On the nature of eating

[A Balic]

On the 'Basic Food' thread a begining of a discussion on the relationship of the British and food was made. I thought it would be better to start a new thread and expand its scope somewhat. Basically, I recently found a Georgian cookbook after reading this I realised that the British middleclass diet was better, in many respects, then that of today. Wilfrid, quite rightly, pointed out that the two world wars may have had something to do with this. Ironically, since reading Philippa Pullar's "Consuming  Passions", I have found that the basic British diet improved vastly post-WWII. The general idea is that although nutrition has improved in the population, the appreciation of food has attropied. The demands of the time had created a level playing field between the haves and the have nots. My interest from this is this: The current increasing interest in food in the general population, does it reflect greater appeciation of food or just increased level in our expectations of what we eat? The former case is not necessarily the same as the latter. Or putting it anther way, if you love the taste of say, a perfectly ripe peach, why would you buy a supermarket peach that has been artificialy softened and has very little flavour of a ripe peach? Could it be that the expectation that we can purchase a peach is of more value to us, then an appreciation of what it is about a peach that we actually enjoy?

Many comments in various threads have touched upon the subject of our relationship with food. What is ment by "Gourmet", Kosher bacon, why are French cookbooks of such a low standard and even 'who eats sweetbreads?'. I think that this is basically are a relection of food appreciation verses food expectation. So, will the increased interest in food mean increased appreciation of why and what we eat?

[Fat Guy]

I don't think I'm smart enough to keep up with eGullet anymore.

[robert brown]

Steven. We cannot accept your resignation, we are sorry to say.

Adam, may I have some time to think? It's a thoughtful post that I hope gets many replies. For now, though, if I read your post correctly, you seem to be saying that the universal or general growth of interest in food may not imply greater individual knowledge about food or even the practice of searching superior produce or meals to the extent of refusing to settle for less. Is that the gist of your proposition?

[Fat Guy]

In that case, Robert, I shall pursue a general attitude of resignation without actually resigning.

[A Balic]

Quote: from Fat Guy on 7:04 pm on Jan. 12, 2002

I don't think I'm smart enough to keep up with eGullet anymore.

Don't say it's so!

I'm not sure I articulated myself very well (part of my reason for writing on egullet is to improve my communication skills), but basically after reading a 170 year old British cookbook I obsessed a little over dynamic, if transient, nature of an understanding of food. These Georgians were very similar to people us in there attitudes to food (they would have been great one egullet!), I guess it has insipired me to think about what our current relationship to food is. Since egullet has many people with a greater understanding of these weight matters, some who even make a living from the subject, I though I would rely on the kindness of strangers, as it were.

[A Balic]

Quote: from robert brown on 7:22 pm on Jan. 12, 2002

Adam, may I have some time to think? It's a thoughtful post that I hope gets many replies. For now, though, if I read your post correctly, you seem to be saying that the universal or general growth of interest in food may not imply greater individual knowledge about food or even the practice of searching superior produce or meals to the extent of refusing to settle for less. Is that the gist of your proposition?

Robert, well yes in part. It is a little more complex maybe ie. the factors that a creating an increased food awareness in the UK, are having the opposite effect in metropolitan France (well, this is what I have read, others may know more). I can think of how this is occuring, but I am interested in "why" it is occuring.

[tommy]

Quote: from Fat Guy on 11:04 am on Jan. 12, 2002

I don't think I'm smart enough to keep up with eGullet anymore.

can you imagine how *i* feel?  with this thought several times every, single, day!  too many freakin smart people around here.  i need a freakin dictionary to get through half of these posts!

[Fat Guy]

You think that's bad? Imagine how Andy Lynes feels.

[Bux]

Well as a kid, they always used to make me play left field to keep me as far away from the ball as possible. So out of left field, may I ask if an interest (or at least willingness) to pay high prices for fancy inventive food in good restaurants tied to the habit of buying peaches, chicken and olive oil by price rather than establishing quality sources is related to that of which you speak?

[A Balic]

Quote: from Bux on 5:49 am on Jan. 14, 2002

Well as a kid, they always used to make me play left field to keep me as far away from the ball as possible. So out of left field, may I ask if an interest (or at least willingness) to pay high prices for fancy inventive food in good restaurants tied to the habit of buying peaches, chicken and olive oil by price rather than establishing quality sources is related to that of which you speak?

The willingness to pay high prices for a given item/experience is, obviously (I guess), an acknowledgement to oneself of the high personal value attributed to such an item/experience. This is a perfectly natural thing for people in our culture to do. I am interested in what people think this 'attribution of high personal value' means and what it says about us. I suspect that a growing sophistication in peoples/societies attitudes to food-culture, is at some point self-limiting due to a lack of recognition of what the "value" represents. "Who would eat sweetbreads?". Good question, it asks what is the intrinsic value of this item and what does this value represent to us. Sweetbreads are an interesting food item to illustrate these points. Some people will not consider eating sweetbreads, others will eat them will relish (no pun intended). Of the latter group,  many will eat them at a restaurant, but would not consider preparing them at home. The sweetbread is constant in all of this, but value attributed to it changes dramaticaly. If we can't recognise what this dynamic represents, then what does that say about our food-culture?

Mind you, this may be complete sophistry, so in that case you may wish to tell me to shut-up.

[Bux]

You may mislead, confuse and walk me in cirlces, but if you are clever enough to keep my attention, I'm unlikely to tell you to shut up. Even if you veer right as you point me to the left, we may meet if we both go in circles.

Okay. Sweetbreads may (or may not as I think about it) be a constant, but preparing them yourself and eating them in a restaurant are two different things. They are perishable and supply lines to a restaurant and to my kitchen are quite different. The talent in my kitchen (I'm a good cook, my wife is better) is no where near that of a very good restaurant let alone a great one.

For the most part, restaurant prices rarely reflect the full difference in price of the ingredients. The cost of the dish is determined by overhead more than materials. Thus the difference in price between chicken and sweetbreads may be very little in a restaurant and the difference may be greater in a butcher shop, assuming both are readily available in my community. Therefore the sweetbreads are the bargain in the restaurant and the chicken a bargain at home. We may cook chicken all the time at home and that may make it boring, but it also makes it easy and requires little thinking and less effort. I'm not sure what this says about value or if I'm approaching the subject at your level.

[Wilfrid]

Belatedly picking up on Adam's original post, I first owe him an apology.  I said on some other thread that I had read "Consuming Passions".  By chance, I came across it in the library on Sunday, and realised I hadn't read it at all.  I think I was confusing it with another very good book, specifically on the history of food in London (no, can't remember the title).  I will take a look at it once I get done with "Cuisine and Culture" by J.-F. Revel.

And let me try to respond to some of Adam's thoughts from a British perspective.  The world wars of course had all kinds of effects on British agriculture, and the food economy generally.  One example is that milk production was centralised for some years, and small-production artisanal cheeses were lost forever.  Some have since been revived - Dorset Blue Vinny for instance - but you'd need a long memory to know how it compares with the original.

During the second world war, of course, imported foods became scarce, and - as I'm sure you all know - rationing was introduced.  What you may not know is that rationing continued well into the nineteen fifties.  So the dark ages of British food lasted at least twice as long as the war itself.

Which brings me to Adam's question about the current increase in interest in food.  I think a lot of us do now have raised expectations, and I think an important factor in that must be the steadily increasing availability of a wide variety of food products.  Growing up in the 1960s, I can tell you that (outside, maybe, of Harrods or specialist retailers in London), you wouldn't have seen camembert in a supermarket, let alone anything more exotic in the way of cheese.  Chinese was about the only well-established ethnic food, and we are talking chop suey style (again, outside of Chinatown).  A few Indian restauarnts were just starting to open.  In the 1970s, the real excitement was generated not by fresh food, but by the increasing availability of domestic freezers!  I'm not kidding - being able to freeze food was considered extremely sophisticated.

I can remember the first delicatessen opening in my home town (near London) in the early seventies.  I bravely went in and persuaded my mother to buy a triangle of Brie.  We didn't know whether to eat the white skin or not.  

In summary, there has been a fantastic learning curve in Britain through the eighties and nineties (and I haven't even mentioned wine, which was a once-a-year thing in my youth), to produce a (dare I say?) middle class relatively well-educated in food and drink.  

I can't speak about the States first hand, but let me finish with a reference to Rebecca Mead's unspeakably dishonest article on the British food renaissance in the New Yorker last year.  She implied that this was a recent thing ("You can even buy goat's cheese in supermarkets," she trilled), whereas, as I have explained, it has been developing over the past twenty years.  I would imagine that the development of food interest in the States, outside the major centers, has been equally slow and gradual, and may even be behind the old Brits in some respects.

[A Balic]

Bux, if I have a "level", then it is only because I had my pretentious hat on (for which I apologise)! Right, if I stick to the sweetbread example, I agree with all of your points, but why is the situation like this? It is true of of most products that they can be prepared to a better standard in a restaurant, then in a domestic setting, so why the special position of sweetbreads (as an example). True, it is easier to obtain and cook chicken then sweetbreads for domestic use, but this is in part because there is little domestic demand for them, as they are perceived as being a 'restaurant'  item, so little retail supply, hence no confidence/skill in cooking this item. It is a bit of a circular argument.

So when we choose to eat a particular item, in a particular way, at what point do we distinguish between its innate value and its perceived value? Is this possible?

[Wilfrid]

Quote: from A Balic on 12:49 pm on Jan. 14, 2002

So when we choose to eat a particular item, in a particular way, at what point do we distinguish between its innate value and its perceived value? Is this possible?

Now you've lost me Adam, and I'm a philosopher.  If we are to say anything about something's innate value, we have to be able to perceive it.  So what's the perceived value?  No, sorry, completely unintelligible.  

By the way, I cook pretty neat sweetbreads.

[A Balic]

Wilfrid, I except you apology, but lets not have any more of these slip-ups  :). The original "Consuming Passions" dustjacket had a photograph on the back of a loaf of Roman bread in the shape of a very large phallus. This was deemed unseemly, so it was replaced with a photo of the (fetching) author holding a pet rat. Its that type of a book.

It seems that you have seen and experienced the changing attitudes of the British to food in at a very personal level (domestic freezers eh, how quaint. Global knives of the '70's). This puts you in an excellent position to give an opinion on the following: The current increasing interest in food in the general population, does it reflect greater appreciation of food or just increased level in our expectations of what we eat?

[A Balic]

Quote: from Wilfrid on 8:54 pm on Jan. 14, 2002

Quote: from A Balic on 12:49 pm on Jan. 14, 2002

So when we choose to eat a particular item, in a particular way, at what point do we distinguish between its innate value and its perceived value? Is this possible?

Now you've lost me Adam, and I'm a philosopher.  If we are to say anything about something's innate value, we have to be able to perceive it.  So what's the perceived value?  No, sorry, completely unintelligible.  

By the way, I cook pretty neat sweetbreads.

Yes, sorry about that, not very clear is it. How about this, a bread roll is of innately (intrinsic, essentially?) better value as food then, say, a rock. But in some circumstances (clearly drug related in this example), the difference between the two in perceived food value may not be as clear.

Were they thymus sweetbreads, or did you perceive them to be pancreas?

[Wilfrid]

Well, thank you for the rock example, which has made it all crystal clear :confused:

And I have had quite enough of Mr Steven "Fat Guy" Shaw poking fun at my Global chef knives, without you starting!

I think my answer to your question was concealed in my lengthy post somewhere, namely that I think we appreciate food more and have higher expectations, but that the explanation for this has been increased access to good food experiences through vastly wider availability of good ingredients.

[A Balic]

OK, I will drop this thread as it is far to annoying for everbody, so I apologise for that.

Wilfrid, I also have Global knives, I was making ironic fun at myself, so no offence intended and thank you for you time. I will try communicate a more clear understanding about what I am thinking about next time.

[Wilfrid]

Good.  let's both shape up and try harder

[Bux]

if I have a "level", then it is only because I had my pretentious hat

I didn't mean to imply that it was a higher level, but then what I like best about being online is that I can talk with my tongue firmly in my cheek without fear of biting it.

Sweetbreads are restaurant food, not because they are perceived as restaurant food, but they are perceived as that because they are perishable and not widely sold (in NY) at the retail level. I suggest it's the perishability rather than the demand. They are also perceived as restaurant food because our mothers didn't cook them. Unfamiliarity is exotic. Exotic puts them at a distance. Or you can read this backwards if you will.

All things are relative. Is there an innate value to food except what's printed on the side panel of the label in regard to nutritional content?

(Edited by Bux at 3:11 pm on Jan. 14, 2002)

[Stone]

I'm not sure I understand either, but let me try some thoughts.

First, there is the common "evening news" observation -- After WWII, food processing seemed to pick up at the same time as general welfare and work productivity.  (Productivity is the wrong word, I mean people are working more, not necessarily more productively.)  In the 70s (the first decade of which I have any meaningful memory), commercial food processing flourished  --  what used to come in tins, now came wrapped in foil.  T.v. dinners cooked faster and were, or seemed to be, better quality.  Then came the 80s with microwaves, two income households and 70-hour per week jobs.  We, at least in the states, lost stay-at-home-wife (I'm not being sentimental) who created good home cooking.  We got, at least in the cities, take-out, 30-minute entrees, etc.  Now we have protein shakes, slim-fast, Cliff bars, etc.  Lost in all this was the growth of fast food and how it branched out from McDonalds, to cover all cuisines (think of the mall food-court) and faux restaurants (Benigans).

I think we lost touch with food.

Recently, however, people like eating again.  I think maybe it was spawned by "Californian Cuisine," but as we ate more junk and bad take-out, we seemed to reserve a night here and there for some real good restaurant food.  Or maybe because we have so many new cuisines and fusion (how I hate it.)  The only ethnic foods my Dad eats are Italian and Chinese.  I can't imagine why he wont eat Thai or Vietnamese, except when my Mom points out that growing up in the Mid-West he had Chinese restuarants and nothing else.  With all the new cuisines, new ingredients, and new ideas, it's gotten much more fun.

I think we've also started cooking more.  But I've noticed something strange -- most of my male friends (mid-30s) cook quite well, enjoy it, and are proud of it.  Most of my female friends make macaroni and cheese.  (Of course, I know many exceptions  in both categories.)

And then there's FoodTV.  When I first heard of an "emeril," I laughed -- even though I love to cook.  But whooda thunk it would be what it is today.  I remember a large group dinner filled with alcohol where one person said "best show on t.v." and three people who never met before simultaneous said "Iron Chef".

Is the increased availabilty of ingredients?  The fact that I have no artistic talent whatsoever, but I can make a mean Thai dinner?  The fact that I realized that I do better with women by cooking than by speaking?

I don't know.  Just rambling because it's 5:00 and I'm bored.

(Edited by Dstone001 at 5:08 pm on Jan. 17, 2002)

(Edited by Dstone001 at 5:12 pm on Jan. 17, 2002)