Food Snobbery

[Lord Michael Lewis]

To answer LML's fuck off, I don't think this thread has anything to do with social taste. To couch it that way is just a fancy way of saying that taste is subjective. It isn't. Personal taste is subjective. "Taste" is the adoption of a standard and it is objective.

As to what wine goes best with steak frittes, well it depends on where the beef was from. If I was eating Bazas beef, I would want a claret. And I prefer Burgundy with my Charolais beef.  And Rhone wines with my Sisteron Lamb. Do you do it differently my lord.

You may not think this has anything to with social taste but I would wager that anyone who opens a thread entitled, 'Food Snobbery' would disagree.

Regarding 'what should one drink with steak frites?' the answer, as Tony Finch has already pointed out, tells us about 'social taste'. Not only did you answer wine, but you re-wrote the question in your own image. The fact that you make assumptions like this would imply that you consider, milk, or Gatorade or anything other than wine to be a wrong answer. The belief that anything that differs from one's own taste is wrong, is the definition of a snob by my maxim that 'snobbery stems from the belief that there are answers to questions of taste'.

[Stone]

For example, if I'm going to make a certain meal, perhaps with culinary references to certain traditions, or culinary "quotations," as it were, and if I'd like my guests (audience) to understand and appreciate the references, then I'd like to invite people who have a certain level of understanding and experience and basis for discernment and judgment.

Words fail me.

No they don't... This is why snobbery is a bad thing.

What is why snobbery is a bad thing? Because I'm discriminating, because I want to spend my time and energy with and for like-minded people?

Because you may be missing out on the company of a very nice person who has strange tastes in food. Or you may saddle yourself with an annoying git just because he can wax poetic about wine. Wouldn't you want the opportunity to show that person how good a meal could be?

[Stone]

'snobbery stems from the belief that there are answers to questions of taste'.

Are there answers to question of offensiveness? On another thread you pointed out that whether a word is offensive stems comes down to consensus:

I think the process you refer to is, in linguistic terminology, 'perjoration'. This refers to the shift towards a negative semantic value of a word.

An example would be, 'nigger'.

Originally from the adjective nègre (Fr) or negro (Sp), meaning black.

Amongst, some afro-Americans the term 'nigger' has undergone a linguistic 'amelioration' where the word's value is seen as quite positive.

'Brit', however, has not, to my knowledge, experienced this pejorative shift, at least outside the Dodger social circle.

Language is synergistic rather than subjective in that it requires some level of consensus to alter the value of a word. Therefore, if a lot of people believe that 'Brit' is offensive then it is offensive. Personally, I don't find 'Brit' offensive, just unimaginative.

I don't quite understand the difference bewteen language being "synergistic rather than subjective", but if the value of a word is a matter of consensus why not the value of taste?

You seem to agree that "Brit" is not offensive because there is no such consensus in society, even though you must agree that some people are offended by the word. Are they "wrong" to be offended? Are they too sensitive? Or is the word just offensive to some and inoffensive to others and no one can claim to be correct?

[stellabella]

huh.

well, i am in the process of trying to decide which chicken salad sandwich is better:

a] here at school i sometimes buy a lunchtime sandwich from the woman who runs the snack bar. i described it in my original post here. she serves it on thick cheap white "texas toast" bread; the salad is made from canned cooked chicken meat loaded with mayo and sweet pickle relish.

b] at the lunch place where i sometimes work we sell homemade chicken salad: we poach fresh chicken breasts with celery, bay leaves and poultry seasoning, we chop the meat by hand, add mayo, chopped fresh celery and bell pepper, and sweet relish. we sevre it on fresh bread, soft or grilled with butter, and add lettuce, tomato, sprouts, and red onion.

"unfortunately," i find myself continuously craving the first sandwich, which, by every reasonable definition of what makes food "superior," should be inferior to the second, better-quality, better-prepared sandwich.

i pretty much always cook from scratch with the best ingredients i can lay my hands to. many of my friends are gustatory philistines, but i don't "lower" the quality of my cooking simply because they're too culinarily unsophisticated to really appreciate it. i'll wager that everyone appreciates my food, not because they think it's the best food they've ever tasted, but because i was kind enough to cook it for them.

if i only associated with people who had as much appreciation for and knowledge of food as i do, i'd be single and i'd be lonely.

i guess i started this thread more as a, "hey, get a load of this," than to encourage a debate. i think many people in this community really have lots of like-minded friends [EDIT: like-minded when it comes to FOOD]; i have very few, and that's why i like egullet so much.

i won't judge ANYONE's character based on what he or she eats or how or where or with whom. i judge a person's character based on how he or she treats others. if there's a universally-agreed-upon criteria for making such a judgement, i believe this would come pretty close to being it.

[Jinmyo]

Finis.

/all exit stage left

[Miss J]

i won't judge ANYONE's character based on what he or she eats or how or where or with whom.  i judge a person's character based on how he or she treats others.  if there's a universally-agreed-upon criteria for making such a judgement, i believe this would come pretty close to being it.

Just to back this theory up: while I'm not terribly partial to the first sandwich Stellabella describes above (it's the sweet pickle that puts me off), I'd be more than happy to share a meal with Stellabella.

[Wilfrid]

Gee

Let's not forget that it is perfectly consistent to believe both that certain locally agreed criteria are available against which the quality of foodstuffs, or dishes, or eating or drinking experiences can be judged, and that a person can have specific personal preferences which are at odds with the conclusions suggested by those criteria without that person necessarily being a tasteless fuckwit.

Let's not forget that such criteria can and do vary geographically, culturally and historically. No universally and timelessly valid criteria are available - by which I mean that, even if such criteria existed, we would have no way of confidently identifying them.

And let's not forget that having poor taste in food does not make someone an idiot.

[StephenT]

"unfortunately," i find myself continuously craving the first sandwich, which,  by every reasonable definition of what makes food "superior," should be inferior to the second, better-quality, better-prepared sandwich.

Maybe you're getting addicted to evil additives in the first sandwich

[Adam Balic]

Wow, I have learn't so much from this debate - like, I had no idea that canned chicken existed.

[stellabella]

"unfortunately," i find myself continuously craving the first sandwich, which,  by every reasonable definition of what makes food "superior," should be inferior to the second, better-quality, better-prepared sandwich.

Maybe you're getting addicted to evil additives in the first sandwich

stephen, i don't know. it really has been bugging me lately. what makes one taste better to me than the other? if you knew me, you'd know that eating and LIKING the first sandwich is pretty inconsistent with everything i believe about food. what to do?

and i would never serve the first sandwich to my friend Miss J if she came for lunch--i'd actually cook, because that's the way i am.

[stellabella]

I had no idea that canned chicken existed. 

oh, yes--you'll find it next to the potted meat. i ate a lot of that stuff growing up. but then, i used to be poor and very country, or, as they say in your parts, "local."

[rich]

To say that someone's tastes are worse than yours is what another site is about. Its not this one.

HUH????

I guess there must be some parallel egullet group that I've belonged to for the last three-plus months.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Regarding 'what should one drink with steak frites?' the answer, as Tony Finch has already pointed out, tells us about 'social taste'. Not only did you answer wine, but you re-wrote the question in your own image. The fact that you make assumptions like this would imply that you consider, milk, or Gatorade or anything other than wine to be a wrong answer. The belief that anything that differs from one's own taste is wrong, is the definition of a snob by my maxim that 'snobbery stems from the belief that there are answers to questions of taste

LML- What a dumbass you are.

Tony - Go ask the same question of a hundred top chefs and they will all answer it the same way I did. Now if the question was, *what do you personally like to drink with steak frittes?* instead of *what is the right thing to drink?* you would get completely different answers.

Wilfrid - Of course you are completely correct. But the question is when is a person who disagrees with the criteria a fuckwit? As I have been trying to say, it comes down to valid opinions, and opinions worth crap. There are many dissenting opinions that are valid. But to be honest, many of the people who dissent know diddles about food, and as such do not have a valid opinion. You can recognize them because those are the people pushing the "everything is relative" or LML type arguments.

[Wilfrid]

As I have been trying to say, it comes down to valid opinions, and opinions worth crap. There are many dissenting opinions that are valid. But to be honest, many of the people who dissent know diddles about food, and as such do not have a valid opinion. You can recognize them because those are the people pushing the "everything is relative" or LML type arguments.

I am bound to agree that there worthless opinions about food, just as there are worthless opinions about philosophy, literature and sport. Of course, one can disagree about which opinions are worthless, and how they are to be identified, but I don't see any way to deny that worthless opinions exist. And there are also opinions with which one might disagree, but which nevertheless are not worthless - for example, when they offered by someone who generally understands the subject. I could list several of Fat Bloke's opinions as examples

[StephenT]

stephen, i don't know.  it really has been bugging me lately.  what makes one taste better to me than the other?  if you knew me, you'd know that eating and LIKING the first sandwich is pretty inconsistent with everything i believe about food.  what to do?

I think such things happen to most people at one point or another. I have a boring "there must be an explanation for things" way of thinking about things like this but since you said it's been bugging you then I'll mention a few possibilities which could well be utter rubbish

1) When I find myself craving something "junk" I sometimes eat it and then wonder why I did because it wasn't that great. This I put it down to a deficiency of something. For example if I haven't had much salt (or indeed MSG) recently then my brain knows that if I get some junk food it'll get a good dosing of salt and/or MSG. This sort of thing happens a lot after drinking too much when your body needs all sorts of things to replenish what the booze sucks out of you.

2) Mental associations with the food in question. You said you ate a lot of it while growing up - perhaps you enjoy eating it as a sort of comfort food? I associate tinned asparagus and tinned ham with happy times because we used to have them at Christmas when I was young - I'm sure most people would categorise them as being rubbish though.

3) It actually does taste good regardless of the fact that it's junk. If junk food always tasted bad then why would anybody eat it? But the question of "taste" has been debated at length all over this board so doesn't warrant any more discussion here.

So think about it really hard next time you eat one of those sandwiches and see if it fits into any of those categories. And try looking at the two sandwiches when you're not actually hungry. Don't forget that it's not just your tastebuds that food satisfies, it's the rather complex chemical soup in your brain that it satisfies through a number of different channels.

[Wilfrid]

Good post Stephen. It points out some explanations for the commonly observed phenomenon that the most enlightened, nay evolved connoisseur of fine dining does not choose the "best" meal they can afford on every occasion they are hungry. And it really is something which needs explanation, unless we are to regard such behavior as irrational.

Scorates was wrong, you see: knowing what is good does not necessarily lead to choosing what is good.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Now that last post by Stephen T. was an intelligent post.

[tommy]

regardless of ones definition of "food snobbery," i think it's safe to say that those who practice one kind, practice many kinds. and for those who don't practice snobbery, it's easy to pick out those who do...simply by having a conversation about just about anything. not that i'm advocating reverse-snobbery, which, clearly, is an entirely different thread.

edit: one's, ones. hmmm.

[lxt]

Plotinki, ...

Intentional misspelling of your opponent’s name doesn’t complement your obvious abilities to extemporize on the subject of impertinence using more advanced tools. The technique selected is primitive and could be possibly construed as a mere attempt to conceal essential incompetence. If your intention was based, however, on your eccentricity and love of amateurism, I’d suggest dropping the “Lord” prefix before your user name as by default the title obliges one to seek great stature of character by holding to the virtues of a gentleman. That is of course unless nobility, in your vocabulary, is equivalent to elitism and snobbery.

[ivan]

Sheesh, what a bunch of snobs.

(And I say, if this is snobbery, then Hooray for Snobs!)

[LaNiña]

First of all....I love lxt.

Now...of COURSE I have lots of friends and acquaintances who are not "foodies" - I just don't EAT with them. I do other things with them. Well sometimes I eat with them, but I don't enjoy it half as much as eating with other food people - why the hell do we egulleteers hang out and each together so much, do ya think?

[maggiethecat]

Lordy...we're still at this one?

Dear, remarkable, kind, intelligent friends of ours, a couple, come for dinner about six times a year. We try not to cook anything terribly complex because , having eaten at their house, we know that they have very conservative (ie. well-cooked rack of lamb!!) taste.

Last time we invited them, there was a pause on the other end of the line. "Could you please not make any weird food this time?)

We scratched our heads and reviewed previous menus. Coq au vin. Pasta with garlic and scallops. Bouef Carbonnade. You get the idea. These are weird?

These folks know more about, say, the Avignon Papacy or the Lancia than we do. They don't sneer at us.

So, we know from food and they don't. Maybe we feel pity and amazement for them. But we're not snobs because of that.

Also they always bring a hoover-doover that's really pretty good. Dark rye squares with a layer of cream cheese, a slice of cucumber and a squirt of Kraft Italian dressing.

[tommy]

i don't break bread with people who don't share my exquisite taste. eff 'em.

[maggiethecat]

Eff em indeed. But if I were to limit my dining companions to those who even approach my exquisite tase, it would be the same old face over the table every night.

Even if that face does look like a cross between Daniel Day-Lewis and Marcello Mastroiani.

[Tonyfinch]

Now if the question was, *what do you personally like to drink with steak frittes?* instead of *what is the right thing to drink?* you would get completely different answers.

Steve, after millions of your posts on the same issue on this and countless other threads, I am as befuddled as ever.

If there is a "right" thing to drink with steak frites, why would anyone "prefer" to drink anything else-by definition the "wrong" thing"?

What if some of the hundred chefs who you airily claim would all say the same thing if asked, don't like red wine. or do not drink alcohol? Are you saying that they would claim Burgundy to be the "right " thing despite the fact that they don't like wine,or drink it?