Bux

From ajay's post about "junk" food (not that I consider fritters of any sort as junk food--well done they'd be high on my list of favorite foods in any culture) I'm led to believe that weekend meals are more relaxed and informal. Am I correct? I think in the west, Sunday dinner has traditionally been a large family meal, but I suspect that is no longer true in the U.S. In fact, lots of American families seem to hardly ever gather around the table for dinner and I'm not sure if weekends are better or worse in that regard. My guess is that patterns of life are changing the world over. Is that not true in India today. Of course I'm asking that of a group who are living far away from India and that in itself represents changes of several sorts.

He fails to do so because he doesn't show he has the foundation to understand French cooking. Something needs to be explained here. What do you mean by sprinkling? I assumed it was just a derogatory reference to using a mixture of spices we call curry powder in the west. There was no sprinkling of anything on the completed dish that I recall. There was nothing cosmetic about it's use that would meet my definition of cosmetic. The spices that make up the "curry" were long infused into the sauce which was strained before it ever hit my plate. I cannot with any veracity tell you exactly what spices were used or whether they were a commercial blend or if Pacaud grinds his own blend of spices. If he's anything like I am he uses a commercial blend to which he adds spices to suit. I suspect he's nothing like I am in the kitchen. Do you know how he arrived at his blend? The words "sprinkling" and "applied" may have led you astray. I hadn't paid any attention when you used them. I was surprised when cabrales did, but perhaps your focus on these words just caught her attention before it caught mine. I have seen "fusion" chefs sprinkle a plate with curry powder. Now having said Pacaud doesn't sprinkle curry powder, I should also note that if he did, it would be a non issue with me anyway, But here's where I find your defense of Hoffman weakest. This is a guy with a NYC restaurant. He's the cook in that restaurant, but I don't know what he knows about food and even less about what he knows of French food. You almost make it sound as if he went to l'Ambroisie to discover "classical" French cuisine. As a result he sounds more naive that he did in Gopnik's book. Can I discover Indian cuisine by eating in an Indian restaurant? If he seriously wanted to discover "classical" French cuisine, he would have worked for six months in the kitchen. Maybe he did and I'm missing something in your representation. I don't know enough about "classical" French cuisine, but my first brush with French food was around 1960. Pacaud's dish fit my definition as well as any dish I've had. Your points lead me to believe he didn't know much about "classical" French cuisine, but traveled to France with a huge burden resulting from his lessons on curry technique Why did he order curry. He knows how to order dinner and talk to waiters. Let this error in judgement rest and let Hoffman out from under it. I'm willing to bet his opinion may have matured by now.

I understood that you found the wafer unnecessary. It was an invented editorial "you" who might suggest it was a foreign element. I understood your position. I am just hammering home my original claim that curry was not the sign of the decline of French cuisine it was purported to be and that if one needed to pick on Pacaud, the wafer, as poor a target as could be, was a better target than the curry powder.

I'm greatly appreciating your comments on Hiramatsu. I look forward to reading Dorie's and would like to read Jaqueline Friedrich's. Does anyone know if the WSJ review might be online? Bouillon as a course, is an old item in French cuisine. On reflection, it's usage has slipped, but I have seen dishes served in a clear broth. I would be hard pressed to say whether it's reappearance is a revival or response to Japanese influences. On an earlier note about light and lighting at Hiramatsu and l'Astrance, one of the things I really like about dining in France is that restaurants are generally very well lit. I really like bright restaurants and I suspect I have been favorably influenced towards the food, but the light level in a restaurant.

I think the Saveur web page is just a collection of their past articles and not competition for the magazine itself. Let's be happy to have some access to their archives at our fingertips. I also think the Calvados guy is spelled Drouin and not like the Burgundy Drouhin. Jason, be on the lookout for either spelling, or producers we've not even mentioned.

I rather liked the wafer, but would also agree that it wasn't essential and if you backed me into a corner and said it was nothing by Pacaud's attempt to incorporate a foreignism into his curry dish in an attempt to be contemporary I'd have to think at least twice about it being an argument I might lose on merit.

When there are more menus with wasabe than curry in France, I will not longer recognize French food. Cabrales, I'm curious as to why you didn't particularly appreciate that dish. Was it the cream? The curry? Something else? I would be the first to agree that it's a rather old fashioned dish, especially if you leave off the sesame wafer. I found the curry an excellent enhancement to the langoustine and the spinach. I wonder if it wan't too old fashioned for you and a comfort food thing for me.

I thought we had already established a single unit as a raviolo and were just discussing the interval in time between units before there was a significant degree of guilt by association.

Steven, could you open the nominations to include who would you rate three stars that are now only two, or for that matter currently rated less than two? You know, the Michelin is the closest thing in the food world to the great American justice system where 98% of the population may believe you committed murder, but if your lawyers can confuse 12 people you get to go free. No matter what we say, only Michelin can make a three star restaurant. I'm not an expert on Ducasse and I tend to beat around the bush a bit when talking about his food because I'm always afraid I'm going to come out say something that will be interpreted as "if you don't appreciate his food it's because your understanding of food isn't deep enough" and that's not what I quite believe and if it was, I'd be too policitally correct to say exactly that. I was impressed by what he set on our table and much more impressed with the food in Paris than in NY. (Disclaimer: One meal in each leaves me in no position to claim any sort of expertese.) I do find a distracting level of service in the dining room. It may just be my inability to delegate responsibility or my unfamiliarity with the lifestyle of the very rich, but it seems as if Ducasse bends over backwards to offer services that are questionable and which I, in my boorish naivety, find distracting. I would, for instance, find it a greater service to have the sugar left on my table for a few moments, than to have the sugar sommelier come to my table and personally place the cube in my cup. What I fear is that the service moves toward offering to cut my meat and spoon feed me. The former I can get in any cheap dive in Chinatown.

There's a familiar expression. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That I've enjoyed classic French curries and that I particularly enjoyed Pacaud's masterful dish using curry powder as a flavoring ingredient makes me wonder why Hoffman picked, curry or Pacaud's use of it to illustrate any weakness in French cooking. Here we have a brash American chef attacking French tradition by pointing the finger at a successful French chef and accusing him and his country men of being unable to adjust because they don't feel the need to adopt the sacred theory of another hidebound tradition. The curry fixation is Hoffman's. He needs to step back and take a less jaundiced view of cuisine, in my opinion. Preconceived absolutes of what is right and wrong across cultural lines are not going to offer a chef the flexibility to create. You are explaining what the pot meant when he called the kettle black. Chow mein. Yes, I've had Cantonese chow mein and it's very good. You are referring to another chow mein and I really wish you'd drop the analogies, because the examples are not analogous. A French curry sauce is not fake Indian food, it's real French food. Chung King chicken chow mein in a can is fake Chinese food. Maybe you meant chop suey for which I've heard all sorts of stories regarding its derivation, but I don't find an analogy in French food.

I know. What I don't know is why my humor failed. I'd like to think it's because I'm not good at being pedantic, but I suppose it's because my humor is failing. My reply was based on an assumption that once you make your second raviolo, you've made ravioli. If you make it, you've made a raviolo. If you make them, you've made ravioli. Size, in this situation, shouldn't matter. Should you choose to agree, there is plenty left in life for me to say yes, I'm confused anyway.

"Globalization," as Plonicki notes. Does anyone doubt this part? McDonald's and Ducasse have global empires or at least international ones and more are to come. Whether it's good or bad may depend on your view. We had this conversation about fast food franchises. Lots of people like standardization and they like to know they will find food they understand as they travel. I'd like to discover differences as I travel and I like to taste the differences. Worse than having a guy like Ducasse running the best restaurant in every town on my intinerary would be to have a dozen guys running a dozen different restaurants, but all cooking the same food in the same style. Will that really happen? I suspect not. What is more likely to happen is that differences will arise again. We may see regional preferences remain or regain the fore, but I suspect Samuelsson is correct that a lot of the differentiation will be the result of local chefs' visions at least at the top restaurants. Will I still be able to travel for the food. Perhaps as long as there are great restaurants. People travel for art. They don't eschew the northern painters at the Prado, nor are they disappointed by the Italian painters in the Louvre just because they're not local products.

Or who's getting burned in the kitchen today. Update at eleven. Boy I just don't know where to start disagreeing with you. Let's pick a new spot, this time. I think France may be more relevant than it was in 1985, or if not more relevant, at least stronger. I should start by asking if you mean to focus on haut cuisine and the influence France has on international cooking or at least western cuisine? There's also the France of the little small town bistro, cafe, local goatherd, cave cooperative winemakers, etc. France has undoubtedly lost an agricultural edge and there's a decline in produce. The international fast food empire has made tremendous inroads and appears to still be growing. Breton creperies now make pizza as well. In spite of all that and continuing trends, I have in recent years, seen some signs of a revival of interest in honest food. Neo bistros in Paris, micro breweries in Brittany and a general rise in the level of bread in Paris and maybe the provinces--and most of all it's not all white bread.Haut cuisine has certainly become an international affair and no longer a French province. The French are aware of that. Berasategui and Adria will be mentioned as often as Passard and Ducasse by knowledgeable people who care about food at that level. Some years back I asked a French chef if his work in a top kitchen in NY would look good on his resume if he returned to France. He said it would be as if he did nothing for the time he was in the states. Some years later he was still in NY and we were talking about how his NY position gave him clout and how chefs came out to greet him when he ate in France. I mentioned our earlier conversation. "It's all different. It's changed" is what he had to say. This speaks to the loss of status for Frnace, but it also questions those who assume the French are beyond the ability to understand or react. On the France board I mentioned a conversation with a young French chef who chose to apprentice in the states. Not only was he able to make that decision with confidence, but his stage here gave him new confidence. France is not asleep or adrift. The only red herring is rerferrence to statements about one chef's use of "curry powder." It is symbolic of nothing in regard to this topic. It is the basic education of professional training in western cooking. Tastes may change and new techniques will join the training, but there's little likelihood that it can be eliminated without seeing a decline.Much of anyone's view in all this may depend on his approach to creativity or "fusion" food. Creativity is very much of an attraction for me, but it's not a final goal. If the food is twice as creative as at the restaurant nearby, but only half as succesful in the basics, it's still half as good as the other one. creativity is what separates the best restaurants and what makes the mediocre inedible. Creativity will emphasize your strengths and weaknesses. Or at least they will to a sophisticated diner. I think there are a lot of diners out there who will support the latest "fusion" fad because the food is exciting and demands nothing in the way of understanding. I've yet to dine in a "fusion" restaurant that was both worth eating in and where the chef gladly claimed the title of fusion chef. Suvir is correct, at least to the extent that he says food and cooking will always evolve and that boudaries are getting fuzzier. As France and other part of Europe move towards a union, there will be lots of cultural losses and gains. If there is a European cuisine that develops, it will be most influenced by French cuisine. The other posibility that I see is not a single culture in western Europe but the opportunity for local cultures that cross or ignore borders. A moving together of French and Spanish Basque cooking for instance. These would be interesting times, if we could stop killing each other.

I thought my comments here about my meal at both NY and Paris were positive. I may hold back on my praise as I believe many will not find the meal worth the money. There is no question in my mind that Ducasse operates above the point of diminishing return. Many people do not find the need to eat at that point and many people will not appreciate the difference between Ducasse and a lesser, but more crowd pleasing meal. Ducasse is not "wow" food. You are not be hit over the head for effect. Many diners also prefer not to try a restaurant they know they cannot afford to dine in on a regular basis. For me, if I can only afford it once in my life, I'd take that pleasure.

I suppose it's that upon finding Gophik's points interesting and relevant, all of a sudden I was faced with a view that made no sense at all, as it was based on a comment that was so far off the mark and just wrong in it's understanding of French food. Tony, have you had the langoustines in question? My recollection is that the "powder" was thoroughly incorporated in the sauce as a flavor and in an old fashioned way as had been done for maybe a hundred years in western cooking. At one time that conservative arrogance might well have been the strength of French cooking. If it's now a legitimate target, attack it as a French (and American--British too?) target and don't aim at a fine chef who's created an excellent dish with the implication that anyone could do better. Understand that I had been exceptionally pleased to eat this dish and that an attack designed to remove it from the repertoire of French cooks was not so much a challenge to my taste as an attack on my chance to repeat the pleasure. From what Suvir says, or what I understand from what he posts, India is far less interested in experimenting with western cuisine that the French are with other cuisines. It's all irrelevant. Of course French food is in danger of fossilizing, but I'd say that cutting edge food is always in danger and that the greatest cuisine is always in danger of being bumped. This is a given. Empires rise and fall. The trick is to spot the danger and Hoffman's point was misleading. I'm a francophile, but a realist. I will place the center of western cuisine in the Pyrenees right now. The weight of influence in Catalunya and the Spanish Basque provinces exerts more force than all of France. Ferran Adria is the biggest voice and his manager tells me that Adria is more interested in what's happening in American than in France. I take that with a grain of salt, but pass it on with no small chauvinism of my own. I ate in a small restaurant in St. Jean de Luz. The chef interned in New York after schooling in France. He tells me he is influenced by the superior quality of the raw materials he worked with in Daniel's kitchen and by the creativity of Francois Payard, his pastry chef at Daniel. You can eat well and very inexpensively in St. Jean, but the food is all cooked by rote and the desserts are purchased from an outside source. The restaurants are, as you say, "mired in a particular style." I see the difference in this chef's food for a few francs more. The kitchen is not on auto-pilot and every thing is fresh including the ideas. And who comes up to tell him that the food is more interesting than anything he's found in town while we're talking--an American. The locals appreciate the food, but ask where he gets his tartes. They've forgotten that restaurants used to make their own desserts. For all that, or because of that, I think French cooking is actually on a rise at the moment. Of course it still fights the rise of McDonald's. Let the French say it's just for the children. It's not, but the problem is that that's the food that's educating the palate of the average French child. When my wife digs into pig's feet at a wedding banquet, a guest may turn in amazement and say that's the kind of food his mother, or grandmother liked. In twenty years you may have a hard time finding a caterer who offers that kind of food. Time to check on the progress of my favorite web site. http://www.andouillette.com/ Is Steve Plotnicki's review of Paris to the Moon accurate? Does any review not speak more about the reviewer than the subject? I think Gopnik is equally critical of NY life and it's more a personal observation than an objective critique, but yes those things that Steve finds are all there and if you approach from his perspective, you will not be disappointed. You should have a hard time recognizing Pacaud's use of curry as symbolic of any contemporary trend or weakness. A sauce Nantua could have as well supported the langoustine, but not as well the spinach. The very soigné curry cream sauce was a classic and showed no cultural weakness unless you felt predisposed to defend Indian cuisine where it needed no defense. It was an amateur criticism. This was a very traditional dish and one could have as well used the lobe of sweetbread studded with truffle, if that was the point one wanted to make.

You made one and you liked them? Now I'm confused.

A bad use of the negative on my part. While I was not in complete agreement, I was in agreement far more often than not, or perhaps let's say I was generally a sympathetic ear for most everything and found Gopnik's observations and comments quite valid up to the point where I read Hoffman's words. More telling is the fact that I was really enjoying the book until that point.

Suvir, in fact I use the word "curry" with some discomfort, especially on this board, but I use it as it's defined in most U.S. English dictionaries--a powder prepared from various spices. Time and distance do strange things to language and a sauce made from those powders. Steve P., I've not had enough meals at either Pacaud's or DiSpirito's hands. Neither of them are on my shortest list, but I'd look forward to eating at l'Ambroisie or Union Pacific again. That's not the issue, nor is the fact that DiSpirito is the fusion chef and that I find his food more interesting, but less successful. I see you stretching the bounds of the original discussion into irrelevant areas. If you want to say DiSpirito is the better chef, I may not agree, but I'm not likely to argue the point. I am not Pacaud's champion. The way curry has been used as Klc notes for the last century is a standard and not disputable. What may be disputable is whether it's a good or bad thing. I happen to believe it is neither (or both). It doesn't matter. Hoffman's statements, as quoted by Gopnik, belie his own shortsighted view of the issues. I'm glad Klc quoted them here. I thought I had lent my copy of the book, but realize I merely gave back the copy I had borrowed. Perhaps what infuriated me the most was the implications that Hoffman knew more than Pacaud. If he had criticized 100 years of French cooking, he might actually have seemed less arrogant, but I'd still feel he needed to understand French cusine as well as he claims to understand Indian cuisine.

As I noted earlier, I have no problem with critics who feel France is no longer the center of western cuisine. This is an issue I could debate on either side. Gopnik lost me by relying on an irrelevant comment about Pacaud and curry, not because he criticized the relevance of French cuisine. I was not in complete agreement throughout From Paris to the Moon but I found his observations worth considering except for this lapse.

I don't have any suggestions along that line, but I'd urge you to also profusely sample the wonderful hard ciders of Normandy. Try some small producers, whose products can be found in better shops and at the outdoor markets. There should also be no shortage of rich fat local cow's milk cheeses.

I find that those who attempt fusion food, usually don't have a deep abiding respect for any cuisine. We'll get lost in the semantics of "fusion." I don't regard Kunz as a fusion chef. He melds flavors rather than attempts to fuse them. Among the strengths of French cuisine are the theory and discipline that are strong enough to subjugate the foreign influences. I'm sure I could do a search here and find some wonderful quotes about it being on a higher order than other cuisines. The champions of fusion food are all too often those who don't understand the greatness of French cuisine. It's all well and good not to be intimidated by that greatness, but you have to get it first in order to move on. The attraction of fusion food is often just that it sidetracks the need to acquire an apreciation for classic French cuisine, or haute cuisine. Every strength is a weakness of another kind. Of course the strength that keeps a thing from being corrupted can also inhibit access to good ideas. Curry is rather irrelevant to French cuisine in 1995 in this regard. I share your mystery as to why rare tuna hasn't filtered though to French cuisine. Raw fish has made inroads in many forms. In a small and hardly cutting edge bistro in Brittany we had raw fish served as fillets for a main course and as some sort of hachis for an appetizer. On several occasions, we've had raw fish at Amat's place across the river from Bordeaux. It was Tartare de saumon et huîtres au caviar a few years ago and he had a less expensive salmon tartar with olives on the menu in his bistro. Outside of Lille, as two star restaurant had Le sainte-pierre en tartare on the menu last November. Looking back at some old menus, I see other tartars and carpaccios at restaurants of varying levels of sophistication. French chefs haven't missed the boat. They just have other fish to fry, so to speak. I wonder if any western chef has done raw fish as well as Gerard Le Coz at Le Bernardin. It's hard to fault the strength of French cuisine by noting that it hasn't jumped on any international bandwagon. I'm not saying there hasn't been a malaise in French cooking, just it's got nothing to do with curry and that Peter Hoffman appears not to be one to explain it to us.

The point that started this in the other board was whether Hoffman was pointing at the symbol of a problem or if he merely, struck by his own recent interest and learning in the theory of curry, mistook a traditional French usage that was an affront to his newly acquired knowledge and blindly took it as a sign of something else. That he felt was able to point the finger towards France's falling behind by pointing at an accomplished chef producing superb dishes makes me wonder if he wasn't wrong somehow or somewhere. And he will be wrong even if someone else proves that elsewhere there exist signs that France is no longer the center of western gastronomy.

Curry powder has been in the repertoire of French cooks since I've been eating in France (1960) and perhaps much longer. It is less alien a flavor than basil or many other products from neighboring European countries. What I said in the France thread can be repeated here. I think Hoffman had to assume that Pacaud was unaware of the long history of usage dating back generations before l'Ambroisie or that Hoffman was unaware of the same usage. My suspicion is that Hoffman with the weight of his recent introduction to the ways of curry in India blinded by his recent knowledge and unable to see the full picture. That he could take on a much more accomplished chef and use this chef's use of an ingredient as it's been traditionally used in France to indict the cooking of France took great chutzpah, however.Suvir, I suspect that most western use of curry would not please your tastes. I'm not sure you would or should find it offensive, but I suspect at best you'e find it strange and incomplete or just missing something in the same way that I've found western food unappealing in Japan. And while we're on the subject of fusion, misuse of curry and other Asian lands, (I brought up Japan) what do we all think of say, Japanese and Chinese use of curry as a seasoning in their countries. I've found it most curious that the only times I've seen a potato appear in a Chinese dish, it's been a Chinese curry. In Japan, I have the impression that curry sauce is always served on noodles. Neither of these uses seem remotely close to a fathful use by Indian terms. When does a country acquire the right to appropriate a foreign flavor or produce in their own cuisines. Can Native Americans criticise the French fried potato and look in askance at the way Italians use tomatoes?

I've never had great fusion food. Perhaps I had, but didn't notice it was fusion. It's always the case that those with the least tradition are those quickest to embrace the new. They don't always do it well.

For what it's worth to those who are curious and for those who might have something to add, I believe the thread Simon refers to is one that invovles my exchange with Steve Plotnicki about something Adam Gopnik quoted Peter Hoffman as saying about the use of curry powder in a dish at l'Ambroisie in Paris. The quotation appeared in Gopnik's From Paris to the Moon an otherwise excellent book about Paris and the Parisians, as well as about Gopnik and his life among the Parisians.