The State of French Dining

[robert brown]

Steve, I wonder how they compare with the ones from Birkina Faso!!!! I trust you're writing the definitive glowing review of the Jerome. Or else....

[cabrales]

Marcus, Barrier falls right on the cusp of when you began to become interested in fine dining in France...

I'd appreciate members' input on what the cuisine at Charles Barrier (Tours) is now like. (Note I have never sampled Barrier's cuisine, although that is about to change.) As members may know, Tours is a short direct train ride from Paris.

[pirate]

Let me add an historical note on Barrier. I ate there 3 times in the early 70's. Excellent ingredients, huge portions, correct cooking but lacked the subtle touches of greatness. But what I remember most is that American Express cards were listed as acceptable. Each time they refused to accept them and insisted on cash which I paid, and each time I checked later with Amex and they insisted he was signed up. At that time the VAT was small or nonexistent. I was not surprised by his later conviction for tax cheating.

[Bux]

I wonder why the men who deliver the live fish to Chinese markets and restaurants are not seen as atrisanal producers by you. Your set of blinders, render suspicious the description of that which you appreciate.

Because what they are delivering isn't artisinal. If you want to put it that way, why isn't every delivery man delivering artisinal products?

You correctly make the distinction between the guy actually making the delivery and the many who raises the fish, but I suspect we all realize the eleveur was the artisan to whom I was referring.

Since when is a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown offering items like Chatham dayboat cod, or Peconic Bay Scallops, Nova Scotia Lobsters from deep water etc., Sole from the Isle d'Yeau? How about shrimp? I've had loads of plates of steamed fresh shrimp in Chinese restaurants. Do they offer Ruby Reds? Just because it's good quality and fresh, doesn't make it artisinal.

True, if you get to define a narrow list of ingredients as artisanal, you also get to narrow the list of artisans, but I have to stick with any small producer whose product or produce is of heightened quality. An artisan is a skilled worker or craftsman. An Artisan makes artisanal products. True, all artisanal products are not equal, but they don't become artisanal because they're expensive (even using reverse economics) or because they're used in luxury French restaurants. While I tend to support French cuisine as the most refined, it should be obvious to even the most devout francophile that even the French may miss a beat or two.

Tell me, which Chinese restaurant is it that would use the 7.90 green beans? The one with Chow Fun for a dollar three eighty? Or maybe the place with Wonton Noodle Soup for $3.95 for a large bowl.

Absurdly pointless question that belies your prejudices. Do you now hold that the best Chinese restaurants are the cheapest ones? It may be that the best Chinese restaurants in NYC are not the match of the best French ones, but it looks mean spirited to match the cheapest of the one sort against the most extravagant of the other.

Or the farm chicken that Passard slow roasted in a pan for two hours that he served. Is that quality chicken available in Pings? Dim Sum GoGo? Japanese restaurants use artisinal ingredients, but I do not know Chinese restaurants to do so.

An honest admission, but you wear your ignorance as a badge of authority, which it is not. Even the very modest (in terms of pricing as well as ambience) Grand Sichuan restaurants offer a quality chicken. I'm told it's the Gianone (sp?) chicken from Canada.

Good quality yes. Artisinal, not to my knowledge.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Bux - Gee I don't have any prejudices. Preconcieved notions maybe but I'm certainly not prejudiced against Chinese restaurants using ingredients that meet the standards of the definition of artisinal as we use it when we talk about places like Blue Hill. There might be others but, Grand Sichuan is the single example I know of a Chinese restaurant going out of their way to tell their customers about a unique ingredient. This summer was the summer of Ruby Red shrimp. I guess restaurants read Fat Guy's post about eating them in Gulf Shores and they were brought up to NYC. A number of restaurants in the Hamptons had them on the menu, and I bought them at Citarella a few times. Tell me which restaurant in Chinatown had a special featuring Ruby Reds? I am the first guy who would love for their to be a Chinese resaurant that uses all the same ingredients that Daniel is using. If you hear about it, let me know. I have a bunch of old Alsatian V.T.'s chilling.

As for the definition of artisinal, it has to be defined by the care the grower takes to create his masterpiece. And that includes where he decides to create it. You can't create artisinal tomatoes on land that only can produce mediocre tomatoes. So I can make artisinal wines on Long Isand, but they are still L.I. wines and will not rise to the definition of "artisinal" that apply to artisinal wines of the Loire Valley. So it's product by product, grower by grower. And just because it tastes good doesn't make it artisinal. Or are the tomatoes in my garden artisinal?

As for the best Chinese restaurants in NYC being the cheapest ones, well there is a lot to be said for that statement. I am not overhwlmed by high end Chinese dining. It can be good, but I don't see that high end Chinese food is the equivelent of a Japanese kaiseki dinner, just to stay in the same sub-continent .

I think if we started to parse what makes something artisinal, it's really the same concept the French use for terroir. It's the microclimate of where the fruit or vegetables are grown. Or the temperature and the water depth of where fish is caught. Or the pastures that animals feed on.

Robert B. - My meal at Jerome was good but not overwhelming. We had the market menu and maybe that was a mistake. I had hoped that the food would have been more intensely flavored. By far the best dish was the Sisteron Lamb which was stunning. But I will write it up in my "Week in Review" post coming up hopefully in the morning.

[Bux]

This summer was the summer of Ruby Red shrimp. I guess restaurants read Fat Guy's post about eating them in Gulf Shores and they were brought up to NYC. A number of restaurants in the Hamptons had them on the menu, and I bought them at Citarella a few times. Tell me which restaurant in Chinatown had a special featuring Ruby Reds?

It's not likely you'll find a special Chinese restaurant using Ruby Red shrimp for at least two reasons. To a large extent they seem to operate with a separate supply system and they place great value on using live seafood. So until Ruby Reds are available live, you are less likely to see them attract a top Chinese chef. At the same time, there is a much smaller audience for expensive Chinese food in NY than there is for expensive French food.

[Steve Plotnicki]

It's not likely you'll find a special Chinese restaurant using Ruby Red shrimp for at least two reasons. To a large extent they seem to operate with a separate supply system and they place great value on using live seafood. So until Ruby Reds are available live, you are less likely to see them attract a top Chinese chef. At the same time, there is a much smaller audience for expensive Chinese food in NY than there is for expensive French food.

Bux - What you mean to say is that Chinese restaurants do not artisinal ingredients as the term is defined at a place like Arpege or Blue Hill. That's exactly my point. Those type of ingredients are used at places like Nobu or Sugiyama. It's too bad that the Chinese community can't support a high end Chinese restaurant of that sort. This is actually worth a thread of it's own, and I don't even know how to ask the question the right way due to my lack of knowledge of Chinese cooking. Is it a function of cooking technique, in that the style of cooking isn't intended to bring out flavors the same way, or is it a socio-economic issue and the Chinese do not have a class of people willing to pay the large increment in price of better ingredients?

[Bux]

Bux - What you mean to say is that Chinese restaurants do not artisinal ingredients as the term is defined at a place like Arpege or Blue Hill.

Perhaps that's what you'd like to have people think I mean to say, but it's not what I mean to say. Yes, it's true that the market for really upscale Chinese food is not as great as the market for upscale western food in both NY and Paris. In China you may find a different situation. Nevertheless, what I am saying is that there is a different focus to Chinese cooking and the concept of what's most important is often different. I'm a poor choice of spokesperson to explain Chinese food as I have far less familiarity with it on it's home ground than I do with French food. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the Chinese standard for fresh when it comes to fish. Even in a relatively down scale market here in Chinatown, there are far more live foods for sale than you will find arriving at the kitchens of Lespinasse, Daniel or le Bernardin. I regard the merchants who play a role in bringing these creatures from the lakes, rivers and seas as artisans.

Why do you see the guys who fish Ruby Red Shrimp as artisans. My understanding is that they come from Maine.

Sometimes, new products can present problems beyond the public's unfamiliarity with the item. One example, Serrano said, is ruby red shrimp.

"This guy from Maine was the only guy catching this shrimp," he said. "It had the head on, very good flavor. But it was very inconsistent" in terms of supply.

Still, he said, the frustration was worth it. He buys ruby red shrimp "every time I can have it because they're fantastic, they're delicious."

Las Vegas Review-Journal

I assume you are unfamiliar with the menu at Kwan's in Salem Oregon which lists

Fried Gulf Shrimp (10 pieces) 8.75

Succulent gulf prawns, dipped in batter and then deep fried in vegetable oil

until crisp and golden. Served with a ruby-red shrimp sauce.

You are correct if you assume that I can't verify that these are the very same artisanal shrimp Fat Guy had on the Gulf, or Serrano buys from a supplier in Maine.

The ultimate problem with your argument is that you are attemting to define "artisanal" by a single provision that probably stretches the common definintion of an artisanal product, while excluding reasonably accepted definitions. It's a common tactic that, along with telling others what they mean to say, eventually kills the thread anyway.

[Wilfrid]

Reading along here, just for my own edification: Steve P.'s definition of "artisanal" does seem to be a specialist definition. Question. Under the Plotnicki definition, can a product be "artisanal" but not particularly good? Or is that a contradiction?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - Yes it can be artisinal but not terribly good. Look at the heirloom tomato crop this year. In August their were glorious. But once Labor Day weekend came along with those large rainstorms, the tomatoes seemed watery. Still very good, but not the fantastic tomatoes that were around for the last 3 weeks of August. Then again I guess there can be examples of people who farm artisinally but their crops come out poorly.

Bux - I haven't defined artisinal, I am using the standard that the food industry uses. My definition is the same one as they use at Daniel, Arpege and Blue Hill etc. And if I use that standard what they serve in Chinatown is not artisinal in the same way. I want to eat top quality ingredients and I don't particularly care if I eat them in a French restaurant, new American, Indian, Japanese, Chinese etc. If I'm interested in eating food that starts with artisinal ingredients, which chefs then apply whatever technique it is to extract the most natural flavor, I can't eat in a Chinese restaurant because I don't know of any that prepare food that way. It has nothing to do with being able to have a great Chinese meal. It has to do with not being able to have a meal that revolves around exceptional ingredients. Not good quality, exceptional.

[Bux]

Bux - I haven't defined artisinal, I am using the standard that the food industry uses. My definition is the same one as they use at Daniel, Arpege and Blue Hill etc.

You're making an assumption, perhaps several, here. I'm not sure you can establish that your definition comes close to that of those you cite. I don't know Passard, but from what I know about Daniel, Dan and Mike, I feel their outlook is much broader than the one you would ascribe to them. I suspect they would not be quick to exclude a range of artisans whose products have not yet been explored.

[robert brown]

Marcus and Hollywood. I ran into a chef we forgot all about, both in general and on the Cote d'Azur who had three stars at least in the early 1950s: Michel Rostang's father Jo Rostang of La Bonne Auberge in Antibes. Waverly Root's book, "The Food of France" states that Rostang had three stars at the time the book was published. Does anyone know when the restaurant lost a star?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Bux - No I'm willing to live with their definition. Artisinal is a word that has commercial relevence.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

But, Steve, we do know that acclaimed chefs, who, we are told, insist on the best artisanal products, can screw them up and, in their haste to feed three seatings, turn out dishes that are not rich but "greasy".

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yes but on other nights they are sublime.

[robert brown]

Cheese, ice cream. sorbet, bread, and whatever else is made by the trained, skillful use of hands to put together an assemblage of ingredients are artisinal. The herbs in our garden in France that my wife looks after are not artisinal. To use the word "artisinal" to mean something akin to home grown, farm-raised, organic, or wild is an example of bad English, used in the service of hype and word inflation. Those who care about language have plenty to be appalled about from the world of gastronomy. As I used to say to my tablemates as we were looking at the menu, "I hope the chef doesn't butcher the meal the way he butchers the English language." Once you begin to give false attributions and meanings to what we eat, its true nature runs a very high risk of being camouflaged and obfuscated. One "fresh-frozen" is enough.

[schaem]

[Cheese, ice cream. sorbet, bread, and whatever else is made by the trained, skillful use of hands to put together an assemblage of ingredients are artisinal.]

Absolutely. The problem I've been having with Steve p.'s arguement is the assumption that Daniel, Arpege, etc. use "artisinal" products in their dishes. They don't. They use meats and fishes and produce whose only artisan is "god"or nature. Good soil and climate and seeds create good products. Cold water fish, caught wild, tend to be better than farmed. The people who bring these products to the restaurants are not "artisans" they are purveyors - middlemen. Daniel might pay more to get the very limited supply of dayboat Atlantic halibut, or Piedmont truffles, but there are no artisans involved. The artisans in the food industry [are] the cooks, bakers, etc. The only products these high end restaurants use regularly that would be considered artisan are the oils and vinegars.

[Gary Marshall]

Cabrales

i'm in tours next week so i've booked charles barrier and will report back, i'm also booked in at le truffeaux a 2 k & fork which has had decent write-ups, anyone know it?

cheers

gary

[Steve Plotnicki]

Schaem - You are looking for a definition that arises from the method of growing or raising the food and I am using the term in a commercial way. "Artisinal" in the way that the industry uses it is a standard of product that is used by certain restaurants to merely say hand-made and of unique qualities. And while you might be correct when you say that a fisherman who takes his boat out on a day trip to cold water isn't an artisan, for the purpose of the food industry his catch is deemed artisinal. But to complete this thought, not everything hand-made is artisinal, as Robert. B. so deftly points out about his wife's herb garden. I think artisinal, if it sticks as a the commercial term a certain segment of the industry consolidates around, is an Anglo term that is similar to the way the French use the term terroir. The point the French make isn't just that a food or wine just comes from a specific terroir, it's that the food or wine will have specific and unique attributes because of the terroir it comes from.

As an aside to this, while dining in Arpege last week and speaking with the Maitre d', he described the restaurant as being "artisinal." When he said that to me I knew exactly what he meant. Hand grown, or carefully selected products that meet a certain level of quality for people who are connoisseurs of fine dining.

Robert B. - I had some fine meals at La Bonne Auberge in the mid to late 80's. I'm not sure how many stars he had back then. It might still have been three. I know that after the old man died, one of the sons took the place over and he has been hovering at 1 toque 14 points in the Gault Miallau ever since and I have not been back.

[robert brown]

Steve, I recall that La Bonne Auberge lost a star before you went there. Whether it was a third or second star, I don't know. His less-heralded son Philippe has the restaurant now. I went a few years ago and have not gone back. We had an obligatory 200 franc, or so, "menu" that was unexciting. I think it was a two-star place even when I first went down to the Cote d'Azur for the first time in the mid-70s.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Robert - I'm pretty sure the place had at least two stars when I went there and didn't drop to a single star until the old man passed away. It's too bad as the restaurant is one of the more beautiful spaces on the coast. It's on a dreary strip though.

[marcus]

La Bonne Auberge had 2 stars for many years until the old man passed away. In my experience, it never had 3 stars, but that only goes back to the 60s, and if Waverly Root said it did, it probably did. Although I have the disinct recollection that when L'Oasis received its star, the news report described it to be the first 3 star restaurant on the Cote d'Azur. Of course that report may be mistaken or my recollection may be faulty.

With regard to "artisanal", Steve's description of terroir is quite correct, but it has nothing to do with artisanal. Artisanal is a term used commonly in France, probably half of the boulangeries in Paris have it on their signs. It means that someone in business is producing a product by himself or with a small number of co-workers using non-mass production techniques. There is an implication of quality and an implication of higher costs justifying higher prices, but the actual quality is ultimately not the determining factor. If the loaf of bread tastes terrible, it remains artisanal. The only reason that Robert's wife's herbs are not artisanal is that she doesn't sell them. If she took them to the local Saturday market, they would become artisanal. In Brittany, the catch of the small boats that go out for a day or two and return to Le Guilvenec at 5 PM with their catch auctioned immediately for transport to Paris is explicitly called artisanal. The catch of the factory boats that go out for a week or more at a time is obviously not.

[Bux]

Bux - I haven't defined artisinal, I am using the standard that the food industry uses. My definition is the same one as they use at Daniel, Arpege and Blue Hill etc.

You're making an assumption, perhaps several, here. I'm not sure you can establish that your definition comes close to that of those you cite. I don't know Passard, but from what I know about Daniel, Dan and Mike, I feel their outlook is much broader than the one you would ascribe to them. I suspect they would not be quick to exclude a range of artisans whose products have not yet been explored.

To which you replied:

Bux - No I'm willing to live with their definition. Artisinal is a word that has commercial relevence.

My point is that's not their definition.

Later:

and I am using the term in a commercial way. "Artisinal" in the way that the industry uses it is a standard of product that is used by certain restaurants to merely say hand-made and of unique qualities. And while you might be correct when you say that a fisherman who takes his boat out on a day trip to cold water isn't an artisan, for the purpose of the food industry his catch is deemed artisinal. But to complete this thought, not everything hand-made is artisinal, as Robert. B. so deftly points out about his wife's herb garden. I think artisinal, if it sticks as a the commercial term a certain segment of the industry consolidates around, is an Anglo term that is similar to the way the French use the term terroir.

Now we're getting somewhere as you realize there are other definitions and acknowledge you "think" as opposed to "know" the answer. Artisanal implies commercial. An artisan is not a hobbyist. He, or she, is a skilled worker or craftsperson.

But we're off again when you say:

When he said that to me I knew exactly what he meant. Hand grown, or carefully selected products that meet a certain level of quality for people who are connoisseurs of fine dining.

because you are not exactly correct. Marcus offers what I feel is the least controversial definition of "artisinal." Of course this is always going to be a fuzzy area and we loose all around when we insist not only on a tight definition but a personal one. I buy rustic farmhouse artisanal products all the time in France. Fine dining, in the sense of luxury has nothing to do with artisanal, except that they have reason to search out these products as do all cooks. It is quite possible for simple backwoods bistro in the Dordogne to use artisanal products and offer a meal that lays claim to being an artisanal meal. It's harder for restaurant in Chinatown in NYC, but not i mpossible and certainly possible that some of their provisions will come from artisanal sources.

In an inexpensive Hunan restaurant in Victoria, BC, we had some of the finest black cod we have ever had. The manager told us the fish came directly from a friend of the owner who fished off the coast of Alaska. To the extent that I believe that fisherman qualified as an artisan fisherman, tha sable was artisanal and probably of a quality as fine as Eric Ripert could get. And I say that without offense to Ripert or the excellence that I've found at le Bernardin, but we need to stop back defining artisanal as that which can only be found in the most exclusive restaurants.

[John Whiting]

There seems to be a widespread difference of opinion not only about the definition of "artisanal" but also how to spell it. Sometimes it shows up spelled more than one way in the same post. For the benefit of the nit-pickers among us, it's spelled just like "artisan" with an adjectival -al suffix tacked on.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"but we need to stop back defining artisanal as that which can only be found in the most exclusive restaurants."

But nobody has said that the definition is the ingredients that can only be found at Daniel etc. I just said that those places use artisanal ingredients. I didn't say artisanal was exclusive to those places.

Marcus - Of course artisinal used commercially has one connotation, and when describing the vegetables and fish used at Arpege it has a more limited connotation. Context frames everything. There are artisanal bakers all over France, and then there is Poillane and Poujerain who are true artisans.