High Standards

[jaybee]

SteveP: But you see you keep changing the subject. You are describing how people react to the item, i.e., describing people and not the item. I am trying to talk about the item and the item only.

Precisely the opposite of the question I am raising Steve. It is people's reactions to food items that I am interested in, not the item in abstract, for without people's reactions, the food item is meaningless matter. And once you factor in people's reactions, there can be no linearity. The brain ain't linear by a long shot. (off topic posts that used to appear in EG threads prove that. )

[Steve Plotnicki]

Linear (to me) means one after the other, while multidimensional means activity all around. Which is what is actually always happening.

You are just arguing how it gets plotted. It doesn't really make a difference does it as long as a hierarchy according to some standard is constructed? An example might be that you might enjoy Pavarotti singing an aria in the Metropolitan opera better then in Shea Stadium. But the setting has nothing to do with the quality of his performance which is discreet from any other variable. Same with the argument around the peach. When Robert S. says that sometimes one wants to eat a peach out of hand, he is imposing context and the context has to do with the diner and not the peach. The peach has the same characteristics regardless of the other variables. But it might taste diferent to you based on where you are eating it or what kind of mood you are in. That is why I think it is linear when merely looking at the peach as a dessert. Context needs to be struck from the equation in order to properly compare it to Peach Melba or other peach desserts.

Jaybee - People's reactions to food is a function of what they know. Why would anyone ever want to know less about anything? Unless of course, knowing more has made them unhappy somehow. But I am finding a hard time understanding how knowledge leads to unhappiness, which is sort of what you are implying in the guise of a question.

Edited January 23, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[laura]

Sometimes other factors can make for a wonderful and memorable meal -- dinner companions, wine, great service -- and compensate for food that doesn't quite live up to its expectations.

and sometimes the food although perfect inmost ways is in a setting that interferes with the enjoyment of the meal,{ noise, uncomfortable room, }; It seems to me that one needs to strike

a balance,; one that is very delicate , between one's high expectations, and the reality of the present

experience. I don't feel upset that I cannot enjoy the ultimate beurre blanc frequently, rather I am

grateful that kind of experience exists , that I have recognized it's value and am glad that it is there .

. . I am able to draw on those memories, and feel nourished by .them. .

[Jinmyo]

You are just arguing how it gets plotted. It doesn't really make a difference does it as long as a hierarchy according to some standard is constructed? An example might be that you might enjoy Pavarotti singing an aria in the Metropolitan opera better then in Shea Stadium. But the setting has nothing to do with the quality of his performance which is discreet from any other variable. Same with the argument around the peach. When  Robert S. says that sometimes one wants to eat a peach out of hand, he is imposing context and the context has to do with the diner and not the peach. The peach has the same characteristics regardless of the other variables. But it might taste diferent to you based on where you are eating it or what kind of mood you are in. That is why I think it is linear when merely looking at the peach as a dessert. Context needs to be struck from the equation in order to properly compare it to Peach Melba or other peach desserts.

No, I am saying that describing a functional and dynamic hierarchy as "linear" flattens and removes any implication of context. "Linear" would be a better description of a flattening of values so that all is equally valid. Just another on the line. "Multidimensional" does not imply equalization or flattening and does give a sense of different contextual configurations.

So 'tis na' what ye say but how ye says it I objects to, squire.

[Steve Plotnicki]

No, I am saying that describing a functional and dynamic hierarchy as "linear" flattens and removes any implication of context. "Linear" would be a better description of a flattening of values so that all is equally valid. Just another on the line.

But that's exactly what I am trying to do. A great pastrami sandwich is inherently lesser then average Foie gras, just to give an example. But I can make that statement because I have weighed all the variables and have flattened them all out on a single continuum called dining. Now whether or not you find use for this exercise is another thing. But as I keep saying, once you raise usefulness you are speaking about people not food. But if you remove people from the equation, Bananas Foster is a "better" dessert then Bananas and Sour Cream because nobody is around to raise the context that B & C might be better at a simple luncheon.

Edited January 23, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[Jinmyo]

The math, Steve? Remove people from the equation when we are speaking of human contexts of meaning?

Ye got me there, O P. I dinna know how.

As for exercise... Well, I know how...

[Steve Plotnicki]

Remove people from the equation when we are speaking of human contexts of meaning?

Yes. What do people have to do with it? Corn flakes is to corn on the cob is to corn souffle. What do people have to do with the increase in complexity I have just outlined?

[MartyL]

Well let me ask you, can you enjoy a beurre blanc that wasn't made at La Grille?

  You know me well. I had a whole paragraph about beurre blanc sauce before and after Yves Culliere' and took it off. It is hard to enjoy another having tasted his. I approach with hope, almost always end disappointed. So am I the better for knowing that this tiny bistro in the Rue de Fauberg Poissonaire has the world's best beurre blanc sauce, which I will eat maybe once a year? Perhaps. Not having tasted it, I might be enjoying many local dishes with bb sauce.

Sorry to divert the thread, but I'd be interested to hear more about La Grille (if not hear than perhaps in a new thread on the France board). Is it still worth a visit? Thanks.

[JAZ]

I am concerned with an inverse relationship between knowledge and critical acuity about food and pleasure in eating it.  Some argue the more you know the more you are capable of enjoying yourself.  Yet the more you know the harder you may be to please.

But here's another point: if you didn’t have the educated palate in the first place, could you have appreciated the beurre blanc at La Grille to the extent that you did? And if, by some miracle, every other beurre blanc you ate was as good as that one, then how would you know how special it was? If everything is perfect, doesn’t perfection lose its meaning?

And, in fact, doesn’t the lesser food that you eat in the course of your life make the good stuff all that much better?

Here’s an example: my family grew up with butter, never margarine. To me it was standard, not exceptional. So imagine my surprise when I went off to college and the toast was spread with this liquid oil crap that never been near, let alone inside, a cow. After that, when I went back home on vacation, that butter that I’d always taken for granted was all the sudden incredible.

So instead of being disappointed in bad food, be grateful for its ability to make you appreciate the good stuff. It’s one way to make the best of an imperfect world.

[JAZ]

Remove people from the equation when we are speaking of human contexts of meaning?

Yes. What do people have to do with it? Corn flakes is to corn on the cob is to corn souffle. What do people have to do with the increase in complexity I have just outlined?

Ummm...they're responsible for the corn flakes and for the corn souffle, unless there are some really talented cows out there that we don't know about.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Marty - Go to La Grille for a terrific turbot for two served with the world's best beurre blanc. It's in a sort of out of the way place in the 10th arr. though. Kind of like a mile due north of the old Les Halles.

JAZ - What does the fact that people make both corn flakes and corn souffle have to do with it?

[lxt]

Trying to say that a great peach dessert is better than a great raw peach is like trying to say that the Mona Lisa is better than a spectacular sunrise.

One of the criteria by which we are able to exercise a fair comparison of different products is our ability to evaluate these products based on a certain set of rules and common sense. To produce a cooked, sauced peach requires not only more time, but also a certain level of execution to achieve technical perfection of the end-result and satisfy the taste of experts whose experience lies in tasting poached peaches day and night and whose expertise is such that it will allow them to appraise the product accordingly with placing a price tag. Therefore, complex as a stand-alone definition may not be valid in assuming better; however, complex to achieve a satisfactory taste confirmed, without doubts, by experts, where an additional effort is involved and other auxiliary elements are taken into the consideration like scarcity of the raw material or uniqueness of the recipe, falls under the category of “better.”

As an example of a reverse complex effect, traditionally Russians preferred consuming warm caviar; whereas the French proved that by artificially warming caviar, it loses some texture. An additional effort bringing minimal complexity to the dish resulted in a failure to maximize the flavor of the product and therefore failed to be the best presentation. Therefore, on an objective level, warm caviar is simply not the best though a preferred (on the subjective level) way of consumption for Russians. What it tells you is that there are some objective measurements allowing us to evaluate the product by setting a price for it, for instance. Any form of economy, whether barter or capitalist (aside from socialist), allows us to make a fair exchange based on what we consider to be the best. A collective subjective opinion of experts turns into an objective standard within one region and a specific timeframe, and therefore allows the evaluated items to obtain a reputation of their own. It is then when the objective standards assigned to the item are separated from other people’s subjective perception of it, and it is that objective measurements that one should strive to understand and look up to, where the process is called a learning curve. Everything else is subjective. Your not liking a poached peach dessert is subjective, but it doesn’t change the fact that poached peach is better than the fresh fruit. In other words, your liking of the item is subjective; the item value is not.

Your comparison is invalid as it simply compares apples and oranges. For an argument to be applicable, the conclusion must follow logically from the premises where the premise in this particular case would represent a fruit of the same origin or one painting vs. another painting or a spectacular sunrise in Alaska vs. one in Hawaii. Otherwise, “in logic class, we call that” (JAZ) a straw man where, as the term implies, the straw man is an argument without substance.

Edited January 23, 2003 by lxt (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yeah what she said.

[JAZ]

Trying to say that a great peach dessert is better than a great raw peach is like trying to say that the Mona Lisa is better than a spectacular sunrise.

One of the criteria by which we are able to exercise a fair comparison of different products is our ability to evaluate these products based on a certain set of rules and common sense. To produce a cooked, sauced peach requires not only more time, but also a certain level of execution to achieve technical perfection of the end-result and satisfy the taste of experts whose experience lies in tasting poached peaches day and night and whose expertise is such that it will allow them to appraise the product accordingly with placing a price tag. Therefore, complex as a stand-alone definition may not be valid in assuming better; however, complex to achieve a satisfactory taste confirmed, without doubts, by experts, where an additional effort is involved and other auxiliary elements are taken into the consideration like scarcity of the raw material or uniqueness of the recipe, falls under the category of “better.” ...

Your comparison is invalid as it simply compares apples and oranges. For an argument to be applicable, the conclusion must follow logically from the premises where the premise in this particular case would represent a fruit of the same origin or one painting vs. another painting or a spectacular sunrise in Alaska vs. one in Hawaii. Otherwise, “in logic class, we call that” (JAZ) a straw man where, as the term implies, the straw man is an argument without substance.

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you mean.

But yes, I do know what a "straw man" is. The straw man fallacy occurs when Person A, rather than refuting Person B's real argument, refutes a related but weaker and more easily assailable argument (i.e., the "straw man"). And again, I'm sorry, but I just don't see your point.

[Stone]

I think he's saying that a peach dessert and a raw peach allow for a reasonable and meaningful camparison. The Mona Lisa and a sunrise are too different for a meaningful comparison -- unless you alter the landscape by saying that, for example, the Mona Lisa is a more enjoyable "sight" than a sunrise. But that comparison doesn't make much sense. There aren't relevant categories for comparison into which both fall.

On the other hand, it is somewhat reasonable to compare, say, peach melba with bananas foster. You may even have a reasonable comparison between a raw peach a the DB Burger. They both, of course, very different, but some would have no hesitation saying that the burger is a "better" food, as we have been using that term. Of course, the farther apart the two items get, the less meaningful the comparison.

The issue, of course, as others have stated, is not simply a question of complexity. Some complex dishes simply don't work. Some simple items, like a good raw oyster are inherently complex in their taste and enjoyment.

But we are trodding paths that have been well-travelled and, in more ways than one, walking in the yellow snow.

[JAZ]

I think he's saying that a peach dessert and a raw peach allow for a reasonable and meaningful camparison.  The Mona Lisa and a sunrise are too different for a meaningful comparison -- unless you alter the landscape by saying that, for example, the Mona Lisa is a more enjoyable "sight" than a sunrise.  But that comparison doesn't make much sense.  There aren't relevant categories for comparison into which both fall. 

Oh.

Didn't anyone notice that I was attempting to contrast something beautiful but untouched by human technique with something beautiful and man-made?

And of course the comparison doesn't make sense. Neither does comparing a ripe uncooked peach with a peach dessert (in terms of one being "better" than the other). That was my point.

But you're right about it all getting too tedious. Sorry I dragged it on. That's it for me on this topic.

Edited January 23, 2003 by JAZ (log)

[Tonyfinch]

Familiarity can breed contempt. That wouldn't be a cliche if there wan't truth in it. Pierre koffmann tells how he was always trying to take his stuffed Pied de Cochon off the menu at La Tante Claire. Everytime he did he was deluged with customers demanding it be put back on. (Oddly some of them didn't evem order the dish. They just wanted to see it on the menu...a familiar old friend in an ever changing world, or something like that).

Koffmann had to smile grimly ,therefore, when he read a review saying his cuisine was "stuck in a rut", that it hadn't "moved on" as evidenced by the fact that stuffed Pied de Cochon was STILL on the menu.

To many people pleasure is derived from experiencing something NEW. Things have to be ever changing. They have to be "moving on". This site is full of reviews of restaurants that people loved years ago but were disappointed in when they re-visited. Just glance at the French and Italian boards for examples.

Of course I'm not saying that restaurants don't go downhill. But its interesting how we automatically assume that to be the case and do not even consider that maybe it is our incessant desire for new/different/change that is the wellspring of our disappointment and how pleasure fron the familiar may be difficult for the knowledgeable to derive.

Edited January 23, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

And of course the comparison doesn't make sense. Neither does comparing a ripe uncooked peach with a peach dessert (in terms of one being "better" than the other). That was my point.

JAZ - No Stone's point (and Lxt's) was that the sunrise and the Mona Lisa aren't a meaningful comparison when comparing that analogy to the peaches because they are not in the same category. And to get them into the same category you really had to invent one (the most beautiful sight.) But peaches and a peach dessert are both desserts so you don't have to invent any category. They are easy to compare. The reason you say they aren't (as in determining which one is better) is because you aren't willing to accept the scale we are setting out as to determining an appropriate use of the word better. So let me say it more simply.

A cooked dessert is a "better" dessert then plain fruit because plain fruit applies no technique by a chef and when I measure desserts that is what I am looking for. In my book, fresh fruit is no dessert at all. Now don't say wait a minute, I can serve a bowl of fruit for dessert. That's just changing the subject. When I say "dessert," I mean the thing that a chef prepares for you. And when a chef puts a raw peach on a plate in front of me, that isn't preparing anything.

As I always say, we typically fight over the use of words. People are very stingy with the use of words like "better." I'm not sure why other then they cling to the subjectivity argument which is really a surrogate for preference. Because as you demonstrated in your Mona Lisa/sunrise example, any two things can be compared. Because depending on how you are defining the word "sight," one or the other will be the better sight of the two. But whether the comparison will have any meaning is another thing. And I submit to you that few people are thinking of the comparison between the Mona and the sunrise. But lots of people are thinking about peach desserts and creating a hierarchy around them.

Stone - I think Peach Melba and Bananas Foster, not to mention Baked Alaska, are three of the greatest desserts ever created. They are the golden age of desserts as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I'm just a sucker for that hot/cold thing.

Edited January 23, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[jaybee]

A cooked dessert is a "better" dessert then plain fruit because plain fruit applies no technique by a chef and when I measure desserts that is what I am looking for. In my book, fresh fruit is no dessert at all.

If, at the end of a meal, as a result of this evaluative standard, you are unable to thoroughly enjoy a perfect peach to the maximum it deserves then you have proven my point.

Edit: note, I am not implying or arguing that you wouldn't enjoy a cooked dessert more than a perfect plain peach.

Edited January 23, 2003 by jaybee (log)

[jaybee]

Maybe I'm just a sucker for that hot/cold thing.

The first time I tasted a hot fudge sundae (at Addy Vallens) I was a goner.

[Tonyfinch]

Christ Jaybee I thought that you were at least trying to stay on topic. Now you also wanna talk about bloody peaches.

[macrosan]

...almost every will get a huge pleasure response from dropping a large pinch of sugar on their tongue.  It's pure, simple and sweet in a way that most humans react very favorably to.  On the other hand, a bite of, say, sauteed broccoli rabe imparts a bitter flavor.  Not exactly the pleasure reaction that one gets from sugar.  However, I would say that a well sauteed bite of broccoli rabe is some sense a "better" taste.

I really can't believe you can rationally support this contention without a major redefinition of the English language (especially the word "better")

I would agree only that a more complex taste is a more complex taste. What increased complexity produces will vary from taster to taster. Somewhere among the tasters, no doubt some will say that more complex is better.

You see, "good" is a relative word and a subjective word. It only acquires any meaning in a particular context. You could say that "ripe fruit is good" in a greengrocer's shop, but you might say "ripe fruit is bad" at a Weightwatcher's meeting.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I would agree only that a more complex taste is a more complex taste. What increased complexity produces will vary from taster to taster. Somewhere among the tasters, no doubt some will say that more complex is better.

Educated tasters will always say complex is better. Non-educated tasters, whose opinions carry no or very little weight, will qualify the statement the way you have.

You could say that "ripe fruit is good" in a greengrocer's shop, but you might say "ripe fruit is bad" at a Weightwatcher's meeting.

There is no instance where unripe fruit is better then ripe fruit. Sure you can create a circumstance when you need unripe fruit so it is preferable contextually, but in a vacuum, there is no argument that says ripe fruit isn't better. But you also change the subject when you make this type of statement. Ripe fruit is never bad, but it might be bad for people on a diet. You are describing the people and not the food. So good, better etc., are not relative words when you eliminate any outside context when comparing things. It's just that you are refusing to make the conversation about the food item, and insist on defining it in the way it affects you.

[jaybee]

Christ Jaybee I thought that you were at least trying to stay on topic. Now you also wanna talk about bloody peaches.

You want I should talk about bloody sunrises over Hawaiian beaches?

[Tonyfinch]

When we think of cuisine "moving on" or "developing" we are culturally conditioned to consider it a "good" thing.

I read a review of a restaurant the other day which described the food as "very nice but somewhat old fashioned". It was meant as a criticism.

We like to believe that things generally keep getting better. That what is bang up to date now is "better" than what was bang up to date then.That taste develops in a linear, progressive way.

Because of this conditioning people are inclined to regard the familiar in matters of taste as passe. The disappointment that Jaybee'is asking about in the original question lies not so much with the quality of what's on the plate but in our need to perceive ourselves as moving ever onwards and upwards and a concomitant need to leave the past behind.

Of course some things are so great that they transcend this problem-Shakespeare, Beethoven, the Taj Mahal. But in terms of food and cooking is there an equivalent from the past?