Pan

Karen, would you be willing to name any names of food critics who present their views as facts?

I would have to agree with Ya-Roo on this. At the highest end - and indeed, at lower price levels, too - I'd give more weight to the experiences of non-VIP eGulleteers than VIP critics.

Karen, I think that someone who claims to be giving an objective opinion is at worst a liar and at best deluded. There is no such thing as objective taste. But I don't think the fact that whatever opinion anyone has is subjective makes it worthless or necessarily uninteresting.

No, I don't. Lots and lots of people are that gullible. But talking about that will start to pull us (or at least me) toward dangerous territory that we must avoid on eGullet. In terms of your second point, it's possible to be analytical and for that to add to one's visceral enjoyment, but I'm sure that doesn't always happen to everyone doing the analysis. So I'm understanding your points now.

So you don't believe it's best for people to be ignorant, only that a review of a meal doesn't educate anyone. Could it, though, if a critic gave a good analysis of the thinking behind the meal?

Objecting to that is quite different from saying it's best to approach art without analysis or education. Is it that you regret your art education? You might or might not have had good teachers. There's no doubt that a good teacher helps show his/her students how to best teach themselves. But that's quite different from saying it's best for people to remain uneducated blind slates (I meant "blank slates," but I like what I wrote, so I'll leave it), or that it's better not to have an education. Or did you mean something else? I'm probably coming across pretty combative. I teach Music Appreciation every semester and fully believe that I'm helping many people to listen actively and appreciate music on levels they were unaware of before they took my class. Music is not just sound, and art is not just images. And I suppose it's fair to say that cuisine is not just the tastes of the final product but the ingredients, processes, and history that went into the composition. In spite of that, I feel like I can judge food on taste (again, that view may show ignorance on my part) but cannot judge a painting based solely on what the image is, nor music only based on how consonant or dissonant it is or the mere shape of a melody. I guess part of my reaction is that I'm shocked someone with an education would seem to speak out in favor of ignorance. That's how your remark struck me. What did you really mean?

Have you tried it with besciamella?

What's the name of the place you're talking about?

Wow! I'll bet you won't invite them over for a meal again!

I think that's too bad. If you had instruction on how to read space in paintings and how they fit into a history of previous artworks, etc., you could understand the painting on many deeper levels than just an image you can see without any art education. And I suppose there's an analogy with food, in that some understanding of what chefs intend through their methods (the theoretical level) and what the history of different aspects of cuisine have been (the historical level) may help diners to instruct themselves. The fact that I'm less convinced such a culinary education is necessary for the knowledgeable appreciation of food than a good art education is for the knowledgeable appreciation of art may well just be a reflection of my relative lack of knowledge in various matters of cuisine. After all, it's hard for people to know what they're missing by virtue of not knowing things and, therefore, easy to think that ignorance is bliss or some such. Now, if you'd rather not have any of that context and would rather simply use your unaided eye to look at paintings, etc., that's your choice, but I won't pretend that I don't consider it an inferior choice. Whether paying attention to art critics will teach you much that's worth knowing and whether food critics are the best placed to educate the public about matters culinary are separate questions. And I suspect that the public is probably a bit better placed to judge the latter than the former, but that opinion might again be an indication of my relative lack of knowledge about the culinary arts as opposed to the fine arts.

You're absolutely right. The reason I think of it as Tuscan is that I've had it in Tuscany and have yet to visit Bologna, but the Tuscans themselves acknowledge it as Bolognese.

What's the one ethnicity of New York, jayt90?

To eat all the plain rice by itself and then eat the side dishes by themselves - yeah, that's truly weird! You actually have met people who do that?

Sounds like a poor substitute, at that. All things being equal, I prefer the Neapolitan style of lasagna al forno that calls for ricotta, but there really is nothing wrong with the Tuscan style with besciamella. (What's with the "balsamella" spelling?)

If you can get half-smokes here, they must be called something else. I can't ever remember seeing any sign for half-smokes in New York.

Keep making your own! It'll be much better.

Took the words right out of my mouth, Patti! Little Ms. Foodie, I know that Seattle has some delicious restaurants. Do you two eat out from time to time?

Paris is a terrific city for all sorts of reasons but it lacks the culinary variety of some of the other cities we've been discussing - though I've had some excellent inexpensive Cambodian and Japanese food there, along with French food, of course.

My father has often cooked an Ada Boni broccoli recipe from Il Talismano della Cucina. Fry up some onions and garlic in a touch of extra-virgin olive oil, add coarsely-chopped broccoli (including the stem!), let fry for a while, add a generous sprinkle of powdered black peppercorns, put in some good full-bodied red wine (e.g. Valpolicella), then add provolone cheese, melt, mix together. Add salt and more pepper to taste, if you feel it needs more.

Is it over already? Thanks for the vicarious trip to the beach! Life's a real beach for you two when you're having fun.

Makan King, thanks for an interesting post! I have to say, though, that some of the things you say Singapore lacks are also lacking in New York. I don't know of a good Burmese restaurant here, and I have no idea where I could find a Xinjiang, Hebei, or Dongbei restaurant anywhere within the city limits. There's a guy with a cart near the Queens Borough Public Library branch at Kissena Blvd. who sells Xinjiang-style barbecued meat on skewers, and it's just OK (nowhere near as good as what you get in Beijing). I frankly have no idea what dishes are typical of Hebei (as much of a geography buff as I am, I'd have to check a map to or Google to find out what the capital of that province is - Wuhan, maybe?), and I don't remember a Dongbei place since the early 70s, when my father and I used to go for Manchurian Hot Pot at a place on Chatham Square (where Goody's is now, I think) on 20-degree days.

You risked possible imprisonment in Turkey? Here's someone who never saw Midnight Express, I figure. I've never, never stolen anything from a restaurant.

Mel, learn the expressions "Bonjour, Messieurs-Dames" and "Au revoir, Messieurs-Dames," and use them every time you enter and leave any establishment. The idea is that you are saying hello and goodbye not only to the proprietors and employees, but also your fellow customers. Paris is a big city but one that retains some aspects of neighborhood community living. In my last visit to France, I found that after just a few days shopping at some local fruit-and-cheese stores and boulangeries in the 1ieme/2ieme, I was already a regular. Why? Because I took the time to speak with the proprietors. Now, my French, though rusty at this point, is undoubtedly better than yours, but it was not always so. My first experience in really needing help from a Parisian proprietor was quite a few years ago, during my very first trip to France, when I was developing incipient bronchitis and slowly walked over from my little hotel in the 7ieme to the local pharmacy, explained my symptoms in broken French, and was prescribed a decongestant and pastilles of codeine phosphate by the friendly and very helpful pharmacist and his assistant. I was well within a day and a half and ready for my audition in Nice. There are nice and nasty people in France, as is the case anywhere else, but in general, I find the French wonderful. Parisians in a rush to get somewhere may ignore you, but those who have the time are as likely as not to go out of their way to help you, especially if you try to speak their language. People will give you friendly corrections to help you learn proper grammar, pronunciation, etc. Outside of Paris, in small towns and the countryside of regions like Burgundy and the Loire Valley, you find people who are more relaxed and effusively friendly. So for that reason and also because of all the wonders you can see outside of Paris, I also recommend some side trips while you're in France.

Only if they don't read the review, in which case, it's their own damn fault. Maybe 3. Don't assume that the difference between 3 and 4 stars isn't greater than the difference between 2 and 3. Then again, we don't really know, do we? So, whatever.

The Accidental Tourist?