Fine Dining vs. Cheap Eats, Continued

[Fat Guy]

Self-published books, like the Zagat survey, sometimes make plenty of money and the decision to publish them usually goes exactly against the judgment of the industry experts. Also, in many industries, like publishing, the experts pick ten things to manufacture for every one thing that makes a significant enough profit to keep the company in business, which means they're wrong most of the time but are right often enough to make enough money to offset their more frequent wrongness.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy - You are just pointing to exceptions to the rule and you can't come to any conclusions about markets through exceptions other than they happen when markets are inefficient. As to businesses having to release 10 things to have 1 success, it's a result of businesses having to hit a certain percentage of the market. Let's say 30,000 copies for a book. But if you are in a businnes where 5000 copies are an acceptable result, your ratio will be better than 10 to 1 because it is easier to find books that sell 5000 copies than it is to find books that sell 30,000. So I'm not sure that example speaks to the point.

Look there is only one way to prove this. You have to come out to eat at a\ lot of places with me so I can show you in person. There isn't any other way to do it.

[Fat Guy]

Dear Thing That Wouldn't Die: I'm happy to eat at lots of places with you, but it will be for the purpose of showing you that more expensive isn't always better. And then I'll learn you a thing or two about complexity. And then I'll take a nap.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Gee I hope that means this thread can now come to an end. We will get back to when Fat Guy is ready to admit I was write.

[g.johnson]

Plotters

Every thing that sells was chosen for the market by experts in that industry. There. I dare you to prove that statement wrong.

(my emphasis)

FG

Self-published books, like the Zagat survey, sometimes make plenty of money and the decision to publish them usually goes exactly against the judgment of the industry experts.

Plotters

Fat Guy - You are just pointing to exceptions to the rule

[tommy]

Hey I was waiting for this argument.

ya don't say.

let's cut to the short list: what argument *aren't* you waiting for.

[=Mark]

They do not drive the market. We've already gone over and over again what it is that drives the market. Which part didn't you understand? You are still totally hogtied in a contradiction of your own creation and while you are providing a great quantity of entertainment you are not making any progress.

Is it just me or does FGs avatar have a bit more of a grin than before?

[Wilfrid]

Wilfrid - If they made unlimited amounts of Mouton that wouldn't change how people use it. People still wouldn't use it at breakfast. Let's take me as an example. I can drink a First Growth any time I want to. That's really not much different than the supply being unlimited. Yet I drink them very sparingly. You know why that is? There just aren't that many occassions that warrant drinking a wine of that caliber. And I don't mean as a matter of expense, I mean as a matter of matching food and wine.

That's the part you keep missing, the gastronomic part. You don't use Rayas Chateauneuf-du-Pape for an occasion that only merits drinking a Cote de Rhone. And conversely when at a black truffle extravaganza in Provence, one might want to splurge for a 1978 La Chapelle. But I don't want to drink '78 La Chapelle with a ham sandwich. That's where your glass of milk comes in handy. No matter how much more Mouton they produced, it won't change when and where people drink wine or what occassion Mouton is appropriate for.

Yawn, stretch, sigh...

I know.

What it would change would be the price.

[Wilfrid]

Plotters

Every thing that sells was chosen for the market by experts in that industry. There. I dare you to prove that statement wrong.

(my emphasis)

FG

Self-published books, like the Zagat survey, sometimes make plenty of money and the decision to publish them usually goes exactly against the judgment of the industry experts.

Plotters

Fat Guy - You are just pointing to exceptions to the rule

Steve P. failing to distinguish between "every" and "some"? I could set my watch by it.

Okay, cheese. There are innumerable smaller-production cheeses which cost more per pound than large-scale production cheeses, but there is certainly no consensus that they are all-round better. Chaource is more expensive than even raw milk camembert. Double Gloucester is more expensive than cheddar. And so on.

Game. There are game birds which are harder to get than grouse, and cost more (ptarmigan, snipe). But, although I like 'em, grouse remains the best.

Fish. Can someone else do fish? There must be plenty of examples of fish that cost more per pound because of scarcity than fish which are actually more desirable to eat.

Not just a few exceptions. Plotnickism is baloney.

Today's history question

French food is generally regarded as having come into its own in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Under which of the following regimes was France the "most liberal society" in Europe:

1. Louis XIV - The Sun King?

2. Louis XV - yes, another abolutist monarch

3. Louis XVI - who we might describe as The Headless

4. The Jacobins - that would be the Reign of Terror

5. The Thermidoreans - or any of the other bloodthirsty faction which paved the way to Bonaparte's dictatorship?

I look forward to learning the answer.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - Your quite wrong about what would happen with Mouton. The supply side would adjust. The supply side exists to *meet the market.* The market for Mouton is set by how people use it based on a certain quality they can offer. If they needed to make 5 times as much Mouton as they do now, they couldn't keep the requisite quality up so they would have to lower it. Cheaper wine would ulitmately be a lesser quality wine. And if they could only sell 5,000 cases of Mouton instead of 20,000, they would choose the best sites in the vineyard or the best barrels and they would make a bottling that costs twice as much as the current wine does now. This example is going on in one of Robert Brown's French threads

about restaurants in Europe taking advantage of the switch to the euro.

As for French liberalism, I said the golden era of French culinary expansion was from about 1870-1970. So keep your Jacobins to yourself

[Wilfrid]

1. Of course that's what would happen with Mouton. But that's not the issue. The question is whether the price would remain the same - because of its inherent "betterness" - if it were the case that it was produced in quantities comparable to an ordinary Kendall Jackson cabernet.

2. Thank you for dealing with my other examples so convincingly.

3. I see the golden era of French culinary expansion begins during the first period France could be said to have had a democracy. How convenient.

[hollywood]

Hollywood - The problem with using food as the example all the time, and it really is the underlying issue around here, is that it is invisible and so difficult to rest your case on when the argument being put forth by the opposition is that taste is subjective.

First, I had to laugh yesterday when channel surfing and coming upon an Iron Chef episode on which one (at least) of the competitors prepared pork belly with bacon. Didn't stop to see how it turned out.

Second, and I do hope you will clear this up, your quote confuses me. Are you saying that due to invisibility, we can't just decide in the abstract that certain food or its ingredients are inherently better? Or, just the opposite?

This debate at points is reminiscent of arguments about Andrew Sarris' auteur theory of film criticism or, perhaps a closer example, the 1855 classed growths of the Medoc. The problem for Sarris was that even the best director could churn out a clunker (of course, Sarris could always blame studio interference). The problem with wine is that there are bad vintages. Kinda messes up the inherency argument, don't you think?

[GordonCooks]

Fine Dining and Cheap Eats does not seem an apples to apples comparison.

Personally, the common denominator is the consumption of food but the reason and mindset for me is different.

Dining to me is a relaxing way to spend an evening. I put myself in the hands of the proprietor for 2-3 hours of bliss. Cheap Eats is more or less, feeding yourself. The separation may be cost - it may not. When “I” say fine dining – I mean a nice restaurant with table service, a menu with courses, ambience, etc. If someone asked me for a recommendation for a fine dining restaurant, I wouldn’t send him to a hot dog stand and that doesn’t mean a cheap restaurant can’t have good service or ambience.

Fine dining may be cheap eats for the fortunate but not me. Cheap eats for me is a comfort factor. The quality of food may be excellent for both and you may enjoy both as much but I’m not deconstructing the sauce on my slice of pizza or paprika content in the hot sauce on my burger.

Maybe I’m trying to say “Food Satisfaction per food budget dollar spent”. I’ve had $ 500.00 meals that we’re a bargain and I’ve had $ 2.00 pretzels that we’re a rip-off. Now I sure I’ll get clubbed with Oaxacan Street tacos with fresh cilantro for 20 pesos but I’ll throw back $ 50.00 honeydew melons in Japan.

One better than the other – no, but you can have both or neither at the same time

[g.johnson]

Wilfrid - Your quite wrong about what would happen with Mouton. The supply side would adjust. The supply side exists to *meet the market.* The market for Mouton is set by how people use it based on a certain quality they can offer.

I see. So if there’s an upturn in the market for 1985 DRC Montrachet as a result of your enthusiasm, they’ll make more of it. Damn clever those French.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"1. Of course that's what would happen with Mouton. But that's not the issue. The question is whether the price would remain the same - because of its inherent "betterness" - if it were the case that it was produced in quantities comparable to an ordinary Kendall Jackson cabernet."

Wilfrid - You only want to frame the question in a way that couldn't ever happen and let me explain why. They could make as many cases of Mouton as they make of K-J right now. Instead of Mouton being grown on X hectares, they could add an additional Y hectares at a different location and make one wine out of it. Then you would have your comparison. But then it wouldn't be Mouton. It would be something else. Mouton isn't only a label, it's a sty;e of wine that can't be made anywhere else in the world And if you could make the same amount of Mouton as KJ and keep the quality of Mouton, it would sell for more than KJ. *All things being equal* (which is something I keep saying and you keep conveniently skipping over,) people will pay more money for a wine of better quality. But if they made as many cases of Mouton as they did of KJ, and the wine was *of the same quality*, yes it would sell for the same price as KJ. Your other examples are meaningless because you are just trying to pick examples where *things are not equal* so there is a variance in the pricing of an item. Try and focus on how I am saying it, not on how you want to hear it to win the debate.

Hollywood - Well this is exactly like a debate about the 1855 classifications. But that helps make my point. Latour tastes like Latour because of the special qualities of the Latour vineyard. A good vintage just enhances those qualities. But even in an off vintage, the characteristics of why it is a first growth come through. So in that context my quote means that the people who usually argue against that point are the people who can't taste those qualities. And since tasting is this invisible thing, and one can't prove anything other than to say whether they can taste it or not, it makes it an easy thing to argue about.

[hollywood]

Well this is exactly like a debate about the 1855 classifications. But that helps make my point. Latour tastes like Latour because of the special qualities of the Latour vineyard. A good vintage just enhances those qualities. But even in an off vintage, the characteristics of why it is a first growth come through. So in that context my quote means that the people who usually argue against that point are the people who can't taste those qualities. And since tasting is this invisible thing, and one can't prove anything other than to say whether they can taste it or not, it makes it an easy thing to argue about.

I still can't figure out if you are saying something really obvious, or something profound. (Were you raised by Jesuits?) Is it that if you want something good, you pay for it. And, if you pay for it, you get it. Therefore, you get what you pay for? (Who could argue with that?) Or, is it that we could somehow come up with a classification of things that are inherently, immutably good and no one can change the accuracy of that? (Who wouldn't argue against that?)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Hollywood - That's a good post, and a funny one two. I'm saying something completely different (I think.) I'm saying the supply side of the market prices things according to quality. But I'm also saying that even though the prices then vary somewhat because of demand (and that includes shortage of supply,) it won't exceed the boundaries set by the supply side. Why should it? Who would pay more for lamb's wool than cashmere? At some point the price of lamb's wool reaches the price of cashmere and people say, you know, for the same money..... But of course Fat Guy and Wilfrid want to trot out an example that says, if there was only one lamb's wool sweater in the whole world, and it was in demand, wouldn't the price go higher than a cashemere sweater? And while the answer to that is yes, as someone else here said it, maybe J.D., that would mean people are paying for scarcity which is an additional attribute besides the quality. A simple example of that is the additional markup on magnums of wine. It should cost less because it's one bottle instead of two and one bottling. But there is a 10-20% premiuim because of few of them are made.

This gets trickier when one tries to compare apples and oranges. Maybe a simple example is how much people will pay for dinner at a place like Blue Hill and a place like Daniel. At a place like Blue Hill (bistro) the amount they can charge per person for dinner is limited. Someone told me recently that at Daniel the average dinner is $135 a person. I'm not sure what it is at Blue Hill but let's say it's $75. Don't you think that as you get closer to $135 more and more people would go to Daniel instead? At some point people would say it's not worth it.

So let me ask the question that way. When you say that something isn't worth it, what does that mean? Doesn't that mean you can get something of better quality for the same or less money? How could something not be worth it if quality is fungeable? Well it's not. Both you and I know that the greatest (arguably) Cabernet Sauvignon wine in the world comes from the Latour Vineyard and that quality is not something that is fungeable. And no matter what happens to the price of CS wines, eventually Latour will end up being the highest priced wine in its category.

[hollywood]

When you say that something isn't worth it, what does that mean? Doesn't that mean you can get something of better quality for the same or less money? How could something not be worth it if quality is fungeable? Well it's not.

Within the context of your examples, I guess I see your point. But after we add on a lot of qualifiers, where does it get us? Like putting aside tulip crazes, South Sea Bubbles, advertising creating wants/needs, good and bad years, all other things being equal, etc. Then, it seems like it still only works for things that are produced in a sizeable quantity and capable of being replicated. The opposite would be art (definitely a case of things that aren't fungible). I might not think a particular Picasso is worth it, but it doesn't matter economically because the seller only has to find one buyer. And, who's to say my judgment is right or wrong? Couldn't a particular meal in a particular restaurant strike two particular cultivated patrons differently?