Are We In a New Golden Age of Gastronomy?

[MiguelCardoso]

Chef Gateau: it is indeed a privilege to read your courageous and highly intelligent comments on a forum where members are free to address themselves to you. Thank you!

As a conservative gastronome, I'm very interested in the recent phenomenon of top chefs in France and (much less so) in the rest of Western Europe controlling their ingredients completely. There's nothing like a simple, expertly roasted chicken where everything the chicken has eaten from birth, down to the smallest detail, its exercise and even environment (it's a pity chefs still can't control the weather!) has been dictated by the chef who will eventually cook him.

In the most interesting restaurants, a few pioneering chefs, unafraid to seem old-fashioned and unashamed of their heritage (for example, their mother's and grandmother's cooking, unimpressed as it was by high-falutin' chatter) are serving very simple dishes - but more perfect than ever - where every vegetable and ingredient has been supervised and approved by them at every stage. They experiment with different diets for the livestock and collaborate with agronomic engineers and the new "biological" ecologists, so that their "cuisine" starts at the very, very beginning.

Does this painstaking, rigorous, uncompromising attitude have a future in this ever-uniform, globalizing world you decry? Can these brave chefs resist the tide of fashion and the frivolous desire for innovation and mere changes in texture and presentation; the submission to technology and empty chemistry; the appeal to "internationalize" and "customize" to the point of forgetting their precious memory and the lessons of the region where they were born?

It seems to me that the future of "haute cuisine" is, ideally, to reestablish standards and the primacy of the goodness and truth of the best ingredients at their best. Play has a place, of course, but since when has classic cooking precluded personality? Great chefs' greatest quality, even before cooking, is their good taste; their exigence; their refusal to be hoodwinked or sidetracked; their insistence on truth of flavour, provenance and overall quality.

I find it wonderful that a handful of enlightened and powerful chefs are becoming growers of vegetables and "criadores" (the Portuguese word is significant, I think) of livestock; as well as extremely savvy judges of the wildness and freshness (and "liveness"!) of fish, molluscs and shellfish.

But I worry that these brave souls may be doomed, under a barrage of frivolities...

I would much appreciate a word of yours about these tendencies!

[guygateau]

This leads directly into a concept I have been contemplating for a few weeks. Wouldn't we be better off if all but the greatest chefs learned to make great dishes of the recent past rather than subjecting us to their ill-conceived, badly-made "original" dishes? I'm not talking about bistro cuisine, but 20th-century classics created by great chefs. In other words, if the most talented pianists are out there playing Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms, why can't great chefs learn how to make a great salmon with sorrel, lobster in Sauternes, or duckling with white and yellow peaches. I realize that there are intervening factors today such as labor intensity and access to, and costs of, the right produce. However, there are hundreds, if ot thousands, of recipes and disciples of these masters that chefs can learn from. It seems to me that there is a whole fertile ground out there that no one is attacking. Even if interpretations that don't score bullseyes are the final result, it has to better than eating a lot of the misguided food we are being subjected to today.

Robert :

It would be desirable that someone should come up a kind of “Library type gourmet selection”: Old & new classics, great hits, public favorites. But will certainly be objections to this based on subjectivity. Who is going to make or who made the first best duck and peaches? … It should be the work of an historian.

In France, everything revolving around food has been controlled more or less by Paul Bocuse and his close buddies for 25 years now. Add to this the French mania to create an Ecole or Institut Superieur de cuisine trying to keep control (again) when the situation seems to slip away from their hands. This is the case for example for the creation of that Institut Superieur de Cuisine, whose headquarters is in Reims (President Remi Krug) recently created with some funding and the benediction of the state. Once again, the French have done us in: hiding behind the guise of big structures, having all revolve around the fluff of luxury. But, I have hopes that it will get better. Ducasse is present (and he should be) but I didn’t see Paul Bocuse on the list of names. Some years ago "Le Club des Amateurs de Chocolat" was created, and the president was the mayor of the city of Tours. Once again, funded with state funds, we heard of the never-ending misuse of funds, use of cars and chauffeurs for the wrong reasons, etc. Nothing ever came out except of this but a few brochures.

The reproach I am making is denouncing this chronic French “navel gazing” centralized self-satisfaction around the few with a lack of a global and united view.

To date, many books have already been written in an effort to provide an inventory of all the gastronomic riches (dishes) of this country. Escoffier's method being the uniting factor of all this for training purposes (as for young chefs in training for their CAP). But, a very positive note here is that in the great culinary challenges like the “Bocuse d’Or” and all MOF competitions, we see that the creativity factor is vital and the judges are the men from the trade. This is a remnant of corporatism. It could be a good idea to ask an international jury of recognized gastronomes to organize such event.

What do you think?

[robert brown]

Guy, I think that if we hope to see a new middle ground (somewhere between the bistro classics and today's avant-garde) it also has to come from the grass roots and made into reality through restaurants or special events such as the kind that gastronomic and wine societies have. It's great that people like Ducasse and others are codifying the patrimony of French cuisine and new schools are opening that are not strictly for aspiring chefs, but writers, researchers and even ardent amateurs. I believe, however, that we need more than documentation in order to have a real idea of the nature of the great -but-forgotten dishes. Right now La Nouvelle Cuisine is somewhat forgotten and underappreciated, but I think this is about to change as the academic and pedagogic interest in cuisine in general is moving ahead so quickly. We need living links such as yourself who are teaching at places like your Universite-du-Vin and concerned and thoughtful individuals such as those who have been part of these discussions.

[guygateau]

Robyn : About the roux and the starches

I am referring to an already not so new variety of corn called MAÏS CIREUX in French. It comes from the US and it is a corn that was genetically modified. (If you need references, I can dig out info)

The main advantage of the starch made by chemically processing this corn is a very low percentage of “reticularite” (French term) Reticularite means that once the granules or starch cells get waterlogged, they will stay that way no matter what. It means they have a very high capacity of viscosity.

For example, if you make a traditional “Bechamel sauce” [which is a sauce made of white wheat flour, butter and milk (or let’s say fish or chicken broth)] after keeping it a day or two in the refrigerator, you are going to see that your sauce is starting to separate (to break) and liquid (water) is coming to the surface or in between the cracks. Of course, water will accelerate the degradation process and you will have to re-cook or boil the sauce again. If your dish comes out of the freezer the process will be more noticeable.

These starches are very practical, they don’t require a long time to cook, they can fix a sauce going bad on you for some reason, they also have a great texture and color. The fact that they freeze well and that they will also absorb residual humidity is also a plus. For instance, in some circumstances you could use a cold- ready sauce over a raw piece of fish, to be able to cook it at the last minute. There is a good chance that the fish will release some water, from broken cells or from the marinade… These starches will absorb that excess of liquid without changing the texture of the sauce. (Magic)

You can obtain a similar result with a well made roux, it will eventually resist freezing but will not reabsorb any excess liquid.

I am not condemning these new starches, science had to genetically change the nature of traditional corn to come to that result, and I just hope that there is no problem with doing so.

On a purely gastronomical point of view, I am making a point that using flour to thicken a sauce is very good and can be very dietetic, assuming that it is made in the “règles de l’art”.

Let's consider the example of an old recipe: Sea bass wrapped in lettuce leaves, with a vermouth sauce.

The whole sea bass is cooked in the oven on a tray brushed with butter, seasoned and sprinkled with chopped shallots. In the bottom of the tray you put ½ glass of white vermouth. Once the fish is cooked, it has certainly released some water. Remove the fish and keep it warm. Pour the liquid in a copper pot and reduce the liquid to the quantity you need, thicken at this point with just a teaspoon or tablespoon of your base sauce (béchamel made with the fish stock for this one) Boil slowly and bring to the proper consistency and finish the sauce by adding a gobb of a very good “crème fraîche” a couple drops of lemon juice perhaps a hint of salted butter from Brittany, and keep stirring the sauce.

It seems complicated but in fact very simple, and now with technology of vacuum-packing we have a lot more solutions than in the past. No cooked fat, fresh cream is not over cooked or reduced, no undercooked flour or residual starches. Very dietetic in my opinion and the taste of a sauce made this way is very distinct and I would say “distinguished” (elegant).

When I was a young chef we rarely used this base sauce for the fishes, we used to cook it in the oven covered, for 7 hours, until all the butter which was used to make the roux would be rejected by the starch. By cooking your roux before- hand at a T° of 120°C you can make up some time in the process.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my point about roux, and also thank you for the web address geo-pie.cornell…

[robyn]

Robyn :  About the roux and the starches

I am referring to an already not so new variety of corn called MAÏS CIREUX in French.  It comes from the US and it is a corn that was genetically modified.  (If you need references, I can dig out info)

The main advantage of the starch made by chemically processing this corn is a very low percentage of “reticularite” (French term) Reticularite means that once the granules or starch cells get waterlogged, they will stay that way no matter what.  It means they have a very high capacity of viscosity.

For example, if you make a traditional “Bechamel sauce” [which is a sauce made of white wheat flour, butter and milk (or let’s say fish or chicken broth)]  after keeping it a day or two in the refrigerator, you are going to see that your sauce is starting to separate (to break) and liquid (water) is coming to the surface or in between the cracks.  Of course, water will accelerate the degradation process and you will have to re-cook or boil the sauce again.  If your dish comes out of the freezer the process will be more noticeable.

These starches are very practical, they don’t require a long time to cook, they can fix a sauce going bad on you for some reason, they also have a great texture and color.  The fact that they freeze well and that they will also absorb residual humidity is also a plus.  For instance, in some circumstances you could use a cold- ready sauce over a raw piece of fish, to be able to cook it at the last minute.  There is a good chance that the fish will release some water, from broken cells or from the marinade…  These starches will absorb that excess of liquid without changing the texture of the sauce.  (Magic)

You can obtain a similar result with a well made roux, it will eventually resist freezing but will not reabsorb any excess liquid.

I am not condemning these new starches, science had to genetically change the nature of traditional corn to come to that result, and I just hope that there is no problem with doing so.

On a purely gastronomical point of view, I am making a point that using flour to thicken a sauce is  very good and can be very dietetic, assuming that it is made in the “règles de l’art”.

Let's consider the example of an old recipe: Sea bass wrapped in lettuce leaves, with a vermouth sauce.

The whole sea bass is cooked in the oven on a tray brushed with butter, seasoned and sprinkled with chopped shallots.  In the bottom of the tray you put ½ glass of white vermouth.  Once the fish is cooked, it has certainly released some water.  Remove the fish and keep it warm.  Pour the liquid in a copper pot and reduce the liquid to the quantity you need, thicken at this point with just a teaspoon or tablespoon of your base sauce (béchamel made with the fish stock for this one)  Boil slowly and bring to the proper consistency and finish the sauce by adding a gobb of a very good “crème fraîche” a couple drops of lemon juice perhaps a hint of salted butter from Brittany, and keep stirring the sauce.

It seems complicated but in fact very simple, and now with technology of vacuum-packing we have a lot more solutions than in the past. No cooked fat, fresh cream is not over cooked or reduced, no undercooked flour or residual starches.  Very dietetic in my opinion and the taste of a sauce made this way is very distinct and I would say “distinguished” (elegant).

When I was a young chef we rarely used this base sauce for the fishes, we used to cook it in the oven covered, for 7 hours, until all the butter which was used to make the roux would be rejected by the starch.  By cooking your roux before- hand at a T° of 120°C you can make up some time in the process.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my point about roux, and also thank you for the web address geo-pie.cornell…

Guy - Thanks for this response. I am trying to understand everything you said - so forgive me if I ask a question.

I understand the bechamel sauce. I can make a simple one - like the one from white wheat flour, butter and milk to use - for example - in macaroni and cheese. I also understand your description of the sauce starting to separate - which is what happens when you put my home cooked macaroni and cheese in the refrigerator for a few days (it doesn't have emulsifiers - or stabilizers - or anything to "keep it together").

I guess where I got confused is I'm not sure what the connection is between the genetically modified corn and how it's used in starches that are used in kitchens. I'm just a "home cook" - and I don't think I've ever cooked with a corn based starch. So - if I understand you correctly - what you're saying is a starch made from genetically modified corn is used not only in processed foods - but is also available for use in commercial kitchens. And it has certain qualities that make it attractive to chefs. Do I understand you correctly? Thanks for your patience. I frequently don't understand technical things first time around - and I'd rather ask a question or two than remain ignorant.

By the way - I think what you were saying about the French food industry/culture is that it's a bit too bureaucratic. I'm sure that every food industry/culture - no matter what country you're talking about - has its faults. It would be great if we could have a genetically modified food industry/culture - where we could just take the best of each country! Robyn

[commander]

Chef Gateau wrote:

"It would be desirable that someone should come up a kind of “Library type gourmet selection”: Old & new classics, great hits, public favorites. But will certainly be objections to this based on subjectivity. Who is going to make or who made the first best duck and peaches?…It should be the work of an historian."

I like Robert's idea. My undergraduate education consisted of close readings of the classics of literature, philosophy, and science. The criteria for the selection of these great works was their place in the disciplined "conversation" of the Western intellectual tradition. Chef's question asks for the criteria of selection of the great recipes.

Just offhand, I would reply that the great recipes are the ones that produced meals that entered the secondary literature of cuisine. These would be meals that moved gourmands to take pen in hand and put their impressions upon paper. I suppose that criterio would include most of Escoffier's meals. If so, Escoffier's book would be as central to the project as the works of Aristotle are in the Western Philosophical tradition. I think I would begin there and see where scholarship takes us. We would require a vast library of culinary writing and a method of cataloging recipes. Perhaps we might consider a pilot project: First, determine in our discussions the protocol for inclusion of recipes. Then we might, both in our home kitchens and in our restaurant kitchens, perform them. I would reject the criterion that great recipes work with any quality of ingredients: I have expended much time in applying Escoffier's method for braising beef on the inferior product on supermarket shelves between 1980 and 1995 only to arrive at the conclusion (as well as the education) that inferior ingredients are not improved by master technique and therefore are not worth the effort. On the other hand, another criterion could be the consistency in which great recipes improve with the use of better ingredients carefully selected for quality, grade, and freshness.

As an aside, I find it interesting that braised beef is scarce on restaurant menus because American tastes have so jaundiced by the inferior home "classic" of "Yankee pot roast" that chefs will not attempt it. But the Escoffier recipe (and the technique he so painstaking describes in his book, even now that we have figured out that browning is the "Maillard reaction" and question his explanation of the cooking process) would be an enlightenment in the hands of a master chef. I see great value in cuisine for recovery and the occasional performance of classic recipes.

For one thing, exposing young gourmands to classical tastes and flavors would give them a sense that the culinary profession has a history. It might moderate the superficiality and ephemeral aspects of contemporary cuisine by giving it a deeper sense of culture, something I find lacking in the States. I'd like to see food writers and restaurant reviewers with a better grasp of the classics because I think the public needs to patronize good chefs and their restaurants with consistency and devotion rather than hop around town like bees attracted to the honey of an ephemeral single plate creation. Recovery of the classics would help provide a grounding in gustation that would again make it possible for a restaurant to make a decent living for its chef and employees, and I don't think it would result in a form of normalizing institution that would stifle creativity. As cooks and gourmands, we must work together. When we strive to cook the best for our guests in our homes and in our restaurants, we are in solicitude of the other, as Emmanuel Levinas put it, but we are also improving our self-respect. My efforts in performing the recipes of Escoffier mean not only that I can be a good chef at home, respecting my guests by putting good meals in front of them, but that I can enjoy the several fine restaurants in Santa Fe, both by having the motivation to dine out on the work of a fine chef but also that I can appreciate fully what I am dining on. I think the classical recovery project Robert suggested is essential in cultivating the new public for cuisine that I think now cuisine needs to sustain itself, particularly in the US because I don't think the US has quite the strong public that Chef has in France for his work.

[guygateau]

Robyn

This is very true with regard to bureaucracy.

Concerning the starches from GM corn, it is not available in any store (to my knowledge) but accessible to industry and restaurant business as it is sold only in large quantities.

We are talking about it's impact on changing the way we cook. This is in opposition of the respect to cooking in a "traditional" way. Thanks to science, in either method, we should know and understand what is going on in the casserole.

[balmagowry]

This leads directly into a concept I have been contemplating for a few weeks. Wouldn't we be better off if all but the greatest chefs learned to make great dishes of the recent past rather than subjecting us to their ill-conceived, badly-made "original" dishes? I'm not talking about bistro cuisine, but 20th-century classics created by great chefs. In other words, if the most talented pianists are out there playing Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms, why can't great chefs learn how to make a great salmon with sorrel, lobster in Sauternes, or duckling with white and yellow peaches. I realize that there are intervening factors today such as labor intensity and access to, and costs of, the right produce. However, there are hundreds, if ot thousands, of recipes and disciples of these masters that chefs can learn from. It seems to me that there is a whole fertile ground out there that no one is attacking. Even if interpretations that don't score bullseyes are the final result, it has to better than eating a lot of the misguided food we are being subjected to today.

It would be desirable that someone should come up a kind of “Library type gourmet selection”: Old & new classics, great hits, public favorites. But will certainly be objections to this based on subjectivity. Who is going to make or who made the first best duck and peaches? … It should be the work of an historian.

....

The reproach I am making is denouncing this chronic French “navel gazing” centralized self-satisfaction around the few with a lack of a global and united view.

To date, many books have already been written in an effort to provide an inventory of all the gastronomic riches (dishes) of this country. Escoffier's method being the uniting factor of all this for training purposes (as for young chefs in training for their CAP). But, a very positive note here is that in the great culinary challenges like the “Bocuse d’Or” and all MOF competitions, we see that the creativity factor is vital and the judges are the men from the trade. This is a remnant of corporatism. It could be a good idea to ask an international jury of recognized gastronomes to organize such event.

What do you think?

Yes; it should indeed be the work of an historian!

I think Robert's points are well taken and merit further exploration. What still troubles me, however, in these and subsequent posts about revisiting the cuisine of the past, is that the past appears to consist entirely of Escoffier. Granted that Escoffier's work is (and no doubt should be) the standard on which early culinary training is based; still it seems to me terribly important to recognize that - just as music did not begin with Mozart - the traditions of French cuisine go back more than a paltry century. It might not be feasible to extend such historical forays too far into the past; but to cut off the exploration at the late nineteenth century is to dismiss the important innovations, discoveries and writings of Careme and his contemporaries; the men on whose shoulders Escoffier stood. Is it not enormously important to understand the sources and evolution of his work? The culinary sea-changes that produced the cuisine of Escoffier began with the aftermath of the Terror, and they owe much not only to Careme but to intelligent and eccentric gastronomes like Grimod. Not to mention Brillat-Savarin, who was after all only an inspired amateur. Ignoring all this is merely another kind of navel-gazing, which inevitably results in a loss of perspective.

And - this may seem a bit extreme to the culinary purist - IMO it is also relevant to understand something of the social/political changes which affected the approaches to food during that same period. These can't legitimately be dissociated, any more than trends in cuisine can be well understood outside the context of contemporary fashions in art and architecture. Robert's point about Beethoven et al is peculiarly relevant here: Beethoven and Careme were contemporaries, and both were equally influenced by the neo-clacissism of their period. Buildings, hairstyles, dresses, painting, music and pastry all bore its unifying mark: my favorite instance being that Beethoven and Careme both executed pieces entitled "The Ruins of Athens" at about the same time.

All right, that's a bit far-fetched for the present discussion, but the point, I think, is that none of these events occurs in a vacuum. Escoffier did not spring full-blown from the void: he had a past as well as a future, a past which he studied and revered. And the key to creating and enjoying the gastronomic golden ages of the present lies at least partly in understanding those of the past.

:climbs down from soapbox:

[Disclaimer: yes, I am biased by my own special interest in Careme and his contemporaries. Someone has to be! ]

EDIT - Esprit d'escalier: a frivolous parallel occurs to me - the frequently-heard remark that "young people always seem to think they invented sex." But their parents and grandparents must also have known a thing or two on the subject....

Edited April 30, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[Jonathan Day]

This last point is a good one.

Let's also remember that Escoffier led the "industrialisation" of many aspects of the production of haute cuisine, in his codification and his development of the brigade system, all of which enabled greater efficiency in the kitchen and the delivery of much greater choice on the carte. I can imagine people in Escoffier's time writing letters of complaint about the rigidity and uniformity that he imposed on cuisine, the loss of artistic scope in the service of speed and efficiency.

[John Whiting]

My undergraduate education consisted of close readings of the classics of literature, philosophy, and science.

St. John's? University of Chicago? Mortimer Adler? Robert M. Hutchins?

It is difficult to establish a historical basis for cuisine in an age which is resolutely antihistorical. To make Escoffier or Careme or Taillevent or Apecius the foundation of a new culinary tradition would be as Sysiphean a task as establishing a new school of popular music based on the polyphony of J.S. Bach. (Or inculcating an appreciation of the Great Books into a generation with a seven-minute attention span.)

Not that we need forsake our minority enthusiasms. Two or three about the temples, remarked Ezra Pound, were enough to keep alive the old religions.

Edited April 30, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[balmagowry]

Not that we need forsake our minority enthusiasms. Two or three about the temples, remarked Ezra Pound, were enough to keep alive the old religions.

Either that, or silver threads among the gold.

[John Whiting]

Not that we need forsake our minority enthusiasms. Two or three about the temples, remarked Ezra Pound, were enough to keep alive the old religions.

Either that, or silver threads among the gold.

Not those temples!

[Jonathan Day]

Robert's comment about chefs focusing on the classic dishes brought to mind a 1921 letter from George Bernard Shaw to an aspiring American actress, Molly Tompkins, who on Shaw's advice had enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. An excerpt:

...what you want is work, or rather sheer drudgery to put up your muscle, and give you the hard driven professional touch that comes from doing a thing every day for ten years and in no other way. Without that, although you may know how a thing should be done, and understand it a thousand times better than a hack fifty-dollar-a-week actress, she will "get it across" more effectively than you. I dont know whether you are a musician. If not, you dont know Mozart : and if you dont know Mozart you will never understand my technique. If you are, you must have noticed sometime or another that though a composer may play his music ever so much more beautifully and intelligently than a professional pianist, yet he cannot produce the same effect in a concert room because he hasnt got the steel in his fingers. You have to get steel in the muscles of your face, and steel in your heart, by hammering away every day (or night) until you can hit the boy at the back of the gallery in a three hundred pound house.

(From To a Young Actress: The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins)

Something similar might be said for aspiring chefs. There is also a connection with this discussion of a UK television programme in which a young "chef" prepares fancy but disgusting dishes (scallops on disks of black pudding with hollandaise sauce) but cannot make an omelette.

[commander]

balmagowry wrote:

"[...]yes, I am biased by my own special interest in Careme and his contemporaries."

I picked Escoffier because his book provides a thorough documentation of his equipment and methods in addition to the recipes. But I was leaving it open to decide where we'd begin. I read today that a site in Israel has been discovered where homonids were preparing and cooking food nearly 800,000 years ago. On the menu were deer, horses, and hippo. I think that might be a bit early.

I was not so much discussing the _historiography_ of cuisine as much as what might be considered a curatorial duty to collect and "perform" great recipes. I don't think the project would be "navel contemplation" as it would go a long way to raising gustatory literacy.

Mr. Whiting asked whether I went to St. John's (Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM). Yes.

[balmagowry]

balmagowry wrote:

"[...]yes, I am biased by my own special interest in Careme and his contemporaries."

I picked Escoffier because his book provides a thorough documentation of his equipment and methods in addition to the recipes.  But I was leaving it open to decide where we'd begin.  I read today that a site in Israel has been discovered where homonids were preparing and cooking food nearly 800,000 years ago.  On the menu were deer, horses, and hippo.  I think that might be a bit early.

I was not so much discussing the _historiography_ of cuisine as much as what might be considered a curatorial duty to collect and "perform" great recipes.  I don't think the project would be "navel contemplation" as it would go a long way to raising gustatory literacy.

Point taken. Sorry, BTW, if I seemed to single out your post as a target for my little rant; that was not my intention. I was really responding to what I perceived (both on this thread and in the world at large!) as a more general tendency to forget that there was any French cuisine worth knowing about before Escoffier.

And yes, I'll agree to pass on the early hominids. I do think, though, there's a case to be made for a major change having occurred around 1800 +/- 20-30 - and an observable progression since then.

(Previous disclaimer still in effect, of course. )

[John Whiting]

GBS: I dont know whether you are a musician. If not, you dont know Mozart : and if you dont know Mozart you will never understand my technique.

For the disciplines of a culinary Mozart to be effective, there must be an audience which appreciates them as well. Those who listened to Mozart included large numbers who could themselves play his music, if not well, and the music of his contemporaries. (Bear in find that until the early 19th century, when Mendelssohn revived J.S. Bach, "contemporary" music was the only kind there was.)

No matter how disciplined the finer chefs may be among themselves, if the eating public are not knowledgable, then charlatains can throw together anything they like and become rich doing it. Imagine spectator sports in which the fans knew as little about the games as most diners know about what goes on in the kitchen. They would turn into mere spectacles of chaotic violence, and no one would be the wiser.

[Pan]

GBS: I dont know whether you are a musician. If not, you dont know Mozart : and if you dont know Mozart you will never understand my technique.

For the disciplines of a culinary Mozart to be effective, there must be an audience which appreciates them as well. Those who listened to Mozart included large numbers who could themselves play his music, if not well, and the music of his contemporaries. (Bear in find that until the early 19th century, when Mendelssohn revived J.S. Bach, "contemporary" music was the only kind there was.)

You're right that there was very little secular music from more than a generation previous that was performed, though I believe Handel's oratorios (especially The Messiah) have had unbroken popularity since their first performances. However, I understand that Gregorian chant was used in Roman Catholic churches from before the time it was written down (as the "Gregorian" chants were really Frankish chants and weren't written down until Charlemagne so ordered) until the early 19th century. Then, after a few decades of disuse, the performance of chant was revived by the monks at Solemnes, though it's likely that their performance practice was somewhat of a reinterpretation and probably different in some substantial ways from the earlier continuous practice.

Is there an analogy to church chant in cooking? I'll bet there is, but I'm guessing it isn't being presented often at luxury places by famous chefs. I'm guesing that local traditions include some modern versions of very old dishes that have been transmitted in an unbroken line from generation to generation like the church chants were. I'm also guessing that there are indeed some famous chefs who do upscale interpretations of such dishes at luxury places.

Analogies between highly different art forms are usually problematic, but by all means, have at it.

[John Whiting]

However, I understand that Gregorian chant was used in Roman Catholic churches from before the time it was written down (as the "Gregorian" chants were really Frankish chants and weren't written down until Charlemagne so ordered) until the early 19th century.

Quite so; I almost wrote "classical" music to distinguish it from both ecclesiatical and folk. (The Hungarian music that Bartok collected will have gone back uncountable generations.)

As for plainchant, it has been suggested that the first examples of notation, indicating only upward or downward motion, relate to the rhetorical symbols attached to certain Greek texts as a guide to orators.

But I didn't mean to sidetrack the discussion into an analogy of dubious relevance.

Edited May 1, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[Pan]

But just to extend the tangent slightly further, some of the folk music Bartok recorded was relatively old and some was relatively new in style.

I'm guessing that in both "folk" and "classical" cuisine, there are old and new elements. Seems like a pretty safe guess, as Adria is himself doing among other things, radical new variations on old themes. (Full disclosure: I get this from reading, having never been to El Bulli or, indeed, any similar restaurant.)

[John Whiting]

(Full disclosure: I get this from reading, having never been to El Bulli or, indeed, any similar restaurant.)

Everything I know about El Bulli I learned from eGullet. When will the expression "just a load of El Bulli" pass into the vernacular?

[guygateau]

We are entering the zone of the cuisine of the extreme...

Balmagowry wrote: "Escoffier did not spring full-blown from the void"

It is of course true, but he is the one that offers in fact the most codification of the Art of cooking, this way HE is the guide...

In my early career, I used and was inspired by the work of Careme and Urbain Dubois, but mostly for the "artistic" side, decoration, etc. And,on this I would also say that when we were referring earlier about the degenerating work of the "brigades de cuisine" for palaces which was "pre-nouvelle" cuisine, these chefs at the time were more influenced by Careme than by Escoffier.

I hope this is clear.

But another note for "Commander" regarding his earlier post on what Robert had suggested: I would have loved to have been able to have written this myself, as it is exactly what I was thinking. Count me in for any further development.

And a word for "Pan" Michael A.Landerman, FYI: Alain Chapel ,who is in fact at the center of all this, attended religiously the festival of Beyrut and was a fan of Bernstein.

[balmagowry]

Balmagowry wrote:  "Escoffier did not spring full-blown from the void"

It is of course true, but he is the one that offers in fact the most codification of the Art of cooking, this way HE is the guide...

In my early career, I used and was inspired by the work of Careme and Urbain Dubois, but mostly for the "artistic" side, decoration, etc.  And,on this I would also say that when we were referring earlier about the degenerating work of the "brigades de cuisine" for palaces which was "pre-nouvelle" cuisine, these chefs at the time were more influenced by Careme than by Escoffier.

I hope this is clear.

Thank you, yes - very clear. As an admitted fanatic, I would be inclined to add "philosophical" to "artistic," because much of what I admire about Careme has to do with his overt passion and commitment, from which I think there is much to be learned even where the content of his cuisine is less relevant in other ways. But that's just me....

[robyn]

Robyn

This is very true with regard to bureaucracy.

Concerning the starches from GM corn, it is not available in any store (to my knowledge) but accessible to industry and restaurant business as it is sold only in large quantities. 

We are talking about it's impact on changing the way we cook.  This is in opposition of the respect to cooking in a "traditional" way.  Thanks to science, in either method, we should know and understand what is going on in the casserole.

Guy - Thank you for the explanation.

When you mentioned "large quantities" - I got a mental image of the largest kitchens I know about - the kitchens on aircraft carriers. I once saw a kitchen where naval personnel receive culinary training. The Hobart mixer was almost as big as I am .

I understand that you worked for a while as the chef at Pavillon in Miami. Were you the first chef at that restaurant? I lived in Miami for a long time and remember how good the restaurant was when it first opened (especially good for Miami - I'm not sure there's been an equally good restaurant serving that type of food in Miami since that time). I also remember meeting the chef. So I probably met you! The only thing I disliked about the restaurant was the room. Seemed a shame to me to take one of the best waterfront locations in Miami and design a place that looked like the middle of any big city. Regards, Robyn