Why is Haute not Hot?

[mongo_jones]

He does use and cook cuts of meats, eg, in ways or with dishes that they wouldn't traditionally be served. It's actually one of my complaints about his restaurants. I think he tries to make his customers feel like they're getting what they're used to as upscale food. And in that process, he does compromise traditional Mexican to some degree.

eg, at Frontera I had a *wonderful* pozole verde with stewed pork. But then he felt it necessary to plop some sliced pork tenderloin (overcooked, too, the bigger sin) on top of it. I'm not going to complain about extra food, but the way it was handled just felt like there was a disconnect.

you could say the same about pretty much every single lauded (by the mostly anglo food establishment) indian restaurant in the u.s.

[Sam Salmon]

Have any of you eaten at Topolobampo, Rick Bayless's high end restaurant in Chicago?

No I haven't but I have been to Topolobampo itself.

A place less likely to inspire anything but a burning desire to 'hit the road' I can't imagine.

Having visited the original source of inspiration wild horses couldn't drag me into a restaurant with that name-not in this life

[ExtraMSG]

Fifi, I don't disagree with you on the broad strokes, just in the particulars. I don't think there is much of a tradition of using squeeze bottles and seeing how high you can pile stuff. Also, I do think Mexico City is a mixed bag. You have the Palanco district diners who seem as snooty and cosmopolitan as any NY foodie.

[zora]

I was thinking of Rick Bayless too. I haven't been to Topalobampo, but I have his "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" book, and it's interesting to note that all the "modern" versions of the traditional dishes have toned down the heat a bit. Still, I appreciate his research and his dedication to Mexican cooking techniques, at least in the book.

A shame about Cafe Azul. I never ate there, but it sounds like a gem. Should we initiate the Mole Education Project or something?

[fifi]

I will add that Mexican cooking is not as laden with chile heat as you might think. Bayless has not "dumbed it down". I have cooked from his books and find the level of seasoning about what I find in Mexico where they aren't cooking for the tourists. If you are eating in the modest cafe on a back street of a smaller town or a famous white table cloth restaurant, you will find that the chiles are used very selectively. The chiles are often present as a side condiment, a salsa or escabeche for instance. Incorporated into a dish, it is all about balance. It seems to be here or in the border areas where there is a tendency to pour on the heat. I have read here that the same thing happens with Thai and some Indian food as well.

[mongo_jones]

I have read here that the same thing happens with Thai and some Indian food as well.

it is certainly the case with indian food. many dishes aren't meant to be spicy at all. in fact nothing drives the average indian foodie up the wall more than the "mild, medium, spicy" question at the average indian restaurant in the u.s. that and the absolute substitutability of primary ingredient (no, i don't want a chicken vindaloo, thank you very much!).

what is absolutely inimical to the indian ethos of eating, and which many "fancy" indian restaurants in the u.s seem to have adopted, is the concept of individual plating. indian food is always meant to be eaten family style--with multiple things available at the same time. the closest an individual serving would come to that would be a thali.

[ExtraMSG]

His "One Plate at a Time", though, has extra recipes that are referred to as "Contemporary". Essentially, he tries to get all nuevo on Mexican cooking, something he hasn't done in his other books. eg, he has a traditional turkey in mole poblano (though he calls it red mole). Then he follows that with a contemporary mole poblano which is served over cornish hens and uses pine nuts and apricots. I imagine it's much sweeter, maybe closer to a manchamanteles (sp? -- table-cloth stainer). I think Topolo serves dishes closer to this style than the traditional style, which you'll find more at Frontera. Actually, you can decide for yourself. Here's a link to the Topolo menu:

http://fronterakitchens.com/restaurants/me...opolo_menu.html

My experience is that the lower on the economic scale you go with food in Mexico, the more heat it has. Of course, there are regional differences, too, but some of the hottest things I've ever had were tacos outside of metro stationis in Mexico City. I think I avoided Montezuma's revenge in DF just because of how spicy some of the food was. But then you go to a nice restaurant and the food, even the salsas, are much more mild. And Mexico City restaurants outside of Palanco and Zona Rosa don't seem to be catering to tourists or foreigners much, if at all.

I don't know what that perception says about haute being hot or not. It may suggest it's the case in Mexico as well. I wonder if this holds true in India or Thailand or China or Korea or Indonesia, etc.

Is the local food of wealthy people universally less hot than that of the poor people? Is street food, eg, generally hotter than restaurant food? Is food at nice restaurants generally milder than the food at dives in these countries?

[Katherine]

Is the local food of wealthy people universally less hot than that of the poor people? Is street food, eg, generally hotter than restaurant food? Is food at nice restaurants generally milder than the food at dives in these countries?

It's often the case that the food of wealthy people reflects a continental (ie French) influence. Fusion with less-spicy French food would probably result in a decrease in heat to match the increase in status.

[Pan]

I'm having trouble imagining that being true in Malaysia, though. I saw a TV story about an Italian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur (upscale and fashionable, from what I recall) that had to put a heavy dose of green chilis in its marinara sauce in order to make money.

[mongo_jones]

it is certainly not true in india. in each regional cuisine dishes that are meant to be spicy are, those that aren't aren't. some cuisines have a preponderance of spicy food, some have very little. it doesn't get sliced by class. can get sliced by religion though--jains, for example, are proscribed onion and garlic.

[ExtraMSG]

But does it hold within regional differences at all? Of course when you move from region to region, essentially jumping from one food culture to another, it's not going to hold. It'd be like comparing wealthy people in the SW to poor people in the midwest United States.

[Fat Guy]

I'd like to propose a test of the basic physical argument I put forward earlier. What ingredient could we choose where a minor difference in quality is generally noticeable? I'm having trouble coming up with something off the top of my head, but the basic experiment would require finding a food product where two levels of quality -- close in quality but different -- are easily obtained. Then we establish a baseline by tasting them against one another blind and making sure we really can tell the difference with a high degree of accuracy. The we hit the two samples with a high degree of capsicum heat and we try the test again and see how well we do.

[ExtraMSG]

I'd like to propose a test of the basic physical argument I put forward earlier. What ingredient could we choose where a minor difference in quality is generally noticeable? I'm having trouble coming up with something off the top of my head, but the basic experiment would require finding a food product where two levels of quality -- close in quality but different -- are easily obtained. Then we establish a baseline by tasting them against one another blind and making sure we really can tell the difference with a high degree of accuracy. The we hit the two samples with a high degree of capsicum heat and we try the test again and see how well we do.

I'm assuming this is a rhetorical thought experiement meant to suggest that capsicum blinds us to differences in quality....

How would that be different than saucing an ingredient? Or combining several ingredients? Or using seasoning other than light amounts of salt?

Your thought experiment seems to falter in that any combination of flavors would then obstruct the ability to tell each ingredient's relative merit to an un-combined portion of the same ingredient. Right?

I mean, if I have a pea in my mouth I can easily tell it's relative quality from the next pea I put in my mouth. Maybe better if I drink some water and clear my palate. But if I have a pea and carrot in my mouth, the flavor of each obstructs a pure experience of the other and thus, by your reasoning, each diminishes the other.

Taking your reasoning to its logical end, we should be eating sashimi everything -- vegetables, meats, fruits, etc.

Edited February 9, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[Fat Guy]

It's possible to assume we'll see one of two outcomes: the typical experienced diner either can or can't taste subtle differences in ingredients "through" the heat.

I'd also be interested in trying the same thing with the other types of situations you mention. I think much of nouvelle cuisine's theory is driven by a similar concern: that the sauces and techniques of old haute cuisine were often masking the flavors of fine ingredients.

[Adam Balic]

I'd like to propose a test of the basic physical argument I put forward earlier. What ingredient could we choose where a minor difference in quality is generally noticeable? I'm having trouble coming up with something off the top of my head, but the basic experiment would require finding a food product where two levels of quality -- close in quality but different -- are easily obtained. Then we establish a baseline by tasting them against one another blind and making sure we really can tell the difference with a high degree of accuracy. The we hit the two samples with a high degree of capsicum heat and we try the test again and see how well we do.

Rice. A good qualtiy aged basmati and a par-boiled American long grain. Or would the deifference be too subtle?

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

Edited February 9, 2004 by Adam Balic (log)

[bleudauvergne]

Thank you for this thread. It's helping me prepare for my dinner party on Thursday. I have a few questions.

Would the heat of a dish as you are describing it be like the light that illuminates a single holistic dining experience? Of course certain elements will cast a light - there are certain foods that can change the chemical balance in the mouth and cover or react with others, just like different types of lighting can change an environment's atmosphere. Is the goal a full spectrum experience, or one with a theme, a color scheme? What is the goal? What is the general spectrum of any given cuisine, and why don't they change it? Do the menus and dishes that constitute spectrum represented in the "haute cuisine" vary from year to year, and if they do take a tinge from year to year, how could we define the way these schemes have evolved? What would we call the cuisine where there is a more formalized approach (in the sense of isolating elements of taste, texture, presentation, even history and combining them experimentally)? -

I spent several years in China and found that the dishes there were defined by rigid standards. It wasn't what you cooked, but how well you did it, and the standards were set long ago. Similarly it's easy to see that this sort of insitutional approach applies in France. Could we say that a complete mastery of the classics gives one the institutional liberty to incorporate a palette shift, at least in Europe? In many ways I wonder if haute cuisine isn't meant to call attention to what a chef has mastered as much as it is about how his/her preparations differ?

- Lucy

Edited February 9, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[mongo_jones]

But does it hold within regional differences at all? Of course when you move from region to region, essentially jumping from one food culture to another, it's not going to hold. It'd be like comparing wealthy people in the SW to poor people in the midwest United States.

i don't know if this question is directed at my previous post but if so i should clarify that i am saying that heat does not map onto class within or across regional cuisines in india.

[Fat Guy]

Rice. A good qualtiy aged basmati and a par-boiled American long grain. Or would the deifference be too subtle?

I think the problem there is that the textural differences will always remain. What we need, I think, are two products with identical mouthfeel/texture but different flavor.

[Fat Guy]

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

For capsicum heat, I nominate "fiery" as the best word.

[mongo_jones]

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

For capsicum heat, I nominate "fiery" as the best word.

so would you say that sichuan cuisine could never be haute?

[mongo_jones]

if i may go back to first principles:

how is "haute" to be defined? is it a quality of the food itself or of elements in the overall dining experience--ambience, service, crockery, wine etc.?

if the former, what elements are paramount?

[Fat Guy]

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

For capsicum heat, I nominate "fiery" as the best word.

so would you say that sichuan cuisine could never be haute?

I don't know enough about Sichuan cuisine to even begin to answer that. Are there high and low versions of Sichuan cuisine? Are all Sichuan dishes spicy? I'd need a lot of information I don't have.

My hypothesis -- which I'd like to test -- is that a lot of capsicum makes it hard to distinguish between levels of quality in ingredients. If so, high heat would be antithetical to the haute nouvelle cuisine philosophy that is currently in play in most of the better Western restaurant kitchens.

[Adam Balic]

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

For capsicum heat, I nominate "fiery" as the best word.

Would this encompass Black Pepper heat?

[Fat Guy]

N.B. I have found the US usage of "Spicy" to be very confusing, is there a more interational term that would be acceptable?

For capsicum heat, I nominate "fiery" as the best word.

Would this encompass Black Pepper heat?

Do you happen to know the chemistry behind the pungent flavor of black pepper? Is there any capsicum or a similar substance in there or is it a totally different thing? I'd probably distinguish between black pepper pungency and capsicum heat, but maybe there's some overlap. Certainly my brain has interpreted black pepper as fiery on occasion.

[Adam Balic]

Rice. A good qualtiy aged basmati and a par-boiled American long grain. Or would the deifference be too subtle?

I think the problem there is that the textural differences will always remain. What we need, I think, are two products with identical mouthfeel/texture but different flavor.

OK. Tapioca v Frog Spawn. How much chilli do you have to add to tapioca before it becomes less tasty then frog spawn?

or

Chicken breast meat? Bresse v commercially reared. Simply grilled, cut into 12 slices. Slice 0 =no chilli, chilli increased to slice 12 = v.hot. Have slices randomly switched and made to look as close to each other as possible. Would be fun to combine with chilli eater v non-chilli eater. eg. can a chilli eater taste the quality ingredient at any level of chilli or is their palate buggered?