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What do you think "artisanal" means?


Fat Guy

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Does the food in a restaurant where the name-over-the-door chef is not present qualify as artisanal? Not the ingredients, the finished dishes?

Is a Christo a Christo even though his assistants do the actual wrapping?

As for the use of words with food, the use of the word organic is a good case study. Some of the dirtiest food in the world is organically grown. And how about Health Foods? Some health foods are so full of fat and calories, they are among the worst foods you could possibly eat.

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I mean unclean. There was that farm that was south of San Francisco where the wind was blowing cow dung or whatever on organically grown food. People were getting sick but it was still organic grown food. The point I'm trying to make is that the public's perception of what a word means is often different then what is actually hapenning. For example, the term is generally perceived as being that the food is clean. But in reality, quite often it isn't. Many of the shops in town that advertise themselves as organic or health food markets are smelly and dirty pig stys.

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I'm roasting some artisanal coffee just now.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Steve just keeps pouring it on.

Awhile ago it was, "Once again, taste is not subjective."

Now it's, "Some of the dirtiest food in the world is organically grown."

I guess he'd like us to hand him a well-washed, iradiated carrot and tell him, "this tastes good."

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Enough already. There seems to be general consensus among most what "artisanal" means, and those who don't subscribe to that consensus have put their point of view, so at least we know where they're coming from. Personally I think I'll have to agree to differ and move on. This thread may continue for ever but me, I'm out of it. Thank you for your attention.

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FG - Getting back to your original question. I am getting converted on this artisanal thing. At first, I just couldn't see the word as any more than yet another marketing ploy.

But, in Toby's post back awhile ago on making hot sauce and in Bux' posts on artisanal olive oils in the D&D thread, I can start making some sense out of it.

Back about three pages ago I was asked, "Is there a difference between an artisan and an artist? If so, please explain."

I replied, "I'd say that the artisan deals with things of a more practical and physical nature while the artist deals with things more in the realm of the spirit. But these can become interwoven in each practice."

I think as we strive to define artisan and artisanal that we might consider that the true artisan does move more into the spiritual realm in producing something. That is, that whatever it is that's being made is being made not so much for intellectual or profit-making reasons so much as some inner drive to bring the "consumer" something good and maybe better.

I still don't like the word - it has no "ring" to describe what I think it tries to describe.

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The thing about seeing it as a marketing ploy is that I don't understand to which evil corporation we'd attribute it. I don't see the word being exploited commercially, at least not on any widespread basis. It's something that's mostly being used by journalists, as far as I can tell.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Is a Christo a Christo even though his assistants do the actual wrapping?

I don't know. How does it taste?

Are the wrappers the artisans and Christo the artist? If Christo is an artist, is he also an artisan?

Are the line cooks at Jean Georges artisans? Is their food artisanal? Is Vongerichten an artisan even though he's not present?

Who said "There are no three star restaurants, only three star meals"?

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The thing about seeing it as a marketing ploy is that I don't understand to which evil corporation we'd attribute it. I don't see the word being exploited commercially, at least not on any widespread basis. It's something that's mostly being used by journalists, as far as I can tell.

I haven't suggested that (so far) this has anything to do with evil corporations. But, I think I've seen some smaller firms using it to describe their offerings. (Don't ask me to do a search.)

And, yes, so far it does seem to be used mostly by journalists. Though since you started this (damn you :biggrin:) I keep thinking about it. Maybe egullet should come up with the definitive definition. No more than one sentence that will find its way into the OED. :rolleyes:

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I guess he'd like us to hand him a well-washed, iradiated carrot and tell him, "this tastes good."

Once again, and as I have been saying all along, the issue is how the carrot tastes. Not that it was irridated. Hopefully one day someone will figure out a process to mass produce carrots that doesn't cause a detrioration to the end result. Unless you want to ensure that most people eat bad carrots for the rest of their life.

Are the line cooks at Jean Georges artisans? Is their food artisanal? Is Vongerichten an artisan even though he's not present?

It all depends on how the food tastes doesn't it? At Daniel they have an aseembly line of chefs preparing artisanally grown products. Is the food artisnal? Having had too many heirloom tomato salads after the season was over, I can tell you that it only meant something while the tomatoes were good. The rest of the time, even though they were artisanal tomatoes it was a marketing ploy.

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It all depends on how the food tastes doesn't it? At Daniel they have an aseembly line of chefs preparing artisanally grown products. Is the food artisnal? Having had too many heirloom tomato salads after the season was over, I can tell you that it only meant something while the tomatoes were good. The rest of the time, even though they were artisanal tomatoes it was a marketing ploy.

But isn't this less a marketing ploy than a result of the consumer continuing to demand heirloom tomatoes after their season had peaked?

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But isn't this less a marketing ploy than a result of the consumer continuing to demand heirloom tomatoes after their season had peaked

The restaurant doesn't have to adopt that standard, they could reject the product as being an inferior. The point is, that even at the highest level restaurant, they use the word heirloom in a misleading way and as a marketing ploy. When people order an heirloom tomato salad, they aren't expecting watery tomatoes without any flavor. They are expecting what they get from mid-August through mid-September. Big corprations do not have any exclusives on serving food that doesn't taste good.

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Hopefully one day someone will figure out a process to mass produce carrots that doesn't cause a detrioration to the end result. Unless you want to ensure that most people eat bad carrots for the rest of their life.

That process has been in place for probably hundreds of years. It's not hard to grow and keep fine tasting carrots. It all depends on the grower and middlemen. If they don't care about what they're growing, keeping, brokering, etc. beyond a profit - you're not going to get a good carrot.

Twenty years ago a friend of mine planted an acre of organic (unclean) carrots. He put great care and hard work into growing these carrots. In the end he was depending on a storage facility for root crops to be built by a coop and it didn't get built - so he had to plow the carrots under, gave up, and moved away.

While I don't think he would have wanted his carrots described as artisanal, he put every bit as much effort into this as some of the Italian olive oil makers that Bux described, or that Toby did in making his hot sauce.

If you don't want to eat bad carrots for the rest of your life, learn what goes into this, discover what the best practices are, and support them. You have to move beyond the picture most of us country folks have of the New Yorker. "Where's your water come from? The faucet."

Edit: I'm only using carrots as an example. You can extrapolate as you see fit.

Edited by Nickn (log)
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The point is, that even at the highest level restaurant, they use the word heirloom in a misleading way and as a marketing ploy.

Actually the word "heirloom" only describes the seed (non-hybrid) from which the fruit or vegetable was grown. It isn't a guarantee, in and of itself, of good flavor.

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NickN - His carrots would have only been worthwhile if they tasted good. And while he went to the effort of growing them a certain way, the method didn't guarantee the outcome. We New Yorkers have learned this lesson because the reason we rely on the faucet is we know what comes out when we turn it on. As long as it tastes good.....

Toby - Well diners don't take it that way which is the point I've been making. The reason that high end restaurants began to offer heirloom tomato salads is because the quality was better then regular tomatoes. Except when the season is pretty much over and the quality is diminished, they are perfectly happy using it as a marketing lure. We as consumers have to make sure that restaurants and purveyors use the word properly. If they don't, why is it wrong for General Foods to coopt the term?

Edited by Steve Plotnicki (log)
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I think that the real test [of an artisanal product] is does it taste as if it was made by an artisan. Because if it tasted as if it was, but it really wasn't made that way, and they lied about it, how would you know?

The French, I am fairly sure, would say that something produced at mass scale, not under the supervision of an artisan, is not artisanal. No matter how good it tastes. Conversely, it is perfectly possible for an artisanal product to be of inferior fitness-for-purpose to an industrial product.

In food, especially, there is a general presumption that artisanal products are of higher quality (though they may be of higher price), just as there is a general presumption that small shops will sell higher quality products than supermarkets. And both assumptions are often (but not always) true. To call someone an "artisan" is generally a sign of praise.

But the circular definition proposed in the quote wouldn't satisfy the French desire for logic and precision. Nor mine. We don't seem to be any closer to consensus on this, so I will make this my last posting on this particular issue.

Jonathan Day

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

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The French, I am fairly sure, would say that something produced at mass scale, not under the supervision of an artisan, is not artisanal. No matter how good it tastes.

Well while I have no way of knowing exactly what the French would do (especially being a Jew,) I do I know they are more interested in culture (and money) then in rules. And as opposed to this being like an AOC designation where there are set borders, there is no perfect definition of how to do something in the manner of an artisan. And that is why I compared it to the way the French use terroir. I am certain that if an artisan mechanized part of his production process to the extent that it might jeopardise his designation, rather then lifting it based on a written report of the circumstances, if the producer had standing in the community, i.e., made a quality product that brought the French fame and fortune, they would send in an army of bureaucrats to make a determination. Because I am convinced that any country that can use the phrase "terroir," which is pretty much like saying "the voodoo of the location," can certainly use artisanal to express the attributes, not the production methods of a product.

It's funny that this discussion has come down to one set of people arguing that the use of the word has to be a function of a strict definition based on how the product was made, with the opposing argument saying only the spirit of that process need apply. It's as if the former do not trust people to impose a reasonable interpertation of the word when it is called for. But at the same time, there isn't a single person among that group who would lift Poilane's artisanal designation based on a review of his production method because of the way the bread tastes. And even Britcook admitted that it was artisanal and didn't ask for a thorough description of his process.

Furthermore, and this part is obviously infuriating to those who want a strict definition, I have control over the use of the word in the marketplace. Not me in particular but people like me. And people can either realize that "artisanal" is a cultural construct that needs meat on its bones through the way knowledgable and reasonable people use it (Steve Klc just made this point on the Steingarten thread.) Or you can stand there shouting at the rain while companies like Kraft and Cadbury release products that use the term artisanal to describe inferior products. But denying someone who makes an artisanal product the use of the term because it might not comply with a strict definition just puts the Krafts of the world that much closer to doing that.

Edited by Steve Plotnicki (log)
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It seems to me this all gets back to objective versus subjective. The way to have an objective standard for artisanal-ness is to regulate production methods. These can be listed as standards that you either do or don't meet. But when you add a taste/texture/appearance-of-product component to the determination you introduce an element of subjectivity or judgment. Try as you might, you're never going to be able to reduce those criteria to an objective enough set of standards such that all judgment will be eliminated. This sort of thing doesn't sit well with many people.

Were we discussing the question of rules and regulations, I'd probably be inclined to agree with the objectivity camp. But since we're just talking about what people think when the word artisanal is used, I'm quite comfortable embracing the end result as a major criterion. In fact I think, as Plotnicki says, that it's all most consumers care about.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I'm making some very good artisanally produced phlegm right now.

Damn this weather.

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

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