Food Snobbery

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I should have added that after creating Brian, the record producer falls in love with him.

[Bux]

Can we use "right" and "correct" interchangeably as we, I mean "you" all have been doing?

Black tie is the correct thing to wear with a dinner suit (tuxedo jacket).

White tie is the correct thing to wear with tails. (probably why tails are more accurately referred to as a monkey suit than is a tuxedo)

Red wine is the (correct) (right) (proper) thing to drink with steak frites. (choose)

Now to be site specific. I ask that question in a diner in a small town in Alabama where I order steak, maybe chicken fried, with fries. Odds are, the waitress has already poured me a cup of coffee using her inimitable knowledge of what goes with everything on the menu. Sure it's an unfair question, I don't want to be eating steak in a diner in rural Alabama.

Okay, in Brussels, I'd probably have a beer. Certain of that if it was for lunch, although probably wine with dinner. That's just how I feel about Brussels.

I think the nature of "correct" implies a context, if not a subjectivity.

What do most diners in Peter Lugar's drink? They don't serve steak frites in Peter Lugar's do they? I mean they speak English. I think it's correct to drink red wine if you order steak and fries in French. Language is also context. I need to learn how to say "steak frites" in Flemish.

This is boring and I defend the rights of those who say so, whether cleverly or bluntly. I also defend the pedants who persist in posting. Persistent posting pedants are an important part of eGullet.

[Bux]

Steve,you have the most amazing facility for only reading what you want to read.

Tony, if you don't want it, can I have that for my sig?

Steve,you have the most amazing facility for only reading what you want to read.

[tommy]

Steve,you have the most amazing facility for only reading what you want to read.

Tony, if you don't want it, can I have that for my sig?

Steve,you have the most amazing facility for only reading what you want to read. ™

well damn, bux, i was just about to hit *you* up for my new sig:

"Persistent posting pedants are an important part of eGullet."

one could even argue that they are the "heart and soul." god forbid. although adding that would ruin the alliteration.

[Tonyfinch]

Sure Bux. I'm sure Steve will be flattered.

I think the issue you raise about "correct in context" is incredibly important.

Take Retsina. Crap wine right? Well maybe in London or Manhattan, but sitting on the Greek coast in a local family run taverna, staring at the blue sea,nibbling mezze, octopus, calamari, grilled fish with lemon, artichokes in olive oil etc.-ice cold retsina -----PERFECT

And objectively you know that Romanee Conti is a better wine but at that moment if Romanee Conti was put in front of you, you (or at least I) would definitely not want it because at that moment in that context it would NOT be the better wine for any practical purpose.

Pastis is another good example. I can hardly bear to smell it in my flat in London. But plonk me down in a Provencal place at sunset in front of a bar with the old mecs playing boules before getting ready for dinner-PARADISE.

I'm sure people have got loads of other examples. A new thread maybe?

[Deacon]

Nina, a butty is a sandwich. So saying a "butty sandwich" is like saying "mesclun mix". Not done.

Pizza pie.

Pita bread.

Shrimp scampi.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - But you fail to say why Retsina tastes good with that meal. That Retsina is in reality plonk has no bearing on the fact that is goes well with the menu you listed. The way Greek food is cooked, grilled then doused with oil, lemon and herbs, a non-fruity, high in acid, chilled wine tastes best. Just like rose tastes good when eating in Provence even though it's a wine wihtout much breeding to it. Or Sancerre tastes good with a plate of fried fish. Or Pinot Grigio tastes good with seafood risotto. Retsina has all the right attributes to be paired with Greek cuisine. The issue of quality doesn't ever really come into play.

[g.johnson]

If I could inject a little objectivity into this discussion (which is no longer about snobbery, but taste), I’d like to bore you all with science derived from this article.

Different people have different numbers of taste buds. Those with few taste buds (non-tasters) are much less sensitive to sweetness, bitterness, etc. than those with many taste buds (super-tasters). Super-tasters are highly sensitive and tend to dislike coffee, grapefruit, cabbage (too bitter) and chocolate (too sweet). Super-tasters are not rare but comprise 10% of men and 35% of women.

So the position that all educated observers will reach the same conclusions about taste is simply false. It is quite conceivable that a super-taster would find the heirloom tomato preferred by medium tasters like Plotters too sweet. To suggest that the super-taster is wrong would be an absurdity.

[=Mark]

Mark Stevens - I understand your point. But I don't see how that responds to Nina's proffer that it is arrogant to express it that way. Not that your post bothered me. But she does have a point you know.

I thought the post was rather mild given the history of this forum. I suppose I should have added that it was BORING "To Me." To give it a more eGullety feel I could have posted that it was "Brain numbingly FUCKING BORING! "

Didn't realize folks here had become so thin skinned...

[tommy]

To suggest that the super-taster is wrong would be an absurdity.

super-smug scientific bastard.

[John Whiting]

An interesting footnote to the above. Robert Parker, in his recent Ann Arbor Michigan radio interview, remarked in passing, "The skills of a food writer are even more complex than with wine." The sentence structure isn't quite right but he was speaking quickly off the top of his head, and the meaning is clear enough.

[Deacon]

"To follow up on Mike Lewis' pedantry, . . ."

Don't you think that democracy extends beyond the political system? Isn't it the ability to have the same rights as everyone else regardless of your circumstances? Same access to the economic system, same access to the justice system, same ability to pray for the god of your choice, or not at all, same rights to free speech etc. Aren't those rights plus many more, part and parcel with the right to cast your vote for the candidate of your choice?

No one's arguing that you can't drink whatever you want with steak frites. What LML is arguing is that the gastronomic equivalent of the Bilderburg Group shouldn't be allowed to meet somewhere in secret and decide that you can't drink white wine with meat, and that that's not egalitarian.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Hamptons' food shops are preparing themselves for a run on blue food colouring.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Since supertasters are measured scientifically, i.e., how many taste buds in the area of a paper punch hole, how would G. know I'm a medium taster? Has he been examining my tongue in the middle of the night? Surely not.

What would really be interesting is to see if super-tasters have definitive differences in taste when it is applied to a meal. To squeeze lemon juice into your mouth might make for good science, but it makes for bad cuisine. Regardless of what kind of taster you are.

Deacon - Once again, nobody has said that people should be forced to drink wine with steak. But everyone keeps confusing freedom of choice with right and a wrong. 37% of Germans voted for Hitler. They had the right to do so but their choice was wrong.

Mark - Thanks I feel better now.

[g.johnson]

Since supertasters are measured scientifically, i.e., how many taste buds in the area of a paper punch hole, how would G. know I'm a medium taster?

My guess is that the vast majority of eGullet contributors are medium tasters. Super-tasters are, by definition, picky eaters and non-tasters probably don’t have much interest in food.

However, having learnt that you think Sprite is an appropriate accompaniment to steak, I’m happy to concede that you might be a non-taster.

[Wilfrid]

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Zeb and M'lord. You each entirely missed the point of the Educating Brian example. Of course it's possible that Brian would carry on drinking his prune juice. Absolutely possible. Just like Aunt Dot might keep on reading Jeffrey Archer after taking an Open University Lit course. Possible but irrelevant. I am saying what if he did come to prefer red wine to prune juice with his chateaubriand.

My example challenged you to take one of the following two positions:

1. Brian (and all the Brians of this world) cannot be educated. Obviously false.

or

2. When Brian comes to prefer red wine, this is in no way a step forward for him, or an improvement on his prune juice habit.

I think you have to buy into 2., which is somewhat boggling. I would also say - and this may not be what you mean to imply at all - that this is a terribly patronizing and unhelpful position. It's as if I put my feet up with a copy of Der Mann ohne Eigenshaften and a nice bottle of Cheval Blanc, 1929, and said to myself: "Can't help if it Aunt Dot's still stuck on Jeffrey Archer and sweet milky tea. It's all the same really. That's just want Aunt Dot likes."

It's "Let them eat cake". And now who's the snob?

[Mark: I was at a concert on Tuesday, and a few people in the audience hated it, and spent their time yelling abuse - ineffectually as the band was so loud. I couldn't imagine why they stayed for the duration. And you haven't even paid for a ticket for this little hootenanny.]

[Lord Michael Lewis]

It's "Let them eat cake".

Or at least it would be, were you the spouse of an absolute monarch.

I am inferring that you think Aunty Dot should be educated out of her "Sweet Tea & Jeffery Archer" cultural mire.

Point of rhetoric; Must you use the odious Jeffery Archer as an example of a popular author. May I suggest the equally shit, but less despised, Nick Hornby.

[Deacon]

. . . I ask that question in a diner in a small town in Alabama where I order steak, maybe chicken fried, with fries. Odds are, the waitress has already poured me a cup of coffee using her inimitable knowledge of what goes with everything on the menu. Sure it's an unfair question, I don't want to be eating steak in a diner in rural Alabama. . . .

No, in rural Alabama you'd be served iced tea as a beverage with whatever you were eating, and it would automatically be "sweet tea," so sweet as to dissolve your fillings, unless you specifically asked for unsweetened tea. Lemon allowed, but not hot tea, and definitely not milk.

And when you got your chicken-fried steak, it would arrive with fries, green salad with plain French dressing out of a squeeze bottle, cream gravy with specks of black pepper, and plain sliced white bread from a supermarket presliced loaf. Bon appetit.

Somehow the thought of Bux eating chicken-fried steak in Alabama is so unlikely as to seem surreal.

[Wilfrid]

Sheer laziness on my part, Your Honour. Hornby it is.

And no, I think Aunt Dot is perfectly entitled to be left alone, and I do not remotely denigrate her for her tastes. I really don't. But I say that if she were to develop a sudden taste for philosophical novels set in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and concluded that Robert Musil is a much finer author than Nick Hornby, I would agree with her. "Aunt Dot", I would say, "You amaze me. But I think you're right. Musil is a much better author than Hornby."

Just as I would applaud Brian if he were to say "Y'know, I think a drop of red goes much better with this chateaubriand than that prune juice ever did."

I wouldn't say to either of them, "Nonsense, you were doing just fine as you were." Dat's de patronizing bit.

[g.johnson]

Brian (and all the Brians of this world) cannot be educated.  Obviously false.

I don't see that this is obviously false. Why shouldn't variations in physiology result in variations in taste? Even learned responses might become sufficiently hardwired to be irremediable.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Brian (and all the Brians of this world) cannot be educated.  Obviously false.

I don't see that this is obviously false. Why shouldn't variations in physiology result in variations in taste? Even learned responses might become sufficiently hardwired to be irremediable.

Hmmm. Good point (scientific too). Clutch, clutch, straw, straw.

[John Whiting]

Wilfrid argues like a teacher, which he actively was. After all the smartly cynical remarks have been made, that is the primary impulse which keeps useful and pleasurable information passing along incrementally from generation to generation. Thanks.

[Wilfrid]

I'm also hilarious and a delight to read .

GJ, I think you might be misreading what I said, or perhaps I put it clumsily. Is this better?

"No Brian can be educated."

I think that's obviously false. Some Brians might be hardwired as you suggest, but not all. And not many, I suspect. I mean, I've been educated somewhat over the last year in matters of taste by some of the old lags around this place.

[yvonne johnson]

I just wonder whether Plotnicki can be educated.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I just wonder whether Plotnicki can be educated.

About what, food that tastes like a placenta? (rimshot please.)