Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Does Italy lack culinary relevance?


Fat Guy

Recommended Posts

Sorry, the gremlins did their bit on my last, important line. What I meant to say was I am aware that I have been accused of being an oaf but when someone says that he 'applies higher standards' that is telling us all that Mr Plotnicki knows better than any of us! What piffle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pumpkino you oaf - You keep talking about how the food tastes and I keep talking about how much publicity and notice they are getting. When I say that there is very little word of mouth about Italian cuisine, hardly any cookbooks published and imported into the U.S. and U.K., and there aren't many articles published on the chefs or restaurants, that has nothing to do with how the food tastes. It has to do with how "relevant" those chefs and restaurants are to the worldwide dining community. Maybe they are serving the most delicious and inventive food in the world (they're not but it's possible) but that woudn't make my statement wrong. The issue is acclaim outside of Italy. It's the same for Rick Stein and other chefs who are poissoniers. The issue is that he is famous. Whomever you are speaking of is not, i.e., has no "relevance."

As for Arzak, since you are having a problem rebutting my proffer regarding acclaim, you insist on reading what I wrote in a way that suits you. I wrote that it was possible I was there on an off night. So my statement about higher standards applies *only if that is the best they can do.* Because when I was there, they were pretty much serving what I would call a refined version of Basque cuisine without much inventiveness to it. Things like Clams and Hake in a refined green sauce. That dish, while a fine dish, is in no way in my mind a haute cuisine dish. In fact from memory, every dish they were serving was a refined version of traditional cuisine and that is why I called it "correct" (which is a term I borrowed from the critic Patricia Wells who describes restaurants that serve classic cuisine without much creativity but where the food is perfectly fine in that manner.) I also said that according to other eaters I trust, they have had similar opinions to mine. Most of them tell me the best food in the area is at Zubaroa (sp?) but I haven't been.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hang on hang on, I didn't say anyone forced you to eat pasta. I said that it's an integral part of the meal and it is served as a course all by itself.
But many courses in Italy are served "by themselves" -- it is more common to see vegetables, as contorni, served as a distinct dish, rather than plated along with a meat dish. Personally I enjoy this presentation style: it forces the chef to make each plate stand on its own, and it calls more attention to the quality of ingredients and preparation.
I'm not understanding why you say there isn't a "starch only course?" What else would you call a pasta course? Yes the pasta is flavored either with a topping or something that is stirred into the dish as in a risotto but the course revolves around the starch.
Well perhaps we are splitting hairs (or hares) here. But I think most people would view a dish of pappardelle with rabbit sauce as primarily about the rabbit, not about the pasta. Of course the pasta has to be good. And I am well aware that the Italian nomenclature is a bit odd in this respect: "pasta with X" rather than "X served over pasta". And I am also aware that restaurant menus tend to group pastas together, as they would meats or fish. Nonetheless I think that serious gastronomes would focus at least a much on the quality of the X as of the pasta.

As an example, take spaghetti alla bottarga, in part because it happens to be one of my very favourite dishes. No, it is not haute cuisine. But in fact it is very, very difficult to make it to a high standard. If the bottarga is not fresh and moist, and beautifully shaved or grated, and if it is not properly integrated with superb olive oil, a bit of lemon and perhaps some herbs, the dish will fail. So this dish is at least as much about the bottarga and the saucing and the service as the pasta. At one restaurant that offered this dish as a starter, I asked for the bottarga to be served on some salad leaves, because I had eaten pasta at lunch. No problem at all: it came on some crisp endive leaves. To me, and I think to the restaurant, this was a "bottarga" starter more than a "pasta" starter.

Your last point about correlation and cause asks a good question. But, surely you can't be saying that there is a shortage of money at the high end in Italy and therefore all they can afford is pasta? Because that is were this question lies. How come Italy, with all their delicious food on a traditional level, and with all of their inventiveness and creativity in things like design and fashion, hasn't managed to produce a single chef who is making an impact on the international food scene?
It is difficult to prove a negative, hence the common law notion of "innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt." I have to say that, were I asked to sit on a jury in the case of Haute Cuisine vs Italian Cookery I would have to vote the Italians "not guilty" of having no influence on haute cuisine -- or better, as the Scots put it, "case not proven." The influence may be there, perhaps we just haven't found it.

But set that aside for a moment. I think you are trying to make a stronger case, which is not just that Italy's culinary innovations have somehow not travelled, or not been discovered, but that the international gourmets' judgement of Italian cuisine is in some sense "right", that the cuisine has not had influence at the highest levels because it lacks subtlety or scope for innovation. At times you've argued that this is because the cuisine lacks technique ("50,000 nonnas can make pasta"); at others because it is overly dependent on starch.

Personally I don't find any of these perspectives compelling: case still not proven. But, in a sprit of enquiry, suppose that I did. One reason that Italian cooking might not have penetrated the highest levels of international gourmetude could be that, even in rich towns like Milan, it has been influenced by the "cucina povera" of Tuscany and the south: effectively a cuisine of the poor, designed to make scarce ingredients go further and use up leftovers.

Now of course there is money amongst top Italian eaters and restaurants, just as in Paris or New York. But, I would argue, you cannot divorce a cuisine from its deepest roots. Hence, even if pastas originally became popular in order to make expensive meats go further, they continue to turn up in top places. In this sense the appearance of pasta would be correlated with the cuisine's lack of subtlety/technique (if that were true), but not a cause of it. The cause would be the cuisine's roots in a poorer economy.

I first saw the theory about pastas and soups being "stretchers" set out in Mario Pei's excellent introduction to the English translation of Ada Boni's famous Talismano della Felicita -- the "Talisman Italian Cookbook". I have not done research to check it.

Jonathan Day

"La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le go�t de ce qu'elles sont."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Darn, but I love stale bread at the bottom of or crumbled into a great soup.

One of the most precious things I've learned from what I've experienced of Italian cuisine (as grand-daughter of an Italian monkey grinder emigrated to Wales, as a child in Italy for months at a time as a child and teenager, and revivified in near dotage by the powers of St. Mario Batali) is how to use the common or even less than common well. Extremely well.

I know that this is not relevant to Steve P's gist but I jest not that just this is very relevant to me.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now of course there is money amongst top Italian eaters and restaurants, just as in Paris or New York. But, I would argue, you cannot divorce a cuisine from its deepest roots. Hence, even if pastas originally became popular in order to make expensive meats go further, they continue to turn up in top places. In this sense the appearance of pasta would be correlated with the cuisine's lack of subtlety/technique (if that were true), but not a cause of it. The cause would be the cuisine's roots in a poorer economy.

If you go down that line of thinking, the simpler conclusion is that Italian cooking philosophy has been fully realized and that is why there is no "improvement of technique" beyond the classic technique. The same phenomenon has been happening to the French over the last 20 years. The improvements are more like individual flourishes amongst various chefs like Passard's minimalism or Gagnaire's improvisational style. One can say that those are just affectations added to the French lexicon and not substantive improvements. Spain is obviously a place where technique is being improved. The U.S. and Britain too. But maybe Italian cuisine, like Chinese, Moroccan, Turkish etc. has exhausted itself. That phenomenon isn't unusual when it comes to the practice of artistry. When was the last time you heard someone write an opera that become popular? Or when was the last good Impressionist painting painted?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But set that aside for a moment. I think you are trying to make a stronger case, which is not just that Italy's culinary innovations have somehow not travelled, or not been discovered, but that the international gourmets' judgement of Italian cuisine is in some sense "right", that the cuisine has not had influence at the highest levels because it lacks subtlety or scope for innovation.

JD - Sorry I missed this point. Actually what I argue is that French cuisine involves more demanding technique then other cuisines. That is why it is so dominant a worldwide basis. And which is why people follow and are interested in the chefs. They razzle dazzle everyone wth their technique. It's for the same reasons that people follow any type of performer. Their technique is interesting. It's true for everyone from Ferran Adria to Tiger Woods. But if we look at your bottarga example, while making the dish delicious, there isn't enough technique involved for the bottarga shaver to become famous. Because while shaving bottarga thin is an art, it's doesn't expend as much technique as making a perfect souffle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you go down that line of thinking, the simpler conclusion is that Italian cooking philosophy has been fully realized and that is why there is no "improvement of technique" beyond the classic technique. ...  But maybe Italian cuisine, like Chinese, Moroccan, Turkish etc. has exhausted itself.I

Instead of "exhausted," why not look at it that if these cuisines, or more specifically Italian, aim for a different end than does haute cuisine as you've defined it, they are still on the road to full realization as they would like it?

Gee, and I was determined not to post on this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Darn, but I love stale bread at the bottom of or crumbled into a great soup.

One of the most precious things I've learned from what I've experienced of Italian cuisine (as grand-daughter of an Italian monkey grinder emigrated to Wales, as a child in Italy for months at a time as a child and teenager, and revivified in near dotage by the powers of St. Mario Batali) is how to use the common or even less than common well. Extremely well.

I know that this is not relevant to Steve P's gist but I jest not that just this is very relevant to me.

Just to be clear: I feel the same way. I hate to throw out food, and I take a lot of pride in being able to make delicious things from meagre ingredients.

But clearly this is not part of the haute cuisine. An Italian cook would make a brodo from a few bones and scraps -- and probably stop there. But a serious French cook would make stock from fresh meat with remouillage (stock made from previously boiled bones) as the liquid, then clarify it with more fresh meat...and eventually this would be reduced and more meat would be added to make a brown sauce...and so on. I sometimes think the goal of haute cuisine is to consume as much as possible in producing the final product.

As you say, Jinmyo, not relevant to Steve's argument.

Jonathan Day

"La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le go�t de ce qu'elles sont."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

French cuisine involves more demanding technique then other cuisines. That is why it is so dominant a worldwide basis. And which is why people follow and are interested in the chefs. They razzle dazzle everyone wth their technique. It's for the same reasons that people follow any type of performer. Their technique is interesting. It's true for everyone from Ferran Adria to Tiger Woods.

I wonder whether we might find that this obsessive focus on a "star" performer is a relatively modern phenomenon. Go back far enough and you find artists who were deliberately anonymous, or were members of a specific school but not identified personally. Has the identification of the restaurant with its chef always been true, even in France? In countries where traditions of art are more communal and less personal (India, perhaps China), and where it wouldn't invariably occur to someone to ask who was the artist (e.g. of a piece of pottery, or a painting) would customers ask who the chef of a top restaurant was?

I think it was in one of the Ruhlman interviews that Thomas Keller said that he was trying to create an institution with the French Laundry, a cuisine that he hoped would survive his departure: a chef-independent cuisine. But this hasn't happened in many French restaurants that I know of.

Jonathan Day

"La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le go�t de ce qu'elles sont."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apicius & Taillevent. That is ancient Rome and the 14th century I believe so the tradition is a long one. And of course there is Escoffier which is where the current tradition of intensified focus on chefs begins. But don't you think the growth of the media as a business and travel as an industry is what propelled the chef to such amazing star status? The travel industry needed to give us "a reason to go there," so much so that the world's most influential food critic is a tire company that sells the information as a way to organize your travel. And the media industry is always desperate for what is new and interesting and they need to tell us in more detail "why we need to go there." It's in that light that "relevant" is cast.

I think that the phenomenon of chefs, really artisans, as celebrities once again brings us back to the notion of an emerging middle class. Consumers need overt signs that what they do, or that what they like is justified. Their desires and more importantly, their feelings about things need to be ratified by an independant source and the media has stepped in to play that role. Whether it is liking a rock band like the Rolling Stones, or whether it is liking your meal at Robuchon, they both come with the knowledge that lots of other people feel the same way about it.

Without going too far out on a tangent, I think one of the main differences between art and craftsmanship is the need to compromise one's work for the consumers benefit. Being a craftsman is a business. And people like songwriters, cabinetmakers and chefs, without an audience or customers to buy their work they have nothing. And I think that rung of service provider for society was an easy one to glorify. And in hindsight it isn't surprising that one of the major occurences of the 20th century was that a market was made for these types of craftsmen on an international basis. None of that could have been done without the media. Before the second half of the 20th century, who would have thunk that the future of cooking lay in that fact that distinctly middle class people from all over the world would have mashed potatoes as one of the reasons they were going to France for their vacation?

By the way, I went to Kitchen Arts & Letters yesterday to see about Italian cookbooks. They only knew of two books that had been translated into English. One is the book from Don Alfonso I mentioned in this thread. That was released within the last six months. The other book is from Heinz Beck who cooks at the Hilton in Rome and that was released within the last year or so. But other than those two, there has never been a single Italian chef whose book has been translated into english. Not even Gualtiero Marchesi when he had three stars. I find that amazing. By the way, and to put everything into perspective, as far as I know of, none of the Spanish chefs

have been translated into english either. But their books, including books about modern Spanish cooking in general are huge sellers as imports.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cultures have preserved their indigenous cuisine uncorrupted to the degree that their populations do not speak or comprehend (American) English.

Think that one over.

Edit: Not to imply that there is necessarily a causal relationship.

Except, of course, that the purpose of posting was to imply that there is a causal realtionship :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"As far as every day decorative arts after WWII, the Italians have it all over the French: Gavina, Allessi, Memphis, Mulino, Gio Ponti. In architecture, Renzo Piano, Aldo Rossi,etc." (robert brown)

that's a kind of blind alley, really. i mean, for the last 200 years or more, the finest furniture in the european culture has been scandinavian, as has the architecture for the last 100 years. but our food is mostly crap.

christianh@geol.ku.dk. just in case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Not even Gualtiero Marchesi' - who he?

Thank you Signore Pumpkino for revealing your credentials

Oraklet - Your statement just isn't true. Scandinavian furniture might have been an important style during the 20th century on a mass produced level, but French art deco of the 20's-30's would be the "finest" if you use price at auction as a measure. Even at the highest end, Alvo Altar (sp?) furniture doesn't sell for the same prices as pieces by the French deco masters like Ruhlmann, Chareau etc., let alone pieces by Giacometti. But fortunately, both Robert S. and Robert B are going to be expert on this topic and will know current market value for things like Geoge Jensen silverware etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steve,It's Alvar Aalto,and and early Swedish contemporary furniture is quite valued these days.The designs were very influential in 20th century design.Exact $ value isn't everything-walk down lower Broadway in N.Y.,and you will see antique stores full of heavy,hideous,expensive baroque furniture.Who cares how much it sells for...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well it does seem that Polish people do not understand irony.

Of course I know who Marchesi is! I've met him on two occassions but, frankly, I didn't think the food at Erbusco was that great - too French and if that's what I want I go to France.

There's a really small, very local very Italian restaurant quite near Erbusco at Chiari (25 kms West on the state road from Brescia to Milano) called Il Vecchio Portico (+39 030713295). Of course a certain Pollack I know wouldn't like it because there are no cook books about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i think he's spelled alvar aalto.

but market value does not in itself tell you the quality of the thing. it may be under-estimated, after all. and i've seen so much ridiculous arty crap being sold at very high prices.

besides: what do you want? an expensive, silly gadget meant to impress, or something to live with or in, which you can pass on to your kids and enjoy every time you see or use it? i'll admit, my point of view on this is very far from what i've come to know outside of scandinavia...but please take a look at wegner's wooden chairs or tables: you would have to go to ancient chinese furniture to find a thing more exquisite and yet useful. and danish empire furniture was far better than their french counterpart - actually so well made that this country is still loaded with it.

but enough for now. i'd better stop being irrelevant.

christianh@geol.ku.dk. just in case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well it does seem that Polish people do not understand irony. 

Of course I know who Marchesi is! I've met him on two occassions but, frankly, I didn't think the food at Erbusco was that great - too French and if that's what I want I go to France.

There's a really small, very local very Italian restaurant quite near Erbusco at Chiari (25 kms West on the state road from Brescia to Milano) called Il Vecchio  Portico (+39 030713295).  Of course a certain Pollack I know wouldn't like it because there are no cook books about it.

Well it does seem that Polish people do not understand irony.

Polish Jew. Big difference. Don't confuse the two. Twice as stubborn and twice as thick headed. I know, I'm one of them.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pumpkino - You keep making the same mistake over and over again. I'm sure your little country restaurant near Ebrusco is wonderful and I'm sure I would enjoy it. But what that has to do with a conversation about the Italian equivelant of haute cuisine I do not know. That is the only narrow issue I am addressing. Why the Italians haven't figured out how to succeed at a local version of haute cuisine (that garners interest outside of Italy) the way the French, British, and Americans have. And I ate at Marchese twice when he was in his original premises in Milan when Italian haute cuisine had a lot of excitement going on all around it. That must have been between 1987-1990. But since that time the world has lost interest in it.

Oraklet - I have to take exception. French art nouveau, deco and post deco (like Royere and Prouve) are the creme de la creme of furniture from the first half of the 20th century. Not that there aren't important deisgners from other countries, but if you were to aggregate all of the great works by country the French would by far outshine everyone. One of the ways that is reflected is by what the furniture now sells for on the market. You have pieces by French designers selling for nearly $500,000. I don't think there are Danish equivelents of that. But again, I will let the experts speak about it in more detail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

art deco is, as it suggests, more deco than applique, if you see what i mean. thus it is more liable to produce collectors' pieces of quasi-art. but do you remember the prices of 25 years ago? most of it couldn't be sold! scandinavian pieces from that era, on the other hand, tended to be less "arty", less outrees, and more to the point (to be used as furniture, that is...) and therefore would sell better.

after all, a chair is for sitting, and a meal is supposed to be eaten.

christianh@geol.ku.dk. just in case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, I went to Kitchen Arts & Letters yesterday to see about Italian cookbooks. They only knew of two books that had been translated into English. One is the book from Don Alfonso I mentioned in this thread. That was released within the last six months. The other book is from Heinz Beck who cooks at the Hilton in Rome and that was released within the last year or so. But other than those two, there has never been a single Italian chef whose book has been translated into english. Not even Gualtiero Marchesi when he had three stars. I find that amazing. By the way, and to put everything into perspective, as far as I know of, none of the Spanish chefs

have been translated into english either. But their books, including books about modern Spanish cooking in general are huge sellers as imports.

Steve,

you're choosing your data to fit your theory: you have just mentioned two chefs (Alfonso Iaccarino and Heinz Beck) who work in Italy and who have books translated in English available: in Spain I believe only Adria and Balaguer will be/have been able to do the same. So really I don't see any difference. Concerning Marchesi's book, let me remind you that he was big and his book was published in the early 80s: even Alain Chapel's book wasn't translated in English. Actually Marchesi was one of only two non-French speaking chefs (the other being Witzigmann) whose books were published in the same series as Bocuse, Troigros, Verge, Girardet, etc.

To this day, how many chefs from Spain, Germany, Belgium, and other European countries outside of France have had their book translated in English?

In addition, I very much doubt that apart from the two guys mentioned above, any other Spanish chef cookbook has significant sales abroad that are any different from the Italians. And this holds for any other country in which we have Michelin starred chefs (Belgium, Germany, Switzerland) but the native language is not English. Also note that the English chefs probably sell more books outside England than the French outside France, yet this could not be conceived as a measure of how relevant the two countries' chefs are in haute cuisine, I hope.

I should also correct you on another factual point: Iaccarino and Beck are not the only other chefs that have cookbooks around. To the list you should add Nadia Santini (Pescatore), Ezio Santin (Antica Osteria del Ponte), Claudio Sadler (Sadler), Romano Tamani (Ambasciata), Vissani, Marchesi (he's got a new book out), Filippo Chiappini Dattilo (Antica Osteria del Teatro), Moreno Cedroni (Madonnina del Pescatore). These are all in Italian but they do exist.

A catalog that includes these books (but the prices are unreasonable) can be found at

Italian cookbooks

One other thing: the raviolo aperto has no gold leaf on it, what you're referring to is the saffron risotto, that's got the gold leaf.

Let me restate my position on this: everyone except for me seems to believe that haute cuisine is French: I have tried to point out that this is not so, and that a few Italian chefs have successfully continued the Italian tradition within haute cuisine. But this kind of work comes against the very obstacle that I was talking about a few days ago. People mistakenly believe that haute cuisine has to be French, and since most of the people who come to Italy don't want to eat "French", they don't go to high-end restaurants and therefore these restaurants are not very well known. We could call it the "Peterpumpikino attitude", but I believe just about anyone on this forum, including yourself has been "guilty" of it to some extent.

As an aside, I should emphasize that I do enjoy very much non-haute cuisine restaurants when they are good, I just refuse to subscribe to the rule of thumb that haute cuisine in Italy = bad french , simple trattoria = true and good Italian, especially when the opposite view is supported by people that haven't given high-end Italian restaurants a fair shot.

After all, how many people on this forum have been to Beck's or Vissani, or Il Gambero Rosso and even if they've been, how many times? No wonder these chefs are not talked about much, nobody eats there! Again, I don't think it has anything to do with quality. I happen to know these restaurants well and I believe they do compare favorably with most two and three stars in France. I will grant you that possibly with the exception of Massimiliano Alajmo at Le Calandre, Perbellini at Perbellini and Vissani, most Italian high-end restaurants are not terribly creative, but I really don't believe they cannot compete with similarly very traditional haute cuisine restaurants like Blanc, Lameloise, Taillevent, etc.

Francesco

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Francesco - Your retrun to the site after a few days of absence is welcomed. But let me clarify my point about chefs cookbooks. Being translated into english is just one of the standards, the other standard I used is whether the cookery specialty shops in the U.K. and U.S. import the books. And of the chefs you listed

Nadia Santini (Pescatore), Ezio Santin (Antica Osteria del Ponte), Claudio Sadler (Sadler), Romano Tamani (Ambasciata), Vissani, Marchesi (he's got a new book out), Filippo Chiappini Dattilo (Antica Osteria del Teatro), Moreno Cedroni (Madonnina del Pescatore). These are all in Italian but they do exist.

I've never seen any of their books (current releases over the last 5 years) imported by either Kitchen Arts & Letters in NYC or Books for Cooks in London. But the section on modern Spanish restaurants is loaded with releases (in Spanish,) many of them top sellers to the professional chef/amateur chef/foodie customer base. There is even a reasonable business for German cookbooks. But Italy, for some reason that I don't understand, has no buzz. You even admit this yourself when you say;

No wonder these chefs are not talked about much, nobody eats there!

Well that is the whole point. And the reason it is that way is that in my experience, your basic top tier Italian restaurant is at best, very good. I haven't heard anyone come back from Italy saying that the meal they had at one of the top places is unbelieveable. Because if they had, then we would all be going all of the time.

As Robert Brown always says, the proof is in the pudding. I don't think there is any shortage of people on this board who have eaten at Marchesi, Al Sorriso, Vissani, Dal Pescatore, Aimo e Nadia etc. And while you hear people speak well of those places, you don't hear many people say, "my god, that was one of the most delicious meals of my life featuring the most creative cooking." That is what Italian alta cucina is missing. The buzz that something special is going on there. Just having good food isn't enough. It needs to be good enough so that people are willing to go out of their way for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know there is no reason to be insulting about any of this. So far at least four different people on this thread have admonished you for the personal attacks and slurs and you just keep on going. It is always a pleasure when someone can contribute to a conversation on the merits, even when they disagree with you providing it is in earnest. But if you can't do that, or don't want to do that, or can't accept the premise of the conversation, your behavior is calculated at being insulting and disruptive. This board is really not an appropriate place for that behavior.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...