Lord Michael Lewis
-
Posts
896 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Lord Michael Lewis
-
-
And if you insist on defining it based on local preferences, and not take into account what is generally accepted as good and/or bad food,
and you insist on relying on the empirical evidence that "it tastes good to us," we clearly will never agree and there is no point continuing.
You're in very deep Plotinki.
I mean; generally accepted by whom? The food intelligentsia?(Not that it makes any difference.)
Generally accepted does not equal true.
You prefer French food. But this is a preference, not proof of superiority. It is arrogant to write off an entire cuisine on the basis of personal preference no matter how widely shared that preference may be and no matter who holds that preference. Food is fundamental and that means we all have a say, not just those who fulfil your nebulous and elitist criteria of being able to hold an opinion.
And yes, there clearly is no point in continuing.
-
There is no connection between beauty and the man on the street thing and anyway hierarchical commitees are more incapable of resolving these kind of questions than this thread could ever be.
Your argument, like these books which I haven't read, starts with the pre-fabricated, and discreditable premise that British food has always been bad or at least well inferior to French. And, magpie-like, you're picking and choosing what is admissible and what isn't to suit this dearly held opinion of yours. So, as well not being in the slightest bit objective you're not even being descriptive. Proscriptive, to use a linguistic term, is the way that you're examining data, if it doesn't support your rigid framework you discard it as wrong. I would also add that this rigid framework is wrought from thin air and your own prejudice and known only to you. So it is very frustrating to debate with you because you're stubborn to the point of stupid and insist on definining and redefining the terms of engagement to suit your agenda and to rubbish everyone else. As I think I mentioned somewhere else, with you it's no the taking part but the vanquishing that attracts.
You may well, as do many, feel, think and believe that British food is inferior to French, but there are also many who don't. And their opinions carry as much weight as yours even if they aren't so dogmatically expressed.
-
Hear, hear Yvonne!
-
I do not know of a single person who isn't English who would say that the food in England is better.
Now is there any real ethnic food that originates from within the British Isles? I would hardly call Scottish or Welsh food ethnic.
Plotinki,
Is that important? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Could you seriously argue that your wife is better than mine?
Why isn't Welsh, Scottish, English or even French food ethnic?
Also somewhere in this thread you concede that good food has always been available at the top end. So how many people need to avail themselves of it to represent a national cuisine of excellence?
Lastly, are you Jim Leff?
-
Sometimes I wonder if these posts are nothing more than a series of objections in order to make the poster keep refining their language so people can act like the basic point of the post isn't clear. It's as if the gist is mired in the the muck of vocabulary. Mind you, the requirement imposed by the objectors to offer language that is of the highest specificty seems to be in direct corrolation to how much they don't want to admit to the basic premise of the post. Now having gotten that off of my chest, let's see, one at a time.
I think this is more a case of a flustered Plotniki being mired in a discussion he knows nothing about save what he's read in one book and his own anecdotage. The putrid rhetoric above heralds the welcome death of a poor argument.
-
This is a post WWII thing. War, social change, rationing, the recovery from what was essentially a seven year blockade, and the logistical impossibility of returning productive land to it's former condition, knocked the stuffing out of our agricultural diversity and island culinary tradition, which although nowhere near as vast in range and sophisticated as the French was every bit as unique.
In fact, if we ignore France and make comparisons with other geographical areas, Britain still comes off pretty well. We have excellent cheeses, excellent meat, excellent fish, excellent fruit and veg and excellent drink. Spam and Marmite are recent usurpers in our cornucopia and besides I don't think I've ever even seen Spam on sale anywhere apart from it's home in the US. But crap food gets served and eaten everywhere and critics who seek to write off Britain as a culinary entity and many British themselves have to overcome the what seems to be the irresistable lure of stale national stereotyping.
-
I think for the purposes of predicition I can identify two broad camps. The first are those that limit themselves and aim for perfection with the materials their earth and culture provide, the second are those that admit anything and play the game of permutations.
Sadly, for me, it's the head turning novelty of synthetic permutaions that seem to be gaining predominance.
-
You surprise me. I mind spending a fortune on a bad meal, regardless of whether it affords an opportunity for erudition. I shouldn't have thought there were "many" people who fit your description. But who knows?
So do I. However, far more space here is dedicated to saying why things don't work than why they do. Although the latter is far more interesting and worthy of attention, it is also a great deal more difficult to do.
-
What I should have said is that there are many who don't mind spending a relative fortune on a bad meal if, in saying why it was bad, it provides an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge.
I find this depressing.
My apologies to all Colombians and their families.
-
A.) Or as I might say it in my own Plotnicki-esque style, does the flame on the stove of a French kitchen burn less brightly these days?
B.) Since I like answering my own questions, (a neurotic Jew thing, it’s the forerunner of talking to yourself)
C.) So do you agree with this? Have I placed French cuisine in a box that it doesn’t deserve to be in? Please don’t hesitate to say so. I can accept that I am wrong.
D.) But until then, please excuse me if I skip dining at the L’Esperances of the world because I know in advance exactly what they are going to serve me, even if I have never eaten there.
Regarding A.) & B.); be careful, coining neologisims from your own surname, like referring to youself in the third person, is the chronic stage that comes after self-answered questions. And is a point of no return for lonely megalomaniacs.
Regarding C.) the French certainly don't think so and I think they're best qualified to answer questions like this. French cuisine is exactly that, it's relevance in global terms is only important to people like you. in France it will no doubt retain it's hegemony for the forseeable future.
Regarding D.) How do you know 'exactly'?
-
Show me a post that you contribute to that hasn't gone off topic. This being a first case in point.
-
I'm sorry you got sucked into LML's prism.
I am curious to know why you feel the need to apologise for my prism sucking activities?
I'd also be interested to know why you feel that Tony Finch, Ruby and Suvir Saran need you to step in and blow the scales from their eyes. From their posts it seems that they are quite able and adult enough to have their own opinions. Really, isn't it time that you that you limited your comments to own opinions and stopped patronising others by pompously imagining yourself as the voice of the right-minded?
-
You seem to believe that there was a past golden age...
No I don't. But there was balance.
Having ambition is okay, but when the goal of that ambition is fame it ruins everything. Why isn't it ambition enough to be very good at and admired for what you do?
A very very few chefs approach artistry. And it's these that the ambitious and pretentious artisans who share their aspirations but not their talent seek to copy. It's also these artisans who form the bulk of named-chefs.
I like my chefs discreet, modest and confident enough to let the food on the plate do all the talking.
Places that correspond to my stringent criteria:
The Merchant House.
Zuberoa.
Michel Bras.
-
Whether there is a place elsewhere where restaurants "bond with earth and culture" is a matter for debate,but make no mistake-they need they need the likes of us and our money
just as much.
Wrong unfortunately. Rural, often family run places are not subject to the huge financial pressures and outlays that metropolitan ventures almost always incur. Why do you think so many London ventures go under?
It's a fickle game and especially so in London, successful chefs are no longer born to it Like the Rouxs, rather they are motivated by ambition and publicity and an ability to play the game well. The net result is that our cuisine is based on vagaries of a fashion concious herd, and not on an expression of cultural heritage. Whilst playing host to many excellent places to eat, London's top end restaurants are now a void of named-chefs, superficial gimmickery and obscene expense.
-
-
I think this is probably true in the great metropolises, which isn't surprising. But there are always restaurants who, far from the pressure of a jaded, often ignorant and wealthy populous, are able to maintain their bonds with earth and culture. And it is from this rich compost that greatness springs not from the the flashy, look-at-me, multi-million $$ businesses of the big cities.
Any chef who uses the terms: theory or vision, should be automatically rejected for playing to the techno-zeitgeist gallery.
Theory = Anything goes no matter how wildly improbable and unpleasant.
Vision = The chef's vision of self as the first to adorn Time magazine.
Of course the reality will be different. Chefs now occupy the archetypal niche of pop-stars for the adoration of the affluent middle-class, middle-aged and middle-educated. A group who seem to feel that, having parted with the annual wages of a Colombian family for a two hour meal, they can then post on e-gullet and say how bad it was.
A really, really sorry state of affairs, but like Doc Frankenstein only they can kill this monster of their own creation.
-
Whether you earn on the wine or on the food and whether one product has been subjected to more processing than another is not really relevant in terms of gross profit. Creditors are blind in this respect.
-
Wine has a unique position in our price-consciousness. The problem is that we know how much it costs in the shops and are able to make comparisons. For some reason many people think that they know what a 'reasonable' mark-up is. Everything we buy is marked up, but no one seems to notice unless it's wine. The next time you have a slice of foie gras, calculate that the 100g serving has cost the restaurant two pounds fifty, if you pay twenty five quid for that dish that's a 1000% mark-up and foie gras is an expensive ingredient. The mark-up on things like pork cheeks is closer to 3000%. So what? If you don't like the prices don't buy it, whether it's food, wine or whatever, but don't be outraged that restaurants want/need to make a profit.
-
It is well to bear in mind that restaurants are primarily businesses, so wine mark-ups shouldn't be so surprising, and in my experience the restaurants who don't mark-up their wine a great deal generally charge over the odds for the food. And with so many restaurants going under, if we want them to tie up up valuable capital in in a cellar offering variety and quality we're going to have to pay for it. Incidentally if you look at food mark-ups they make wine price hikes seem philanthropic. The pizza is a case in point at 2000% but one rarely hears anyone winging about it. Anyway most restaurants will agree a corkage charge if you wish to bring your own wine.
Regarding the palate cleansing sour, as I have said before, it may well be on the Fat Duck menu and may well have got Blumenthal a lot of column inches but it's conception remains that of Ferran Adria. If you want confirmation of this look at the El Bulli web site or his books or ideally go eat in the restaurant but please, in light of your ignorance, stop trying to sound knowledgable. If as you point out we are going to experience a warm jelly and savoury ice-cream revolution it will be Blumenthal's press pleasing dumbing down of the ideas of Adria et al that makes him number one in the crocodile of blind led blind chefs.
-
I have a bottle of genuine Absinthe from Barçelona that is languishing along with a Thai monkey penis eau-de-vie and other tipples with animals in them in my Strange Beverages from around the World cupboard.
My questions are; is it safe and how do I drink it? Will it get me high?
-
The subversive and exclusive nature of this thread seems designed to alienate. I find myself consulting Chowhoud for the first time in ages.
-
Ramsay corresponds to an archetype we have in Britain. Like the androgenous soothsayer present is so many cultures, Ramsay is the Russel Grant of his ilk. We place great value on the work of the tortured artist/artisan especially if he is socially inept. The tempermental is tolerated because of his preternatural skill.
Ramsay is no genius, he is a hard working but bad mannered ex hospital chef who observed Marco Pierre White in action and correctly surmised "I could do that".
If Ramsay was ever any good it was at Aubergine. As soon as the name goes up over the door anything good marches out of it.
-
Maine lobsters are plentiful but not good. Their reputation is based on their hardiness which makes them popular with restauranteurs. The best by miles are hens from the west coast of Ireland these are the ones that end up in the best restaurants and are a quite different variety than their US and Canadian cousins.
-
Neither.
Overused restaurant reviewer words & metaphors
in Restaurant Life
Posted
"Pushing back gastronomic boundaries."