Steve Plotnicki

Aha, the subjective versus the objective interesting. Well how about all of the guide books then? Do you think that Michelin, Gambero Rosso, Gault Millau etc. have a pretty similar view of what "interesting" means? I do. I find a unbelieveably thick thread running through all of them on this point. And one thing I think they agree on, is that home style cooking is great. But it is wrong to describe it as interesting. Unless of course, someone does something interesting with one of the recipes .

The more you try and stretch that point the less credible you sound. My original statement was that it is wrong to describe the the type of rustic home-style cooking that Peter described as "interesting." Of course, people who are endeared with Italian cuisine just can't bear to hear that statement being made. So they need to contort every possible use of the word to show examples where interesting might apply. That has nothing to do with the statement I made which I believe is fair and reasonable. In general, Italian tratorria cooking is in the same category as traditional French bistro cooking, kosher deli, fish & chips, paella, etc. Delicious but not very interesting when being compared to contemporary cuisine.

No it's not excellence, it's creativity. Pasta with sea urchin is interesting. It might not taste good, but it is certainly interesting. But if they served it in every tratorria in Italy, then it would stop being interesting. Unless, someone had an interesting version of it. Well yes, but then all the other PHD's in the room better find it at least the slightest bit interesting or else he would lose credibility in their eyes. As I've said before, there is a worldwide dialogue about food and cooking that is going on constantly. These terms have specific meanings to people who are interact with the system on a regular basis. There is a generally held understanding of what interesting is. And it extends to all levels of cooking. In fact you can even have interesting home style cooking. But from my experience, it is not reasonable or valid to say that the rustic tratorria type of cooking that Peter described would qualify. And that was the only statement being vetted. Not every statement about Italian food that was ever made.

All things I didn't say. I have not said that a chef can't have an "interesting" take on a penne dish, I have said that the type of rustic restaurant Peter described should not be described as "interesting" in the context of your original quote, or the way Italian food is generally discussed between people who are interested in fine dining. Babbo and Lupa are examples of interesting restaurants because they push the envelope both on ingredients and preparation. Valentino is not interesting no matter how sublime it might be. To say it is interesting because it interesting to you is an incorrect use of the term.

Different use of the word "interesting."

This Robert, is what Vedat called a false statement. In the context of discussing fine dining, which is exactly the context Craig laid out, to say that homestyle cooking is "interesting," is similar to saying that it is legitimate to describe the the type of naive oil painting my grandmother did as interesting when the context of the discussion was French Impressionist painters that are worthy of hanging in the Musee d'Orsay. Please afford those chefs who are talented enough to cook creatively the honor of having language that adequately describes their accomplishment, and isn't diluted by the fact that your personal standards for what is interesting, are outside the box of how the culinary world uses that term. Whether it is Spaghetti and meatballs or the worlds greatest bowl of Penne with freshly shaved Pecorino and Cheese, you can describe those dishes in many ways including fantastically delicious. But one thing they aren't is interesting.

What I find amazing about this thread, is that people seem to have forgotten that the goal is serving food and they have turned it into a science project. And if that is the goal, the job of a chef is to extend the natural qualities of the ingredients he is working with. Who would want to surpress the unique qualities of a Bresse chicken by serving it in a pile of mush, just so they can prove they can manipulate diners by serving a prettified Purdue chicken? That is why all of those questions about diners being manipulated are irrelevent. Once your goal is to trick people, you aren't talking about dining anymore. And yes, I understand that the new wave of cooking "tricks" diners because it presents things in a way we might be unaccustomed to. And they do this by surpression, enhancement , presentation etc. But, and ChefG can correct me if I am wrong, they still cling to the same premise as more traditional chefs. Their goal is to enhance what is on your plate. Of course this means that if someone like ChefG notices that Foie pushed through a tamis has the texture of ice cream, he can play that "trick" on us because we are not used to seeing it in that format. But he is still enhancing a natural quality of top quality Foie gras. And buried somewhere deep in the flavor of that dish is the essence of great Foie.

The point is that rustic cooking is not creative cooking. It's home style cooking. Craig's quote was about interesting cooking. You have conflated the two categories. Like I said, there is no shortage of delicious home style cooking in Italy. Whether found the Pumpkino way or otherwise. But there is a dearth of interesting cooking that is successful, interesting meaning inventive and contemporary. Not rustic and home-style.

Good try Peter. The problem is that Craig said this; But instead of talking about finding an "interesting" restaurant, you shifted the pea and talk about finding a rustic, home-type restaurant. And you tried to make fun of me to boot but I caught you. You see, I never said you couldn't find good and delicious restaurants in Italy. I'm the first person to say that the country is loaded with many places to sample excellent home style cooking. But it's on the interesting level where they have failed over the years in comparison to other countries. At least now that seems to be changing. If you read Vmilor's post about eating in Northen Italy, he writes about a number of places that seem to be cooking interesting food. But he also seems to disagree with Craig that it isn't found in the small, simple places that Craig has touted. But yet, in temples of high cuisine.

Haven't you read the plating/presentation thread? It's mind over matter. If they hung a Star of David at Katz's but didn't change the meat, would people think it's a real deli then?

You mean you can make a bottle of 1900 Margaux taste like mineral water by manipulating the environment? What does the mineral water taste like then?

Just to show you where a different orientation gets you, I think the chestnuts at Prune are possibly the single best side dish in the city. They seem to make them in a double recipe style like they would make refried beans, where they cook a batch until they are almost mushy and then add a secondf batch so their are whole but soft chestnuts in the dish. And then they add that dreamy and silky double rich chicken stock of theirs. Just fantastic stuff and a testament to hearty cooking.

I can agree wholeheartedly with the above. And I can even agree in part with the following; But the problem with the second quote is that if you expected French, and they served you Italian, you could probably detect it because there are things about them that make them unique tasting. But when you get to this one, you miss completely. This, and I'm not saying I could do this, but there are similiar examples I could probably manage, which I'm sure is the same for many people here, is just a matter of practice providing you have the aptitude. You know before I was a semi-professional eater, and a media mogul, I was a musician. A pretty good one who could have done it professionally for a living. But as good as I was, I was not talented enough to sit down and listen to a pianist play a complex chord and recite by ear, every single one of the ten notes he played in order. But there are many people who can do that. And could I have learned how to do that? Possibly, if I had the aptitude. But because I couldn't do it, it didn't give me grounds to deny that others could. And knowing what I know, that great art and craft, whether it be food, wine, music etc., is the product of such great specificity, something that is practiced by people who are so expert and have such great talent, it makes me loathe to accept any premise that it's greatness is based on an illusion. And diners aside, any food critic who can't see through the type of illusion being described on this thread isn't worth their weight in sel de mer.

I don't think anyone disagrees with this. At least I keep offering different examples of what would make me percieve things differently. But what the hell does the way a person who has five days of sleep deprivation perceive the way things taste have to do with the positive impact of pleasantly plated food? It's the typical eGuillet scientists, acadamicians and pedants gone mad syndrome. The original question asks about plated food and the effect it has on a diner. It has nothing to do with conditions that are so harsh and severe that one might request to be committed to an insane asylum in order to take time off to get their palate back. Plated food is an extension of something natural. An ingredient whose DNA is so severely stamped on it that there is an entire craft called cooking that is intended to accentuate the characteristics of that ingredient. And there the limitations of plating lie. It will never get so harsh and severe that we are completely fooled into thinking a steak is a lobster because someone is sticking needles under our toes while we eat and the pain is so terrible that we lose all sense of palate. And it is in that context of the reasonable likelihood of what the dining experience is like that I say that I expect to be able to see through how food can be manipulated this way by a chef. Not sleep deprived, not barefoot on hot coals, not while they are blowing eucalyptus in the room, and not eating while sitting upside down. We are talking about whether or not a chef can make me think Choice beef is Prime because he primped it properly. Well the answer to that question is that he can't. But yes, if the meat happens to be choice, he can improve my dining experience to the point that he might get me to say I enjoyed my meal, by serving a nicely trimmed steak that is garnished properly and cooked properly. But that will never cover up my ability to detect the reduction in quality between Choice and Prime meat. Boy that felt good.

But you keep trying to change the context. I agree if you make me hold my nose, a great wine doesn't taste as good anymore. Now what? Because I'm not in the habit of holding my nose when I crack open the Musigny. What does any of that have to do with eating a meal?

Now this is about the thinnest of lines in the history of eGullet. Let's set the record stright. 1. A well presented dish is a better dish then a poorly presented one. 2. A well presented dish is more enjoyable then a poorly presented one 3. A well presented dish should get a higher rating then a poorly presented one but; 4. A well presented dish does not taste any different then a poorly presented one. They taste the same.

But you keep skipping two salient points. One, it's all a matter of training. There are people who can taste a dish blindfolded and pick out the ingredients in a dish. It's just a matter of training your palate to do it (if you have the capablilites to begin with.) Your proffer seems to be that you can fool those people by changing the visual clues which are an important part of the process of analyzing the food. And my response is, not if they have been trained to ignore the visual aspect of food when analyzing how something tastes. Then "taste" is isolated. But yes, for the average diner, even the expert diner who is not trained that way, they can be manipulated. The second thing you are failing to recognize is that food is organic. It has qualities that exist indepedant of people tasting it. You are giving short shrift to those qualities. My 1979 d'Yquem's residual sugar level is a constant. That means much more then you realize. Or what the acidity level in heirloom tomatoes means when it has been a particularly hot and dry summer. And while Wilfrid was right when he says you can take something into a lab and analyze it and we still won't know how it tastes, that just because we don't apply some type of artificial tasting intelligence in the analysis that replicates the perfect palate.

Food, especially steaks, at The Palm is better then the food at Palm Too. Don't ask me why that is because it doesn't make any sense. But I've had that experience 5 or 6 times. And I eat at The Palm pretty regularly as it is my "go to" place for steak (even though it has been replaced in large part by Mitchel London at Fairway.) But it's the same hit or miss thing with steaks from anywhere. You get one where the marbeling is evenly spread and the steak is great. And I'd say that it is a 50/50 proposition at any steakhouse. As for the 837 club and promotions, I think The Palm has some good promotions. Every August they have a surf and turf dinner of a Caeser Salad, a strip steak, a 3 pound lobster and a piece of cheesecake for 2 people for $99.99. It's a great deal. And they are easy going about it. If you want to increase the size of the lobster to say a 7 pounder, they only charge you for the extra 4 pounds.

Thanks. I've been fishing for that compliment all day.

Stone - No, taste is a physiological reaction to a chemical compound. Food and wine have certain minerals, vitamins, trace substances, sugars, proteins that taste a certain way to the human palate. A 1979 d'Yquem is always supposed to taste the same. Only the tasters change. Liz - Any change from the norm is an impairment. That's why those studies are rubbish. They take people from a known environment and place them into an unknown environment. And they say AHA!@@!@!@!@ the results changed. Well of course they are going to change. It's a trick. This is a sad statement if it is true. This is certainly not the case at Arpege where the presentation is pleasant but in reality the food is plated very simply. I am convinced that if I was served a big pile of mush and given a fork, if a bite caught my interest, I would be able to identify the dish after multiple forkfuls. That's because the oral/sight coordination you are describing is just one more element to learn when dining. You might serve me a ball of steak that looks like a scoop of chocolate mouse, but when I put it in my mouth I'm going to say steak. And I even might tell you which cut of steak. But all they are doing, and I don't want to minimize it, is a reshuffling of the deck and serving it in a way that we aren't used to seeing the cards. Take the ChefG pushed Foie gras and Pear dish, a dish I liked very much. Okay, so he figured out that if you push Foie through a tamis, it comes out the other end like the hazelnut cream in a Mont Blanc, and with the texture of ice cream. But you know what, after I taste it a few times, I pat my tongue against the roof of my mouth and say "I know that flavor, it's Hudson Valley Foie gras (I am only using that as an example)"

Anytime you need straightening out I will be glad to oblige .

Stone - I don't think this is quite right. I think it needs to be modified to; The original point was that plating and presentation is very important because it affects the perception of taste to diners in the restaurant. It doesn't affect the actual taste at all. The diner is the one being manipulated. Not the food.

Ad hominem.

Liz - No you can't. You can change how I feel about it and how I percieve it, but you can't change the residual sugar and ripeness level found in a bottle of 1975 d'Yquem (which I got to drink last night.) That wine will always taste sweet, relative to the residual sugar level in other d'Yquems. Sure on a day you have a cold it's harder to taste. And yes after eating hot red Thai curry the sugar will taste harsh. And yes if you serve it at room temperature it will taste different...... But nothing you can do to me will change the wine in the slightest bit. What you and everyone else keeps on saying is, in an example where your tastebuds are impaired (and that can be done visually as well) you will taste things differently. I agree. But what does that have to do with anything because an impairment is only a temporary situation? People with expertise learn how to overcome that impairment through practice.

Liz - No I believe it. And I believe Yvonne when she says that the tests that were run affected expert tasters too. But all that proves is that if you change the environment that someone has learned how to do something in, they have to relearn how to do it. I don't find that point substantive in any way. People are trained to analyze things taking specific steps. For people to fail at their expertise because we have changed one of the steps, only tells us that people are human, and tells us nothing about what their skillsets are.