Are "Challenging" Restaurants Pleasurable?

[paulraphael]

If we're going to get into labels, I'd call much of the avante garde cooking going on today post-modern, not modern.

Postmodernism is if anything broader and messier and harder to define even than modernism, but art that falls under its umbrella often includes the following characteristics:

-a rejection of modernist formalism and classicist heirarchies (I think of the 'new paradigm' restaurants' challenges to the tradtional structures of the dining experience)

-appropriation of masterpieces (complete reinterpretations or recontextualizations of classic dishes)

-appropriation of pop culture (cheeky reinterpretations or recontextualizations of comfort food ... Keller's bacon 'n eggs, surf 'n turf, etc.)

[Mallet]

I don't get it. What would the equivalents in the culinary world be for "Fountain"? No one is serving refuse as food, I think, which makes "I declare this garbage to be fine cuisine" not as workable as "I declare this urinal to be art." Ditto "Bride Stripped Bare": are there multiyear projects involving flawed, accidental elements that make their way onto the plates at WD-50, El Bulli, or Fat Duck?

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Although not yet served in restaurants, vomit-flavoured jellybeans were quite the rage for a while. Although not exactly restaurant food, I think the fact that rotten egg, dirt, and earwax jellybeans are being mass-produced and, enjoyed could be significant.

Edited May 29, 2008 by Mallet (log)

[Chris Amirault]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that ear wax jelly beans are art. In addition, they aren't actually made from ear wax. I think. The point of "Fountain" was that it was an actual urinal.

Paul, I think you've got a point about post-modernism. However, the composition of dishes at most of the restaurants we're discussing is absolutely modernist, as are the tendencies to seek the "essences" of certain ingredients, especially in the early El Bulli dishes.

So, a bit of modernism, a bit of post-modernism... again showing, I think, that clear trajectories from the world of visual arts, architecture, and performance into culinary arts are hard to define.

[cathrynapple]

duchamp directly challenged our definition and context of art. i was comparing his themes and ideas, not the actual materials he used. cheez.

[paulraphael]

So, a bit of modernism, a bit of post-modernism... again showing, I think, that clear trajectories from the world of visual arts, architecture, and performance into culinary arts are hard to define.

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Yeah, I'd definitely agree that the trajectories are far from clear, and that there's a lot of mixing and matching. Athough I don't think that's so different from what goes on in the art world at large. I can think of a lot of visual art that has qualities both of modernism and postmodernism.

And there are plenty of idealogical paradoxes. Wallace Stephens made a case that William Carlos Williams' complete rejection of Romanticism was a fundamentally Romantic position.

I'm not about to argue with Wally.

[Mallet]

But I don't think anyone has claimed that ear wax jelly beans are art. In addition, they aren't actually made from ear wax. I think. The point of "Fountain" was that it was an actual urinal.

Paul, I think you've got a point about post-modernism. However, the composition of dishes at most of the restaurants we're discussing is absolutely modernist, as are the tendencies to seek the "essences" of certain ingredients, especially in the early El Bulli dishes.

So, a bit of modernism, a bit of post-modernism... again showing, I think, that clear trajectories from the world of visual arts, architecture, and performance into culinary arts are hard to define.

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Yeah I agree the art quote perhaps was misplaced, but I still think it's a good example of an challenging and positively unpleasurable culinary experience, which is quite popular nonetheless.

[chiantiglace]

Appologies to everyone who has posted here, your points and ideas were probably remarkable, but I only read the initial post and just wanted give an answer straight to that.

Achatz and others may be doing something they don't even fully understand. It may be pure human instinct, developed with a portion of passion, pinch of creativity, dash of knowledge/awareness, encrusted with a specific personality and finally cooked in broth of chance and possibilty.

We all have a specific way of thinking and approaching life. What we probably can agree on is that these chefs, though different, are as persistent to there own development as anyone else. Sometimes I dont think they are too different from Alain Ducasse or even Escoffier. The idea of becoming better is consistent with all of them, where exacctly they want to develop and become better is what makes them different.

Naturally humans are afraid of something we are not use to (which actually explains unecessary racism). We have to encourage ourselves to explore the new anyways. You dont have to like it, but as far as I am concerned you need a reason. By not exploring you have no reason, just extended doubt.

We dont have to get into the logistics of if alinea is a place you will return to every weekend, because that isn't even close to the point. So many people give me that excuse, if its not something I wouldn't do often again I don't think I will like it at all. Thats just an excuse for your own self comfort, but that sort of comfort is a blanket of lies, I figured that out when I was young. I still think back to the days when I would only eat tacos with meet, no lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, nothing. Now I want everything but the meat, it takes up too much space .

Our minds and bodies mature, if we try something today and dont like it, a year from now we may look back on it and think its appealing and want to give it another try, but had we not tried in the first place we would not have the knowledge or ability to place recent events, thus not supplying our minds with the information our life seems just a bit more lame. We have to understand we change far more often than we typically imagine, most of the time without knowing it.

I say embrace any challenge you can, it is the only way to make your life better. What is a comfortable life without memories?

And to more directly answer, both your experiences give you great memories chris, I think its better not to examine the differences as better or worse, but the differences as to what interests you. negative perceptions are as good as flyers people hand you on the straight, typically waste (of time in this case).

One doesn't have to be better than the other, they can just have there own -place-.