Steve Plotnicki

Marcus - Then I guess you'e going to have to crack open one of those "near-great" 75's . I used to like the '78 mich more then I do now. It has lots of power. But it always seems a bit underripe.

This again approaches the issue the wrong way. The flavor of food is constant. What changes is our ability to taste it correctly. Impaired tasters have invalid opinions. I am quite surprised you are talking this position. The goal and purpose of wine tasting is to eliminate externalities and concentrate on what is in the glass. Of course you can't always do that, but it is the goal when you taste.

No. I don't know about you but, when the glass isn't up to my mouth, I'm usually peering into the glass and swirling. Wine doesn't taste better in a beautiful setting. But it is more pleasant to drink it in one.

How come all the same books get reviewed? Or how come all the radio stations play the same songs? There are loads of examples like this where a single thing picks up momentum in the press and a buzz occurs.

Didn't you answer your own question? More experience at getting press, and the press has an easier time choosing a known quantity.

Craig - You know you're welcome anytime. In fact I'll make us all a Latour fest and grill up some Lobel's steaks. I think I have '55, '59, '61, '64. 66, '70, '78, '82, and '90. No '75 though. Someone will have to provide it. I used to have '95, but I sold it. I have to say that I am drinking a 2000 Soumade Rasteau Cuvee Confiance as I am writing this and the wine is DEE-licious. I thought it would be overextracted and oaky, but there is no oak at all. And it's extracted, but not over. Great mineral quality to it.

It's a nice part of a traditional Bollito Mosto. A different way to serve it is with a mostarda. I know that sounds like mustard but it's a fruit jam that goes great with the porkiness of the cotechino. Better gourmet grocery stores should carry an imported mostarda.

Could be a function of how the importer shipped them. I guess I need to go to Bordeaux to drink the wine. That ain't a half bad idea.

Well I've had that wine 3-4 times, and it has always been diluted as far as Latours go. One drinks Latour for the power. The wine I had last week had anything but power.

Well that might make it interesting to me, since I have never had it before. But it sounds like redundancy might prevent a preponderance of knowledgable people from saying it is interesting in an objective sense. Unless, something about it was so compelling and unsual that it stayed eternally interesting. Kind of like Starry Night can be interesting no matter how long you stare at it. But I submit that Penne with Sage and Cheese, is not the equivelent. But the Raviolo Aperto at San Domenico, well now maybe you're on the right track.

You know I tried to inject some wine examples in some of my posts but I couldn't get the analogies to work right. Wine as a craft, is far less interventionist in nature then cooking is don't you think? I mean even a simple dish like a risotto, the chef intervenes with the ingredients in a significant way. I don't see the winemaker being as proactive in his craft as a chef is. The winemaker, he is doing his great work in the vineyard. So wine and food are not very analagous this way, IMHO. I guess there must be something that we could honestly call interesting. Except in wine, almost every modern styled wine is the same. They are just Parkerized and hence, not extremely interesting because they are so like each other. But I find a few interesting in spite of their Parkerization. Like certain vintages of Siepi, Lamborghini, and Terre de Lavoro just to name three where I find that there is substance that can transcend the style the wines are made in. Claude - Well everything at the winery tastes 10 times better.

Well since we are free styling here, I attended a 1975 Bordeaux tasting last week and I thought the wines were generally poor. The Cheval Blanc was the best to drink of the bunch by far. But all the first growths were huge disappointments, save for Haut Brion which had this funny funkiness to it that I enjoyed more then would be able to say it was a good wine. We didn't have Lafleur, but we did have La Mission Haut Brion and Petrus and they were two bruisers. So tannic that 45 seconds after the finish was over a drying phenomenon came over your tongue. Those wines need 10 more years easy, maybe more. As for post 1979 Bordeaux, yes they are made in a more modern style but some of those wines are really good. I can drink 1985 Haut Brion all day long. 1983 Cheval is good too, as is Palmer. And I've had some '89's and '90's that are stunning, And while they might not be long term keepers to the same extent the pre 1980 wines are, there are a bunch of delicious wines out there, and this is coming from someone who doesn't drink Bordeaux much anymore.

Craig - I wish I collected wine back then. I did drink 1990 Conterno Gran Bussia last week and although the person decanted it at 4:00pm for a 9:00 dinner and we didn't drink it until about 10:30, it was still pretty tight. It opened up pretty well in the glass though and it was a beautiful wine. But it was sort of overshadowed because we drank it with among other things, '85 Roumier Bonnes Mares and 1970 Latour which were both pretty phenomenol. Especially the Roumier. If there was ever a definition of a point, that wine had it.

Yes but what does that have to do with how the word "interesting" was used in any of the substantive comments that made up this aspect of the thread? Nothing as far as I can see. So I don't understand purpose of your raising that you can use it in the way you describe. My comment doesn't purport to be an exclusive use of the word, just one of the common usages. Haven't figured out what to drink with the seder yet. Won't decide until the day before.

Straight Barb? I saw some around recently that seemed reasonably priced. I guess I should pick some up. Now if I can only remember where that was.

Craig - I know what you are trying to say but I believe you are using the wrong standard. The right one for enjoyable and pleasurable, even thrilling. But the wrong one for interesting.

Well that was all a fair statement. But it still avoids honing in on a reasonable definition of the word. As I said, anything can be interesting. The interesting peanut butter and jelly sandwich is out there. But for purposes of this conversation, I think we are best served by agreeing that "interesting" and "good" are two different things. And a PBJ with freshly ground peanut butter and homemade jam is good. But make it using a very mild rose petal jam, that would be interesting. Or maybe more simply, the Jacque Torres Hot Chocolate is very good, but the Jacques Torres Hot Chocolate that is laced with jalapeno is both very good and interesting.

But nothing you said addressed the way I used it. If the conversation was about how we can come up with a better use of the word interesting as it applies in this instance, that I could understand. But nothing about the way I am using it, precludes any other use of the word. Yet people feel compelled to raise other uses in response to my proffer and search for a reasonable way to objectively use it. The reason why this happens is that people do not really want to find an objective use. They feel that once we reach a conclusion, their favorite will be excluded from the definition. That's why people don't argue the validity of my assertion directly, but point to other uses as a indirect method of invalidating my use. That's a non-starter. So far Marcus is the only one who addressed it on the merits when he said that he doesn't think the guide books reach a clear conlusion on the issue. I disagree with him and think it is fairly clear who is considered an interesting chef and who isn't. And if people really wanted to find a reasonable use of the word, that's the road they would go down. But I fear they won't because there seems to be a resistance to doing that.

I'm not saying this at all. But I am saying that in the context of the original post, how much the aspect of presentation affects a dish served in a top quality restaurant, my answer is, not very much to diners with lots of expertise. But of course, if we take the original question which was about presentation in dining, and we allow the scientists to co-opt the issue and turn it into a experiment in the field of taste deprivation, I have no opinion on what that result would be. But I'm sticking to my guns when we are talking about reasonable dining experiences. But I'll tell you the following. If you took a prime NY strip steak and minced it, and then formed it into the shape of an apple and then painted it with red food dye, you would trick me. Not into thinking it was an apple, but its true identity would be muddied. But I promise you I would figure it out eventually. It's just a matter of changing one's visual perception of the item, which is something learned by rote to begin with.

Yes well I'm glad this is the issue that seperates us .

Well we didn't say it wasn't an important aspect of the meal, it's very important. We just said it doesn't modify the taste.

It isn't my definition or opinion of "interesting" that I am offering. I have offered how I see it used among the trade, press and other chefs. I just happen to agree with them in large part. But if you disagree with the definition I am putting forward, feel free to offer a better one. But what you think is interesting is your personal opinion. I am looking for the way the word is commonly used among people in the restaurant and food industry. I always find this is easier when we use these words in a sentence. Okay class; Cibreo is an interesting restaurant. The chef has developed a number of techniques that bring out some unusual aspects of the ingredients. But Tratorria dela Sostanza is a great place for a Bistecca and Fagiolini but it is not interesting cuisine in the same way that Cibreo is. There, that is a reasonable use of interesting. And it happens to be the exact way I was using it. Marcus - Well of course it isn't black and white, and each case has to be evaluated individually. If you read Vedat's review of I believe Lorenzo, he talks about how the chef gets something extra out of fresh fish. Is that interesting? It might be, and it also might just be good but not interesting. Sometimes it's a simple touch that makes something interesting. It's the pinch of cumin that Claude Steiger puts in the choucroute that makes it interesting because it is so different then any other choucroute you can find. But is that interesting on a permanent basis? If everyone does it will it still be interesting? Great questions, up for reasonable evaluation by people who have the expertise to do the evaluation. For someone to proclaim something interesting, they need some basis to proclaim that they aren't just saying it is good. "Interesting" means something more then that.

Well at least that moves the issue forward. Problem is, you will find out that any restaurant that is calibrated to a non-expert standard, is for practical purposes not a great restaurant. So when you take that into consideration, I think you will find that the effect presentation has on the ultimate taste of the food is limited to enhancement. Unless you get into ChefG land where their goal is to rescramble the egg everytime.

Well the conversation is pointless because I used "interesting" in an objective sense, and then everyone has to chime in and say that just because I use it that way, they are not precluded from using it in a subjective sense. Why people feel compelled to do that I don't know? But I assure that on eGullet, if I used "interesting" in this context 5000 times in a row, the same group of people would rap my knuckles and remind me there is a subjective use available to them as well. And to make things worse, I am accused of implying that they should be precluded from their subjective use of the word. Something I'm not doing at all.

I think part of the problem you are having is you are underestimating what it means to be a true gourmet. You are not taking into account how much of a buffer their expertise provides against the type of manipulation you have described.