Fine Dining vs. Cheap Eats, Continued

[SobaAddict70]

hm on second thought maybe it did have truffles in it.

I just seem to remember the $35 sticker shock.

Oh, and I think she gave them 3 stars.

I may have to dig up the review (and pay them moolah out of my own pocket).

I'm still waiting for my free airplane ticket, Mr. Fat Guy.

heheheh

SA

[Wilfrid]

Okay, I think my spade is finally turned, meaning I have got to the bottom of Plotnickism, and clarified it to my satisfaction. Steve adds, reasonably enough, a pinnacle of professionals to his peak of connoisseurs. That's fine.

I don't need to argue about whether pork belly is a more interesting, complex, multi-textured and delicious food than pork loin. Of course, it requires appropriate cooking - I think we take that for granted, whatever we're discussing. It figures less in haute cuisine than other cuts, for obvious reasons*, but figures prominently in all kinds of other repertoires. Ditto oxtail: fantastic stuff, and it increasingly makes an appearance on very upscale menus (in saucing for strong fish dishes, in ravioli - sometimes with foie gras). But it's cheap as dirt. As is rabbit. As are pig's feet - which are also commonly found on upscale menus. And don't get me started on offal.

Plotnickism is plainly false. It's possible to have a reasonable discussion about the comparative quality of two pieces of filet mignon, but a similar discussion about whether filet mignon as such is "better" than oxtail is meaningless, as is a discussion about whether expensive food is "better" than cheap food. It's a case by case thing. And until I see some examples of cost being controlled by professional/connoisseur evaluation of quality, independent of supply and demand factors, I am done.

Ta.

*Available on application if anyone really needs them.

[Fat Guy]

Her Lespinasse review was definitely four stars.

[jordyn]

I found the review, and you don't even have to pay.

She gave ithe restaurant four stars, and listed the soup as one of the recommended dishes.

[SobaAddict70]

"When was the last time anybody charged $35 for soup in New York?"

"And so you give in to the luxury of the $35 soup, a virginal concoction of leeks, potatoes and white truffles crowned by sweet little langoustines. Butternut squash soup seems even more decadent, a luscious orange mush studded with bits of duck breast and chunks of foie gras."

Ok, I stand corrected. Maybe the reason why its so high is because of the cost of the truffles and the langoustines. But it still seems a bit much for something that is basically a glorified vegetable soup topped with mini-seafood.

I still say we hold the cook-off. But I don't expect that that will be the definitive end (if any) in this particular debate, no sireee bob.

For the complete review by Madame Reichl, te clicketa here

SA

[g.johnson]

Let’s see if I’ve got the argument straight.

1. It’s OK to compare haute cuisine with home cooking because they’re so similar but we can’t compare pig bellies to loin because they’re so different.

2. Anyone going anywhere in Europe passed through France and dropped off a packet of spaghetti, but didn’t bother taking any foie gras home with them.

3. Although there aren’t many French modernists, France is central to modernism because Picasso lived in Paris for a couple of years.

4. The price of an item reflects its worth because it’s determined by the markets except when it’s determined by a small group of connoisseurs.

Newtonian in its elegance: four premises to explain the culinary universe.

[jordyn]

Ha! I am faster at finding things.

[SobaAddict70]

Oh whatever. I was eating while reading the newspaper and surfing the web. Bully for you. hehe

mmmm -- lunch was roast lamb with roasted tomato, sweet pepper and rosemary jus, rice pilaf and french cut green beans. Evian.

Life is good...now what were we saying?

SA

[hollywood]

"In the midst of all this rhetorical flash, I sometimes find it useful to sit back and ponder: W.W.C.T.S.? What would Calvin Trillin say?"

Aside from the fact that I am a huge fan of Trillin, and think his general contribution to the study of good eatin' is profound, it  reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with one of my oldest friends about an article where Trillin raved about some place. I had been to the place as well(but my friend hadn't) and I thought it was pretty awful. I asked my friend, why the discrepency in our opinions and he said "C'mon, Trillin doesn't have a good palate." I had never thought of it that way until he said it. But once he did say it I realized he was right. And if anybody ever ate Arthur Bryant BBQ, or went to Mosca's or to any of the places he wrote about, they were cool places and the food wan't bad and often very good but it was more about the folklore than it was about their being great.

Calvin Trillin was not available, so I asked Moby. He said: "please respect our right to disagree with you, cos who knows, maybe you're wrong. personally i think that none of us have the ability to fathom even 1/1,000,000,000,000th of the universe (if it is a universe). but maybe i'm wrong. have i rambled too much again? sorry. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, the universe is a complicated place. and our belief systems should reflect that fact, and our belief systems should be based on humility and respect for the belief systems of others."

Gosh!

[Wilfrid]

Sorry, can't resist hitting Steve P.'s wine example out of the ball park.

Of course experts make fine distinctions of quality among wines, just like beef and tomatoes get graded too. And their opinions have an effect on the price. But what pure Plotnickism requires is something much more exotic:

Experts-connoisseurs (may I group them for convenience?) use their superior palates to judge that wine is better than beer. And this is the reason - the main reason or initial reason, or maybe both - that wine is more expensive than beer.

Fabulous.

[jaybee]

There is something unutterably decadent about sticking your fork into an apple and coming up with a smooth, soft chunk of foie gras.

For some reason, I think this quote from Reichl's Lespinasse review belongs here.

[jaybee]

And this is the reason - the main reason or initial reason, or maybe both - that wine is more expensive than beer.

A large bottle of Fisher's ale will cost more than a bottle of Chateau Fleetstreet at Pomeroy's.

[John Whiting]

Steven S writes:

Whiting: You don't really mean to dismiss haute cuisine as a category, do you?

Within the context of this thread you may call it corrective hyperbole.

[SobaAddict70]

Or her review of Le Cirque 2000, where she denigrates the restaurant for treating ordinary people like nobodies by packing them off to Siberia -- if only to illustrate the dichotomy that exists even in the rarefied world of fine dining, between the average Joe on the street who has more experience with cheap eats but wants to experience the hallmarks of American-French haute cuisine, and regular consumers of the Escoffier school of la cuisinaire (sp).

hm

now I'm definitely babbling...

SA

[jordyn]

Or her review of Le Cirque 2000, where she denigrates the restaurant for treating ordinary people like nobodies by packing them off to Siberia -- if only to illustrate the dichotomy that exists even in the rarefied world of fine dining, between the average Joe on the street who has more experience with cheap eats but wants to experience the hallmarks of American-French haute cuisine, and regular consumers of the Escoffier school of la cuisinaire (sp).

Actually, wasn't she shocked to discover that Le Cirque 2000 treated everyone pretty well? I think it was the original Le Cirque that she downgraded to three stars for uneven treatment, but the archives don't go back that far.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - Wait a second, wait a second. Beer and pork belly cost less than wine and filet of pork because they don't have the qualities that people want on the occassions they would choose to drink and eat something more refined. It's like cashmere costs more than shetland wool because it gives the same amount of warmth in a lighter weight wool and as a result it's use applies to more refined expressions of fashion.

I believe that the difference of opinion here is that you think that quality in items we eat, drink wear or use otherwise is totally subjective and contrived by man. And I believe that quality is something that happens naturally though an organic process. The only part humans play is to notice those qualities and appreciate them. I believe that if we had never tasted beef before, and we were presented with all the cuts of beef to try, after enough experience eating them we would decide to use the various cuts in eactly the same way we use them now. Roast beef would once again end up as Sunday lunch providing our culture still had a meal that called for that type of ceremonial presentation and needed a cut of meat that was a metaphor for the durability of the family. Do you really not see it that way? And while one can roast up a delicious pork belly, well it's good for a night out with the boys at a place like St. John but its not the type of thing that you are sharing with your grandparents for Sunday lunch. Price just flows from those concepts.

But that is comparing like things, but when you ask about comparing beer with wine, or apples and oranges, those are unlike things. So like anything else, you have to find a common denominator to compare them or as I like to say, all things being equal. But the simplest way to compare them is to ask, what are their special qualities? And if you think that the complexity of brewed malt and hops can match the complexity that comes out of the Clos St. Hune parcel of the Monchsburg vineyard, well I don't know what to tell you. In Germany, where they have maybe the greatest beer in the world, they serve wine at places that consider themselves to offer serious cooking. Does it occur to you that if beer was as complex as wine that in the 100 years of haute cuisine sommeliers would have paired them in the way they pair foie gras and d'Yqueem? Or are all the sommeliers in France and the rest of Europe daft?

"Anyone going anywhere in Europe passed through France and dropped off a packet of spaghetti, but didn’t bother taking any foie gras home with them."

G. - Well in making fun you only put down the Brits. Because it is true, while the French were expanding their cuisine with whatever idea they could get their hands on, the rest of Europe were culinary isolationists. You know the saddest chapter in Paul Richardson's book that J.W. always quotes is the first one when he gets off the boat from France. He describes how vibrant the restaurant and general food culture is in the town he sailed from and he agonizingly goes through how pitiful it is in the town he arrived in. And the next saddest chapter is when he goes to eat oysters and he writes about the downfall of the British oyster industry. If I recall correctly he talks about how the French (and Belgians possibly?) have thriving oyster restaurants that dot their coasts. But I think the town he is in, which is the main British oyster town has two. So yes they didn't carry the foie gras back with them and for the life of me, it makes no sense at all. They ate porridge and pie instead.

You then go onto say,

"4. The price of an item reflects its worth because it’s determined by the markets except when it’s determined by a small group of connoisseurs."

And you got that one wrong too. The connoisseurs ARE THE MARKET. That's why this thread is so loony. The people who aren't part of the market are questioning the presumptions that the market relies on to work. It's like people who have never or hardly eaten foie gras want to take a position that hamburger is just as good. Or people who have never had '47 Cheval Blanc want to insist that somebody can't prove that wine is "better" than beer. At least Fat Guy says that a good hamburger is better than bad foie gras which is a proposition that nobody would disagree with. But that's just a way of saying all things ARE NOT equal. But if they were, saying hamburger is as good or better than foie gras in an indefensible position.

[Fat Guy]

Jordyn: Correct. She did write an infamous review of Le Cirque where she nailed the restaurant for disparate treatment. Then when she reviewed Le Cirque 2000 she wrote about how she disguised herself as a bumpkin but was still treated fabulously by Sirio himself. But of course as Ed Behr has pointed out they recognized her -- disguise and all -- as she was coming up the front stairs, and the review was therefore based on a profound misapprehension of reality.

[Fat Guy]

Plotnicki: More importantly, though one might choose to put foie gras inside of a hamburger, one would never choose to put a hamburger inside of foie gras.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy finally grasped the concept. Anybody else?

[macrosan]

Plotnicki: More importantly, though one might choose to put foie gras inside of a hamburger, one would never choose to put a hamburger inside of foie gras.

Yeah, but who would put a bun inside a hamburger ?

[SobaAddict70]

P-san: Oh, I grasped the concept 20 pages ago. I just like arguing sometimes. I still say that succotash with a sprinkle of white truffle oil rates the same level of interest as ratatouille....in some respects.

But I have to say, just because no one would choose to put a hamburger inside a foie gras doesn't mean it can't (and won't) be done in the near (or distant) future. I mean, look at what they did to ice cream two or three years ago (Tabasco ice cream, anyone?).

It'll probably be a sorry mess, but I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can find someone to eat it.

SA

[Steve Plotnicki]

"Yeah, but who would put a bun inside a hamburger ?"

Macrosan - It's that new British invention. Inside Out Pie.

"but my crack team of Norwegian programmers is all over it"

Fat Guy - Is your website frozen?

[Fat Guy]

In other words you want the Plotnicki special?

[macrosan]

Is that better than the Wilfburger Special, or is it just more expensive?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Macrosan - Do you know where you can get a Wilfburger Special? Wimpy's of course.