Spices: For or against?

[Pan]

I got it at a restaurant up a flight of rickety stairs overlooking the main square in Srinagar. It was recommended by the concierge at the classy hotel we were staying at, but I figure the physical condition of the restaurant would have convinced you that the food coudn't be special and at a high level, and that's too bad for you.

This quote shows your general ignorance (or refusal to ackowledge) the validity of what I am saying. I am not talking about delicious food being the standard. I am talking about unusual and unique techniques being the standard. It doesn't make a difference to me what type of technique it is, French, Indian, Mexican etc. It just has to be a high level of technique that is not practiced in the daily restaurants people eat in, which sounds to me what you ate up those rickety stairs.

Horsefeathers.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Okay that made me laugh. Soon I have to leave to go to Babbo for an early dinner. One of my wife's clients gave her a gift certificate and it needs to be used by Tuesday. So I'm going to suffer, all in the name of a free meal .

[Pan]

I got it at a restaurant up a flight of rickety stairs overlooking the main square in Srinagar. It was recommended by the concierge at the classy hotel we were staying at, but I figure the physical condition of the restaurant would have convinced you that the food coudn't be special and at a high level, and that's too bad for you.

This quote shows your general ignorance (or refusal to ackowledge) the validity of what I am saying. I am not talking about delicious food being the standard. I am talking about unusual and unique techniques being the standard. It doesn't make a difference to me what type of technique it is, French, Indian, Mexican etc. It just has to be a high level of technique that is not practiced in the daily restaurants people eat in, which sounds to me what you ate up those rickety stairs.

All right. I'm sick of this stupid thread and am having trouble even reading your posts straight anymore.

You know nothing about what techniques were used at that restaurant, which though not fancy in appearance was not serving everyday food at all. But knowing nothing about something doesn't seem to prevent you from pontificating about it. You probably think I'm making an ad hominem attack on you; instead, I'm making an observation that almost everyone who's participated in this thread would agree with, if they weren't plain old sick of talking to a wall. There's no validity, indeed, in your pontifications based on never having eaten at any of the places in the Subcontinent we've discussed here.

[tommy]

You probably think I'm making an ad hominem attack on you; instead, I'm making an observation that almost everyone who's participated in this thread would agree with, if they weren't plain old sick of talking to a wall.

i'm not sure that one can attack another in an ad hominem fashion. wilfrid can clear that up though.

[Steve Plotnicki]

You know nothing about what techniques were used at that restaurant, which though not fancy in appearance was not serving everyday food at all.

Well the reason I don't know is you haven't described what made them so unusual. Nor why it wouldn't be considered everyday cuisine. But that has been par for this thread. There have been lots of representations that what I am asking about does exist. But there have hardly been any examples of it existing other then, unexplained mystery restaurants that are up rickety flights of stairs and which serve cuisine that doesn't look like it but which really is.

And I'm the one pontificating? Sheesh.

Edited March 23, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[Tonyfinch]

My wife has a relative from an extremely wealthy Pakistani background. She happens to be the finest home cook of Indian/Pakistani food that I know. Ironically she lives in Paris, which is why whenever we go there we don't usually eat in all those restaurants because she insists in cooking all these wonderful meals for us.

To pass the time she gives informal lessons to and cooks private meals for wealthy Parisienne friends. She does it purely for enjoyment and has never taken a penny for cooking in her life. Last time we were there I actually wrote down one of the dinners she served up.

First Courses: Sweet and Sour Prawns in Grapefruit. Sweet Potato and Almond Salad. Black Eyed Beans with Mushrooms.

Main Course: Honey and Lemon Glazed Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Spicy Mint and Pomegranate Seed Chutney. Ajowan Rice. Cauliflower Stuffed with Coconut. Crisp Ginger in Yogurt. Turnips cooked in Aniseed.

Desserts: Grilled Bananas Sauteed in Butter, Jaggery and Cognac. Avocado Cream with Pistachio Nuts.

THAT is what I'm talking about. And that's just ONE MEAL. You just cannot get food like that in Indian restaurants, not even at your Cinammon Clubs and Zaikas and although Bombay Brasserie, Chutney Mary and Cafe Spice Namaste have made a start, it needs a new generation to kick it on.

I've implored her to start a restaurant. Even in Paris I think it would be a revelation. In London I KNOW it would. But she's never been interested and now she's probably too old. But she's not alone. There are people who can an do cook like that all over the Sub-continent and the East. The trouble is in London they are convinced that unless you serve up Tandoori Chicken and Rogan Josh you don't stand a chance. And also the people who COULD become top chefs, like her, have no interest or ambition in doing it-too much like slave labour.

But I'm optimistic it'll happen. Meanwhile if you're ever in Paris.........

Edited March 24, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Up late here. That sounds good. Tell me though, do they have restaurants like that in Pakistan or in India? But you know there is also another facet to this. There is more to it then just innovative cooking. There is a certain level of refinement that you get when you go to a place like Le Gavroche that has to happen too. I'm not saying that the meal you described doesn't have that, just pointing out there is interesting 3 star level cuisine (NY Times that is) and interesting 4 star level cuisine, and what separates them is a level of perfection and detail that I haven't experienced in Indian cuisine.

It's funny because at dinner at Babbo tonight, I was telling Mrs. P about this thread. When I started to explain the position I've been taking about a haute Indian cuisine, she cut me off in mid-sentence and said "I'd like to try that." It was as if she knew exactly what I meant, and that it was something not available to us as far as she knew. I think you would find that many people would be interested in that, not just people from India and Pakistan.

[Tonyfinch]

Tell me though, do they have restaurants like that in Pakistan or in India?

Well I think there's a problem. Highly skilled domestic cooks employed by private families do not have the financial wherewithal or the business acumen to start sophisticated restaurants. They're servants,basically. And highly skilled wealthy cooks do not need or want to do it. So most of the restaurants at the level I described are in big hotels in the major cities or in private and exclusive clubs where there is a concentration of moneyed clientele and where they can afford to employ and train up chefs and cooks and losses can be absorbed in a downturn-as currently in Pakistan and Kashmir.

So, although there are lots of good restaurants on the sub-continent its my perception from the limited amount of time that I have spent there that generally the best of Indian cuisine is still to be found on private premises. For example whereas here we may celebrate a special occasion by going out to a restaurant, if you can employ your own cooks who can do a better job why bother? Even if you don't directly employ one you can hire someone else's or an outside catering company. Many peoples' homes are far more luxurious than any nearby restaurant premises.

You've also got to remember that many poor people don't have the facilities to cook in their homes. Many don't actually have homes. As a result many restaurants are not so much luxury temples of gastronomy as basic fuelling stations for people who cannot physically cook for themselves. The ultimate expression of this is the Bombay street food scene where an amazing and delicious array of foods basically feeds the teeming masses for next to nothing.

So restaurants reflect the different social and cultural structures which characterise that particular society. A highly sophisticated "haute cuisine" restaurant culture will never fully develop as long as the wealthier classes can afford to employ servants to cook for them or they have the unlimited leisure time to do it for themselves. The middle classes emerging over the last 20 years in Delhi do so less and the restaurant scene there is now reflecting that.

Edited March 24, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[balex]

Well I think there's a problem. Highly skilled domestic cooks employed by private families do not have the financial wherewithal or the business acumen  to start sophisticated restaurants. They're servants,basically.  And highly skilled wealthy cooks do not need or want to do it. So most of the restaurants at the level I described are in big hotels in the major cities or in private and exclusive clubs where there is a concentration of moneyed clientele and where they can afford to employ and train up chefs and cooks and losses can be absorbed in a downturn-as currently in Pakistan and Kashmir.

So, although there are lots of good restaurants on the sub-continent its my perception from the limited amount of time that I have spent there that generally the best of Indian cuisine is still to be found on private premises. For example whereas here we may celebrate a special occasion by going out to a restaurant, if you can employ your own cooks who can do a better job why bother? Even if you don't directly employ one you can hire someone else's or an outside catering company. Many peoples' homes are far more luxurious than any nearby restaurant premises.

You've also got to remember that many poor people don't have the facilities to cook in their homes. Many don't actually have homes. As a result many restaurants are not so much luxury temples of gastronomy as basic fuelling stations for people who cannot physically cook for themselves. The ultimate expression of this is the Bombay street food scene where an amazing and delicious array of foods basically feeds the teeming masses for next to nothing.

So restaurants reflect the different social and cultural structures which characterise that particular society. A highly sophisticated "haute cuisine" restaurant culture will never fully develop as long as the wealthier classes can afford to employ servants to cook for them or they have the unlimited leisure time to do it for themselves. The middle classes emerging over the last 20 years in Delhi do so less and the restaurant scene there is now reflecting that.

Interesting points. But historically, French haute cuisine started with private cooks for aristocrats, rather than restaurants. (Hmm, now I've said it I am not so sure .. I will have to check).

I don't buy the argument that food in private houses is necessarily inferior than in restaurants. Lots of people in Europe have professional cooks or are professional cooks. You can make a good argument that private homes are better places -- more financially stable, a single supportive patron, only having to cook one menu at each meal -- for high level cuisine to develop.

[Gavin Jones]

Interesting points. But historically, French haute cuisine started with private cooks for aristocrats, rather than restaurants. (Hmm, now I've said it I am not so sure .. I will have to check).

And even of recent times. The Roux brothers had careers as private chefs before opening the restaurants that have probably been most influential for haute-cuisine in the UK.

[Wilfrid]

You are correct about France, Balex.

I may as well answer here the question I raised on the Babbo thread. Why are there no Indian restaurants in New York operating at a high three star/four star (NYT) level; and relatively few in London? The reasons are primarily sociological rather than gastronomic. In New York, diners have had very little exposure to good Indian food at more modest levels. Most Indian restaurants in New York are truly terrible. Indian food is not sought after or valued in the United States outside of a relatively small circle of aficionadoes. There is not tradition of eating Indian food here. It is hardly surprising that no-one has invested the millions of dollars which would be needed to launch an Indian Nobu or 66. That will only ever happen if the cuisine takes hold of the market at lower levels.

In the UK, the situation is different. Indian cuisine is enormously popular throughout the country. And, indeed, there are a number of Indian restaurants - not many - operating at what in New York would be considered a three star level. One thing holding back that segment is that many people do associate Indian food with a cheap night out (and French food with an expensive night out). The reasons for this are to be found in primarily in history and society, and indeed in politics, rather than in the kitchen.

As Tony's post suggests, one struggles to see any purely culinary reason that expensive, upscale Indian restaurants are a contradiction.

[Tonyfinch]

Interesting points. But historically, French haute cuisine started with private cooks for aristocrats, rather than restaurants. (Hmm, now I've said it I am not so sure .. I will have to check).

No you're right. But then along came the French Revolution and those aristocrats' mouths were no longer attached to their bodies so their cooks had to go and find other work and some opened up restaurants.

The core problem on the sub-continent is that those who have the money to spend in the equivalent of "haute cuisine" restaurants are the very people who can afford to employ personal chefs and belong to private clubs. It is the presence of a substantial middle income group who do not employ their own cooks but who have disposable income to spend in restaurants that ensures a thriving restaurant scene. India is basically a very poor country with a small number of fabulously wealthy people-not really conducive to high end restaurant development.

This is why you see more upmarket Indian restaurants outside of India-in Thailand, Maylaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore etc. and also in the Middle East in places like Dubai and Bahrain. You have a large Indian/Pakistani middle class in those countries and they have a developed a more thriving restaurant culture as a result.

[Jinmyo]

As well, Indian culture is still very high-context, involving numerous interactions and implications for where and how one sits with whom, who eats what when and so on. The familial context of dining is much larger and weightier than is true for Westerners. Meals at a restaurant simply do not have much importance relative to meals in the home. Such a meal is displaced, is trivial. So high-end Indian restaurants do not make much sense in India as yet.

[Gavin Jones]

One might also argue for some sort of parity between domestic dining and restaurant dining in Italy, leading to the lamentable failure of Italy to be French.

[Jinmyo]

True, Gavin.

Of course, these are obvious points but given the nature of this thread I thought perhaps not out of place.

[Steve Plotnicki]

If I may interject a slightly different viewpoint. What propelled French cuisine to greatness was the invention of the carte or menu. If you read Rebecca Sprang, this was the great contribution that the French made to the art of dining. They offered diners a choice of what they could eat, something that was unheard of at the time. This system of dining obviously put a huge demand on chefs to create new dishes. And if you then interposed the concept of restaurants competing with each other for diners, there was a huge incentive for chefs to create new dishes, even new levels of cuisine. In a society where the cooking is going on in people's homes, which means, everyone eats the same food at a meal, the incentive to be creative isn't as powerful. Or valuable for that matter, which is probably what propelled the evolution of French cuisine more then anything else. Restauranteurs would eventually find out that better food had great monetary value and there was a great incentive to capture disposable income, which of course is something the Bourgoisie was acquiring thoughout the era when the cuisine was being expanded.

[Jinmyo]

A good point, Steve.

[indiagirl]

Now, we're getting somewhere. Tony, those were some excellent points you made about the development of food in restaurants vs private homes, specifically in India.

If I were to sum up the criterion we have developed for identifying haute cuisine on this incredibly long and meandering thread, here is what we have:

Constituents:

Technique

Ingredients

Time and Effort

Ambience

Factors that led to development:

Patronage

Competition

Have I forgotten anything?

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

Competition - that was a good point, Steve. I think Indian private kitchens were also subject to some competition, albeit of the purely social kind. I do not know of any documented evidence that the kitchens of the royals and privileged competed with each other, but if current society is any indication, I would guess that they did. I wonder if there is any way to compare and contrast social vs. monetary competition.

Another point when it comes to haute cuisine and Indian 3/4 star restaurants. I think one area where Indian restaurant culture is seriously lacking is wine. While I have personally overcome this shortcoming and in fact have in the last two years made up for the lack of the first 20 years of my life, I do believe that the lack of wine as an intrinsic component of a well planned dinner certainly affects the chances of Indian restaurants being recognized as part of the haute cuisine mainstream. It makes me wonder - the Indian restaurants quoted in this post, how do their wine lists compare to those of French ones of the same caliber? And further, how important is wine to the recognition of a cuisine as being haute?

[Pan]

One might also argue for some sort of parity between domestic dining and restaurant dining in Italy, leading to the lamentable failure of Italy to be French.

That post is missing a smiley.

[Pan]

Indiagirl:

You favor pairing wine with Indian food? Are there any good Indian wines? What alcoholic drinks are most traditional in India? Also: Does that mean that no Muslim food can be a high cuisine (whatever that means, and perhaps I shouldn't have asked the question)? I, for one, do not think that wine is a necessary part of a great meal, no matter what level the meal is at. I enjoyed wine a great deal in France, but though I thought it did often add a lot to the meal, I don't think any meal that was great with wine would have been less than great without the wine. I often have mineral water when I'm in France, Italy, and other European countries - partly because they have interesting, good-tasting mineral waters.

[Steve Plotnicki]

India Girl - Well it isn't that you forgot anything but the patronage aspect has to be fleshed out better. What drove haute cuisine was the number of upper middle class customers it catered to. It appealed to diners from every country in the west. The French instituted an elaborate codification system to log everything that happened, and a great marketing system to explain it and then sell it to diners. Indian cuisine is for Indians. Period. There is no coordinated effort by the Indian government, both on a national and regional level, to lure foriegners to India just to dine there. Or to export the cuisine.

As for wine, my employees father taught me that German Ausleses are the perfect wine to drink with Indian food. The 2001 vintage in Germany was a great one. You still might be able to find some of the wines out where you are. They are well worth it and thery are stunning with both Indian and Chinese cuisine.

[Pan]

Thanks, Steve, but I'm frankly uninterested in having wine with Chinese or Indian cuisine. I'd rather drink tea with Chinese cuisine and lassi or just plain water with Indian cuisine (I don't like beer). For the record, I don't drink very often, though I do appreciate wines I like when I do drink them - which is usually with Italian or French food, particularly when I'm in Italy or France and perhaps even more so when I'm drinking the same wine my food (or some of it) was cooked with.

[Tonyfinch]

You favor pairing wine with Indian food? Are there any good Indian wines? What alcoholic drinks are most traditional in India? Also: Does that mean that no Muslim food can be a high cuisine

Actually, there is a small Indian wine industry. The most famous brand is Omar Khayyam-a very acceptable Methode Champenoise, I think partly owned by Moet.

Several Muslim countries produce wine-Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon. Quality's not great(apart from Chateau Musar) and much was used in the past to "beef up" insipid Burgundy and Claret from poor, thin years. Now that's not done the amount of land under vine in those countries has diminished.

Lots of wines go very well with spicy foods. You can either go for contrast-as with Steve's Ausleses-or you can go for spicy reds such as Australian Shiraz, or Riojas and Ribeiras. I find French reds don't work too well-although a chilled Beaujolais Cru can wash down a spicy meal most acceptably-but decent Alsace is always a safe bet if you're stuck.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Pan - You should try it. I was surprised at how good it is and I find that I always bring a bottle with me to an Indian or Chinese restaurant. In the past, people recommended many different wines. Alsatian Rielings and Gewurztraminers, New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, but I found they were less then a perfect match. But Auslese is absolutely perfect, being just sweet enough to offset the spicy food. When Stone was in town and a bunch of us went to Dim Sum GoGo, we had a Sliced Beef with Sliced Preserved Ginger dish and the wine was so perfect with the food that it was as if someone had gone into a lab and matched the residual sugar in the wine with the residual sugar in the preserved ginger.

[Tonyfinch]

I do believe that the lack of wine as an intrinsic component of a well planned dinner certainly affects the chances of Indian restaurants being recognized as part of the haute cuisine mainstream.

I think this is a very telling point. If we take Michelin as the arbiter of what is and isn't haut cuisine you will notice that there are several criteria that a restaurant needs to meet to get a star which has nothing whatever to do with the quality of what is actually on the plate.

One of these is sequential coursing. Another is pre- plated food and another is the Bible like wine list. Although alcohol is openly available in India it is not an alcoholized culture in the same way as European countries or the States. The cuisine rarely contains any alcohol and it certainly does not see alcohol as an indispensable adjunct to it.

Indian restaurants in the West do not, as a rule, invest heavily in lengthy wine lists. The'll keep a basic list but that's never going to meet the Michelin standard, which appears to require vast numbers of wines from just about every wine producing country. God knows why. I mean what on earth is wrong with a short limited range which has been hand picked to go especially with the food? Do customers really want to be confronted with a tome which takes half an hour alone to read?

But anyway the couple of Indian restaurants in London that do have Michelin stars have had to develop lists like that and then attempt to convince customers that the 1982 Chateau Whatsisface at hundreds of pounds a bottle is just what they should be thinking of drinking with their meal. This has obvious knock on effects in terms of overheads and costs and I'd rather see that kind of money going into chef training and development because if we're ever going to get meals in restaurants like the one I described above then that is going to be what has to happen.

Edited March 25, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)