Lord Michael Lewis
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Posts posted by Lord Michael Lewis
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I assume most contributors to this thread will have been following the Fegus Henderson's Q&A.
Does anyone else find him frustratingly taciturn, or is just me?
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To what extent are you influenced by 'Molecular Gastronomy'?
Why/why not?
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All fine ideas, as they do go especially well with asparagus and spring onions. I would however warn against sauteing in oil; it's too agressive. Butter is better due to its high water content that ensures it doesn't get really hot. Morels should really be 'stewed' in butter, and then used for whatever. The excess butterfat can be tipped away and the juices reduced and added back to the morels.
For something a bit different try lining a terrine with thinly sliced pancetta (Iberico, if possible) and then filling it with finely sliced waxy potatoes tossed in the butter from the stewed morels and a few layers of the morels themselves. Fold the pancetta over the top and cook in a bain-marie for an hour or so at 180ºC or until the potatoes are soft. Remove and weight down the terrine overnight. The next day you can eat it cold or saute slices in a little butter. Sauted, the terrine makes an excellent garnish for good beef.
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Are you familiar with any penis dishes? I'm thinking of serving something along these lines, but can't seem to find any recipes. I've done a Google search, but it only returned results for raw ones.
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If one accepts there is a culinary 'then' and 'now', what of the future? Do you envision a trend of even greater pursuit of the culinarily improbable, or will chefs eventually reach an impasse and return to 'Go'. Or, alternatively, is all good cuisine (no matter how much it reflects the gastronomic zeitgeist), based on the same constants?
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your comparison between chefs and CEOs is intriguing. I would question whether ruthlessness, intransigence and elephantiasis of the ego are quite so essential to the success of a restaurant, at least on a modest scale;
I can assure you that they are.
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Looks great , but is it Tortilla de Patata?
In Spain there are popular competitions, in which each contestant is provided with the ingredients: Potatoes, Eggs, Salt & Oil, and the means with which to cook them. The tortillas are then judged by a panel of 'experts' who decide on a winner.
The most interesting part of this process is the wide variation there can be between tortillas when considering the relatively limited variables.
This, for me, is what cooking is all about.
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One could always try reading the review and making one's own judgement based on the information therein.
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That's what I love about this place. There's always someone who can be counted on to announce the bleedin' obvious.
What I love about this place is that you can become involved in dialogue with folk of the type to whom one wouldn't normally give the time of day.
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The enthusiasm here for 'Posh Nosh' is ironic, seeing as they're taking the piss out of us.
True, but does this matter?
Not to me.
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The enthusiasm here for 'Posh Nosh' is ironic, seeing as they're taking the piss out of us.
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TV: An undeniable part of the social impact of food in the last 20 years has been via TV - should I pay a pilgrimage to Fifteen (Jamie Oliver's restaurant), or try and get in the studio audience of 'Ready Steady Cook'?
The studio audience of "Ready Steady Cook" are always saddened to learn that health regulations prevent them from sampling the food.
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Naturally one has sympathy for Loiseau, one of my favourite food books is his 'Trucs, Asuces et Tours de Main',and his Cuisine de l'Eau has been highly influential, even on those who have possibly never heard of him. However, many people live under pressure and any creative endeavour set before the public invites criticism. Loiseau's work was no different. It would be fallacious to suggest that the guides somehow had a hand in his death. No, Loiseau killed Loiseau.
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And if someone asks me for an "extra-large skinny double espresso shot cappuccino with marshmallows" I will simply tell them to get a life.
Wouldn't -- Fuck off! -- be more satisfying?
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When talking about food it's easy to articulate the processes of preparation. But when it comes to saying what something tastes like or why it tastes as it does (good or bad), language lets us down. Life is not experienced on a linguistic level, indeed we don't actually smell or taste or even 'think' in words or sentences. Poets have for millenia sought, often vainly, to linguistically encode experience, and let's not forget that similie (isn't this what is actually under discussion) and metaphor are sometimes the only way to do this.
However, I agree when Fat Guy says; "metaphors don't work unless we're all referring to a common pool of experience and understanding". But at the same time we're often speaking of experiences outside that pool and thus the more workaday similie is not up to the job. This kind of expression involves sticking one's neck out as metaphors/similies/analogies become ever more esoteric. In the long run though it's worth it. When I write, I seek precision from the words I use, this means that I will reject metaphors/similies/analogies that don't express what I wish to say. It's preferable to communicate an idea clearly, albeit to a limited audience, than to say an inaccuracy to allow the listener the semblence of understanding. No doubt this sounds contradictory, probably because it is; often, comparing food to artistic endeavours appears pretentious and ambiguous, but I think it's clear too, when it is well intentioned.
Metaphors/similies/analogies are not an opportunity to pointlessly show off erudition. However, one does owe it to oneself to marshall every scrap of information at one's disposal if one wishes to communicate with any degree of precision.
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Who knows, but the Cornish Pasty is almost certainly a more recent Spanish loan-dish.
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Paradors in my experience tend to have much better restaurants than other hotels. The menu tends to be representative of the cuisine found in the area where the parador is situated, so they are often very good places to sample local dishes as well as local wines
Paradors are supposed to serve the cuisine of their region. I've stayed in a fair few though, and I've generally found them to really, really awful. Apparently, the kitchen staff are funcionarios, or civil servants employed by the state. This means that they can only be sacked for very serious reasons, i.e. not for being bad cooks.
Sleep at Paradors by all means, but avoid meals whenever possible.
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Matthew, you're absolutely right - Monmouth serves better coffee. But that's not the point. Before Starbucks, coffee in this country was really, horrendously bad, instead of just generally bad. The fact that we can pick out ONE particular company that offers good coffee ought to be a sign of that. (Insert sad little sigh here.)
Like it or loathe it (and I'm delighted to note that so many Britons loathe it, as they've obviously gone waaaay beyond the instant-coffee-made-with-hot-milk experience), Starbucks has made a positive - though hardly gourmet - contribution here.
So there.
This would have been the case whether or not Starbucks had glommed its way onto our high streets.
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I'm not going to argue this point as you're not actually wrong.
I admire your sound thinking.
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There are only two cases left in Modern English ...
Bless you and your confusion of case and punctuation.
I stand blessed dear, but not confused. I was quoting the excitingly bearded David Crystal's Cambridge Encylopedia of the English Language. Perhaps you should write him a stern letter.
do you seriously mean to say that you parse 'Starbucks' to mean 'coffee shop owned by the first mate in Moby Dick'?Was he the one who could tie a knot in it?
P.S. I do however concede that you are the clever one of eGullet (or should that be eGullet's clever one?)
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What is with you; are a shop designer or something, why must the genetive apostrophe always be left out of shop names?
I assume you mean the genitive apostrophe
Such pedantry.
although 'possessive' is the usual term.There are only two cases left in Modern English: a common case where the noun has no ending at all, and the genitive. The genitive is formed by adding an-s to the singular form of the noun. In writing, this appears with a preceding apostrophe.
How about: because it's not in the name of the store?Woolworths (founded by a Mr Woolworth)
Boots
Dixons
Rumbelows
Starbucks
No genitive apostrophes.
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Starbucks does better coffee that the Fat Duck
ps. will a mod please remove Michael's erroneous apostrophe from the thread title? thanks
What is with you; are a shop designer or something, why must the genetive apostrophe always be left out of shop names?
It makes my blood boil!
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It's pretty amazing how much the coffee scene has changed here over the past eight years.
Yes, now we have people drinking it as they walk along the road, a definite improvement; so New York.
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This has been raised on another thread but it seems contentious enough to merit a thread of it's own.
Were Starbuck's clients sipping unsweetened black espresso coffee I might agree that, indeed, the company were responsible for turning on a nation to the potential delights of the freshly ground bean. However, this is not the case, Starbuck's product is little more than a high calorie and desperately unhealthy caffieneated milkshake.
St John, Suckling Pig & You
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
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I'm all for that. But a 'dour' Q&A seems rather pointless.