points. And Lafon Meursault Charmes 96 gets 93 points. So what? so ... the Lafon is better than the Petrus is better than the Yquem? Well we already used the word for this a few posts back. Any system that allows that sort of inference is deeply flawed and objectionable. But I have no problem at all with partial orders -- saying Petrus is better than a jug wine., but not committing to comparing Yquem to Petrus.

I think there are some areas of legitimate disagreement. To be concrete, some people don't like wines with a lot of acidity. I have a good friend who likes German sweet wines, but thought an Yquem he drank was 'too acid'. He doesn't much like Burgundy either. One the other hand I went to a Clive Coates tasting of Grand Puy Lacoste a few weeks ago, and among other things he said that ' Petrus will never be a great wine' largely because it doesn't have enough backbone/acidity. Some people like really concentrated, inky black wines, and some people like more balanced wines that are better with food. You can multiply htese examples as far as you like. We went through this fairly carefully in one of the subjectivity threads before the Purge. Given a set of criteria though, you can make stable(ish) value judgments.

Entree = main course.

In Geneva, and in most of Switzerland I think, they have a good system where you just say how much you want in decilitresl, and they give it to you. So you can have 1,2, 5 or whatever. This is the perfect system. (7.5 dl in a bottle for imperialists). They don't always have carafes in every size.

Fish and chips: I have been a few times recently to Geales in Notting Hill and it is very good, but not completely reliable -- once my batter was a little soggy. Roast beef and yorkshire pudding: I haven't done an exhaustive survey but the best by far of what I have eaten is the Dorchester grill. Big beautiful room, beautifully tender and flavoursome rib (not sirloin which is more trad. but not as good). Not cheap, but I think like sushi, roast beef is one thing where you have to pay your money to get the good stuff

I get the impression from the discussion above that the distinction between a 'ristretto' and a 'short shot' is not one that exists in the average italian bar. Is this distinction something that is widely recognised or is it an American coffee geek term? Question 2: How does this volume of 1 fluid ounce (American rather than Imperial I guess) compare to the actual volumes in normal Southern Italian bars -- e.g. in Rome or Naples? Because there is quite a variation in volume among good bars.

I actually find cacio e pepe very difficult. About half the time the pecorino forms into lumps and doesn't coat the spaghetti properly. I know it all depends on the right amount of water -- I find that if I put in a bit of oil or butter it helps it along a bit, but this detracts from the purity of the dish.

Not to be pedantic or anything, but actually a ristretto shot is not the same as a short shot. Short shots are merely less water through the same grounds as a normal (or long) shot (a shorter brew time in essence). Ristretto shots are made using a different (much finer) grind, resulting in the same volume of espresso as a short shot, using the same (reduced) amount of water as a short shot, but with a full duration pull. So In Italy, when you ask for a ristretto, is that a 'true' ristretto in general? Because I haven't normally noticed them adjusting the grind or using different coffee. Maybe I haven't been looking carefully.

Impressive line up. Madame de Stael said that a man who can speak five languages is worth five men. She didn't talk about someone who can speak only one and two bits though like me

"Sono magnifica" or "sono magnifici"?

Let me rephrase because we don't really disagree. Italy basically had no colonies 100 years ago -- and this might be a contributing factor to its extraordinary insularity. In spite of this you can still find some impact of its limited colonial heritage. Whereas Britain had a whole stack of colonies up until quite recently (1997 for HK) and that combined with our lack of a strong indigenous cuisine is probably what accounts for this general effect being so pronounced here. I think if we look at wine as well we can see an amazing openness to wine from all over the world, fostered by our lack of any wines worth speaking of. (Though someone was sticking up for English sparkling wine the other day). But the striking thing to me, coming back to England after 8 years abroad is the variety of food -- both in terms of range and quality. So I guess we need to narrow it down if we want to make any progress. High-end London restaurant dining would be one option, but I am more interested in what people eat at home -- people who care about food. Are there still any real regional differences? Do gourmets in Scotland eat haggis once a week?

I'm just getting back into Burgundy. It is, I agree, too much work to become an expert yourself -- the solution is to find a really good wine merchant who is a Burgundy specialist, try a few mixed cases to see if your tastes align properly and then just buy what he/she recommends. I think small good producers are the best bet . Big good producers are too expensive because everyone has heard of them.

I think there is a general process here -- European countries (and I guess the same holds true for other parts of the world) tend to have, for obvious reasons, a lot of restaurants serving the cuisine of their former or current colonies. So England has Cantonese food, derived from Hong Kong, and Indian food. We even have some American restaurants.. France has North African and what was French Indochina; Indonesian food in Netherlands etc... Italy's imperial past was too long ago to have any real influence -- in more recent times you have Ethiopia, and sure enough you can find some Ehtiopian restaurants near Termini in Rome and so on.

The only reasonable explanation I have heard is that it is intended (or was intended originally) to stop people skimming the till. If something is just $5, the server in a shop doesn't have to open the till to give change and can easily just pocket the money. If it is $4.95 they have to ring it up to give change.

On the same web site I note they have some wines from Petrolo -- particularly Terre di Galatrona which is pretty good. I bought a bottle from Alastair Little's shop in London (Tavola) -- he recommended it and it was delicious. It has some Merlot and Cabernet in, and is IGT. £100 a case.

I had some very good roast kid on Easter sunday in Rome. It was a 'capretto pasquale' and was a very young milk fed kid. I reckon it must have been the size of a large cat judging from the size of the ribs. Very white and delicate meat; cooked in the oven with garlic potatoes and rosemary. Like milk-fed lamb but milder in flavour.

I think that price is for 12 half bottles, not full bottles.

I ate at Arpege, Ambroisie and Guy Savoy in the past 6 months. (I was living in Paris at the time). They are all very good restaurants --- and you can have great meals at any of them. A brief comparison (lapsing into caricature) Guy Savoy -- very fun food, original and delicious. Excellent sommelier(s). Nice long interesting tasty menus. Maybe the food lacks that final touch of perfection. Quite busy contemporary feel. L' Ambroisie. Very classical and refined. Nice calm rooms off a very beautiful square. Nothing strikingly original but really flawless technique of some classic dishes. L' Arpege. More cutting edge. Very very expensive. (320 Euro tasting menu). Wines very expensive. Almost no meat on the menu. Amazing vegetables and fish. Hope this helps -- have a nice time. I could be a bit more detailed if you want.

Just hot water from the tap. Not boiling water. If you do this with a large Riedel glass it is kind of exciting in a low key way. You do get the feeling it is going to break under the pressure.

Wash. Rinse in cold water. Fill to the brim with hot water. Leave until the outside has dried -- which is quick since they are hot. Pour out the hot water and leave upside down. Voila.

I still feel there's plenty of room for innovation within those guidelines. Ostertag (in Alsace) is a good example of someone who has fallen afoul of the regulations quite seriously. His innovation was definitely considered outside the norm. The norm has now shifted a bit to accomodate him.

I never really doubted that that's possible. I don't know where it gets us, though. It doesn't respond to the question of whether presentation can affect taste. I think we all agree that it can and that it does. I think the arguments about objectivity versus subjectivity of taste have been largely abandoned. The situation is after all rather clear, notwithstanding a certain ambiguity in the use of the word 'taste'.

Well, if you're correct your experts are unique. As I posted above, I work with people who are highly trained at interpreting x-ray films but who wouldn't trust themselves to make objective comparisons between two types of film. (And the human visual system is vastly more sophisticated than the taste system.) Absolutely. But the fact that identification of tastes relies on memory is a reason to distrust it since memories are highly fallible. Secondly, the ability to store taste memories evolved to help make decisions like "is this thing good to eat or will it kill me?" However, the brain will have evolved to use all the data available: taste, smell, shape, colour, where it's growing, etc. I can see no evolutionary reason why an ability to analyze taste independently of other cues should have arisen. Taste memory can operate without visual clues but it will only do so if there are no visual cues. This is borne out by the study cited by lizziee where wine experts were fooled into describing a white wine as tannic by the addition of red dye. Actually I kind of agree with SP here (yikes). I think there probably are people who really can ignore -- or counteract - the distorting effects of preconceptions and other information and just focus on the taste at a quite pure effect. I don't think there are very many of them, and I dont't think they actually work like that much of the time. But there are anecdotes about Robert Parker that seem to indicate that he is quite good at that. And probably there are other examples of freakishly adept piano tuners and so on. I think they are pretty rare -- and I am absolutely sure that only a tiny minority of people who think they have this capability actually do have it. That is one of the conclusions you can draw from the experiments discussed earlier.

Another excellent argument. I slightly preferred the "I spend more money on food and wine than you so I must be right" one, but this one has certain attractions as well for students of rhetoric.

I am a scientist who studies language which is notoriously imprecise. I think you can discuss these things rationally and objectively -- you just have to pretty careful. And of course it is fallible. Objectivity isn't the same as certainty. But there isn't much point in carrying on -- you don't accept philosophical arguments, you don't accept empirical arguments. I suppose I could try vulgar abuse You live in NY right?