Those stars in full

[Steve Plotnicki]

Jon - Agree with you but I think you need to add Mexican and North African to your list of cuisines that have systemized methods of cooking. Both of those cuisines offer requisite amounts of technique to qualify them. But the problem with other cuisines is exactly what you put your finger on with the English meat and two veggies system. Simply roasting meats, while being delicious, doesn't exactly call for the application of much technique.

I can draw the following examples.

Roast a leg of lamb and serve it "au jus" with natural gravy. That would be the American way and the Brit way too I believe.

Roast it over a pan of sliced potatoes so the drippings flavor the potatoes. Greek style eh? Or even peasant French.

Or Roast it over a pan to catch the drippings, take the pan and put it on the stove, add some demi-glace, some red wine and a knob of butter and deglaze the pan. Slice the lamb thin and spoon the sauce over the slices. Wait, I feel a Michelin star coming on for that preparation :).

[A Balic]

I know that this discussion is about restuarants in the UK (mostly), but isn't just possible that saying that French cuisine is the most evolved etc, is showing how ignorant we are (no insult intended guys, I'm not Simon after all) about other cultures cuisine?

[Simon Majumdar]

"Simply roasting meats, while being delicious, doesn't exactly call for the application of much technique"

I am not sure that is true either Steve ( I am not picking on you, but I am sure you can take it if I was )

Wasn't it escoffier who judged his underlings not on how they made sauces but on how they fried an egg.  Not on how they created reductions but on how they roasted a Chicken.  I also believe ( I may be mixing him up with another) that he was the one who referred to good roast meats as ( and I don't know the french " The english miracle"  

what about

Marinading a leg of lamb for three days in a mixtrue of home roasted and ground spices.  Roasting slowly for 12 hours.  removing the meat from the bones, shredding finely mixing with pomegranate seeds, deglazing ( oops a french word - there comes that star ) with the bitter juice of the fruit and serving with puree of root vegetables?  Less evolved?  Er no, in fact one of the dishes provided by Solomon for the Queen of Sheba.  But hey, let's not let history get in the way of a good argument

S

(Edited by Simon Majumdar at 12:08 pm on Jan. 25, 2002)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Simon & Adam - If one isn't willing to accept the premise that there are distinctions between naive art, popular art and high art, it makes it difficult to have a conversation about them. And if that is the case here, I don't have a reply to the argument that says Syrian folk music, or Syrian cuisine is as evolved as either Beethoven or French cuisine. If you truly believe that, aside from my personal opinion that you have gotten it all wrong, it is an unreconcilable argument because you simply believe in different culinary and cultural gods than I believe in.  But it all reminds me of something a very smart wine buddy of mine says whenever the conversation veers off on this tangent (actually she is quoting Tom Stoppard.) She always says Shakespere is better. Why, because it just is. And in that light I will say that Beethoven is just a higher expression of music as an artform than Syrian folk music is. But I guess people who have never left Alleppo, and who have never been exposed to Western culture might feel differently about it. But I feel like I am on the firmest of ground when I say that, the Michelin Guide isn't published with those types of people in mind. It's published for people who are willing to adopt the hierarchy it presents based on a fairly commonly held view of what is "better."

[Jon Tseng]

Ah Steve (and Simon) - i am not talking about technique (what you do with your hands, but the framework (what you do with your head before you start cooking).

By 'systemised' I mean matching ingredient for an underlying reason (eg "hot" and "cold" foods in chinese, tart fruit to cut through rich foie gras in french &tc) rather than because "it has always been done this way", which is generally what happens in more 'recipe-focused' cuisines.

This gives the chef a great deal more flexibility to experiment and develop dishes - they can swap the quince with the foie gras for the seville oranges operating within the framework and - voila - new dish opens up. in contrast. Compare, say, brussel sprouts with the christmas turkey which is always done that way because it, er, has always done that. If you were adopting a systematic approach you could say 'brussel sprouts = bitter = substitute for endive' but that is simply not done!

er, getting poncy again now.

anyway, back to the theme - the point is not that french &tc is not more or less sophisticated in terms of technique - I'm sure making baklave pastry for north african (if what I've read about strudel is true) is as more more complex as doing the finest feuilletage. It is that the /thinking/, not the /doing/ is more complex

j

[Andy Lynes]

Quote: from Simon Majumdar on 4:48 pm on Jan. 25, 2002

Mmm?  I also wonder claiming cuisines to be "less evolved" is one step away from saying they should all go back to picking cotton massa?

It's not what I meant and I wouldn't imagine that the Michelin man meant it that way either.

In my opinion, trying to argue that anyone other than the French "invented" modern cuisine as we understand it is a complete waste of time. The fact that you can trace dishes through history to the four corners of the earth has little relevance to what we are talking about here.

The fact is when we refer to haute cuisine, whether it be in Spain Germany, Britian or America, we are always talking about food produced using what is generally acknowledge to be French techniques. It's all out of Escoffier, Larousse, Point, Bocuse, Chapel etc etc etc. And that's what Michelin hold up as the 3 star standard. Until other countries catch up with and overtake that monumental legacy (perhpas in a centuary or two) France will be seen as the home of modern cuisine.    

[Steve Plotnicki]

Simon - But your point about making Rann (is that the right name?) is spot on for my theory. Isn't it the most heralded of Moghul dishes because it applies the most technique and aren't the flavors are the most complex as a result?

You know I can take a brisket of beef, marinate it for 48 hours in some high powered marinade, and then apply a spice rub to it before cooking. I can then on my little Weber kettle BBQ in my backyard, slowly smoke it for 7-8 hours over flavored woods. It's an amazing application of technique, and the final result will be delicious. But what I will end up with is not worthy of a Michelin star. Why? The end result isn't sophisticated enough to warrant it.

So while I can say that the application of technique for Indian cuisine is sophisticated, and the result can be complex food, for me it doesn't rise to the level of sophistication that French cuisine rises to. So your Indian lamb recipe does warrant a star when it is executed properly, it just doesn't warrant two stars. And again, that might be a function of enculturation and perspective, but I've already covered that ground and admitted I use that perspective as a starting point.

[Simon Majumdar]

Steve

The same can be said by those blinkered enough not to have exposed themselves to the world outside their own waspish ghetto

As for "Sophistocated" ( again this is not a personal dig ) that is the most pooterish of words and was it not used originally as an insult for those who wanted to exclude others by creating an image of contrived wisdom

Andy - even you don't believe that tosh.  if you have to look at "legacy" you can take all French food back to The Romans and Epicurious.

S

[Steve Plotnicki]

Simon - Actually, it's the Judao-Christian point of view that's the winner here. You can add Islam, but that is really covered under one of the two strains of Judao (Sephardic.) And other cultures/religions have great culinary traditions. Hindu obviously, Buddhist, Mexican being derivitive of Native American cuisine, especially in their approach to their daily bread. Unfortunately it's the Wasps  who have lagged far behind in the development of interesting cuisines. It seems they have done nothing more than a bunch of boiling. At least the Brits have distinguished themselves by having ovens :).

As for people using sophistication as a way of segmenting society, I guess that's the bad bit that unfortunately comes with the good. It doesn't change the fact that Shakespere *is* more sophisticated than other writers. And any negative aspect of how he gets used should be ascribed to people who use it in that manner. But in no way should it reflect poorly on the artist himself.

[Tony Finch]

Wow,you guys love your hierarchies don't you? This is more evolved than that and that cuisine shows more technique than this.The truth is that food,like music,serves a wide range of purposes and meets a variety of needs.In the UK,unlike France,we have a fabulous array of choices and any decent guide should communicate that.

There are times,and I mean this,that if faced with the choice of a free meal at Le Gavroche and one at my local Indian,Chinese, Syrian whatever, I would choose the latter.Not 50-50 maybe,but there would be times.

Michelin simply fails to recognize and respect ,let alone celebrate,this diversity.It is a mono-cultural guide and has little relevance to our increasingly multi cultural society.Its importance amongst chefs far outstrips its importance for punters and I dont know anybody in this country who buys it or uses it.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - As Jon so aptly put it, hierarchys and codifications are what drives cuisine.  And the same codification of technique and their application are what drives other artforms as well. I mean Louis Arrmstrong is Louis Armstrong because his Hot Fives and Sevens codify the way jazz is harmonized. And Escoffier is who he is because he codified cooking techniques in his time.  And today both jazz and cooking are still derivitive of Armstorng and Escoffier. And in light of their accomplishments, I find it hard to argue that pizza is as good as Foie Gras with Peaches in a Port reduction. Even though, I am in the mood for pizza far more often than I am in the mood for Foie Gras.

[Andy Lynes]

Quote: from Tony Finch on 6:25 pm on Jan. 25, 2002

Wow,you guys love your hierarchies don't you?

As do Michelin, it's their raison d'etre.  

[Andy Lynes]

Quote: from Simon Majumdar on 5:49 pm on Jan. 25, 2002

Steve

Andy - even you don't believe that tosh.  if you have to look at "legacy" you can take all French food back to The Romans and Epicurious.

I try to believe all the tosh I come out with, it's more fum to argue that way.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Andy - You make a good point about Michelin's raison d'etre. On the wine boards, any discussion of the critic Robert Parker is fraught with controversy. A while back, someone asked what the key to Parker's success was. After much bantering, some quite similar to the bantering going on here, a friend of mine (an ex-pat living in Britain of course) made the comment that what Parker did was corganize a hierarchy among the various regions of the world that produce wine, and the various varietals produced within those regions.

He was absolutely right of course. What makes Michelin successful, and Zagat successful, and Parker successful is that they present their recommendations numerically, well organized so as to clearly tell the readers what they believe the hierarchy of things are. I guess we all like lists of things. And despite the fact that the approach is somewhat flawed, they still offer the most concise perspective on not only where to eat, but when to eat there too, which might be even a more important fact than what to eat.

[Wilfrid]

As a philosopher, I have been trying to arrive at a clear statement of some of the distinctions discussed above for some years, and this will probably demonstrate I am not there yet.

I would prefer to shelve terms like "high" and "popular" art, because they are going to appear pejorative to some ears.  Similarly, can we bracket the notion of being "evolved", as that's a slippery, metaphorical use of a term which has precise definition in biology, but probably not elsewhere.

Start with music (although literature would do) and I'll get back to cooking.  I would like to suggest that we judge different kinds of music by different criteria.  When we review a Beethoven string quartet, we praise it (or otherwise) for how well it succeeds in a whole bunch of ways I am not going to try to list.  Turn to a string quartet by Grieg, and the criteria by which you assess it are going to be very similar (if not identical) to those you applied to Beethoven.  On the other hand, listen to a Rolling Stones record.  You may enjoy it more or less than Beethoven - that's up to you - but I submit that you assess its appeal by very different criteria.  You can't get away with saying that it's all just music.

It follows that saying Beethoven is just better than the Rolling Stones - or the reverse - is meaningless.  it prompts the question:  better at what?  Beethoven was not better than the Rolling Stones at writing R&B hits.

I would generalise that to say that when one finds oneself making comparisons between examples of "high" and "popular" art, one is probably forgetting that they demand to be judged not by different standards but by different criteria.  "Animal House" is a better comedy than "Snow Day" makes sense; "Animal House" is a better comedy than "Volpone" is just unintelligible.

As you can guess, I think that no intelligible critical judgments can be made in the abstract; they all rely on applying certain criteria to the object to be judged, and the more explicit the criteria are made, the better the critic is doing his job.   Michelin stars are obviously based on criteria derived from French haute cuisine - incidentally, I am not sure "systematisation" is a particularly important criterion, because I think we could detect system in all kinds of different approaches to cuisine.  As I have suggested above, then, restaurants working in the tradition of haute cuisine are readily assessable using those criteria, and it is no surprise that the criteria can be used to assess restaurants like I Bulli.  But if those same criteria are applied to - okay, Syrian restaurants, if you will, then it is no surprise those restaurants do badly.  It is as if  you were to measure the Rolling Stones against Beethoven using the criteria appropriate to judging Beethoven - of course the Stones do badly, just as Beethoven does badly if he's assessed on criteria approrpiate to the Stones.

Finally, Michelin have to use some clearcut set of criteria to evaluate restauarnts, because, as I said, such judgments cannot be made in the abstract.  Developing criteria which would encompass the range of world cuisine would not only be exceptionally difficult, but would, I am sure, lead to a general decline in the precision and usefulness of what Michelin do.  Look, for example, at Larousse's recent attempt to turn what is essentially a first rate encyclopaedia of French-based gastronomy into an encyclopaedia of global gastronomy.

All one can expect is that Michelin recognise - and preferably make explicit - the criteria they use, so that the public are not misled into thinking that a French restaurants with one star is better in an absolute sense than a Syrian restaurant with no stars; just that it meets Michelin's criteria better.  (Oh, forget it, how you communicate this to the public I have no idea !!).

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - Your post is thoughtful and well, philosophical! It manages to cut through much of the semantics that we often get bogged down in when we try and parse our way through these discussions. What we all struggle for is some common denominator to compare things that are unlike on their face. And what your post seems to come down to is that the Rolling Stones are a 3 star band, working in a millieu that might be less than 3 stars if one uses classical music as their baseline.

So what Michelin should do is extract ethnic restaurants from their list and recommend them seperately, awarding each food category a number of stars and then seperate stars for the listings in the category. So that way a Syrian restaurant can have 2 stars, providing that the category of Middle Eastern food is prefaced by say, a single star. Problem is, it's a bit convoluted and it gets back to your point of there being difficulty in expressing it to the public. The real issue here is that Michelin does not want to openly say that they feel that French cuisine is "better" than other cuisines. But they are most happy for that implication to exist through the way they award stars.

[Wilfrid]

Thanks, Steve.  Believe it or not, I do sometimes hesitate before making that kind of post, because it's so easy to muddy the water if one doesn't succeed in being clear.  But I congratulate myself today, because you got my point exactly.

(Edited by Wilfrid at 5:02 pm on Jan. 25, 2002)

[Tony Finch]

What makes Robert Parker successful is the gullibility of people stupid enough to believe that one man can mark wines out of a hundred,and that a wine which scores 95 must be "better"than a wine which scores 94.

This "system" is a blight on the wine world and it is a great shame that so many Americans appear to put so much in store by it.

[Andy Lynes]

Before we go way of path here, I would pull Tonys comments re Parker back to Michelin. Magnolia, I think,  posted a link to an article a while ago which featured a company that can help wine makers create wines that will score well with Parker, which is pretty destructive I think. You could argue that Michelin are setting the standards and driving restaurants in a certain way, rather than simply being a guide to them. To my mind thats no bad thing, as there are plenty that are not interested in stars and it is very easy to ignore Michelin altogether if you are not looking for that sort of experience.  

[magnolia]

Andy - please indulge me while I continue farther off the path...I have a strong opinion about this one...

"This "system" is a blight on the wine world and it is a great shame that so many Americans appear to put so much in store by it. I must disagree about Parker and Americans. "

You may disagree, but this system is far from a blight. I believe the scoring mechanism Parker developed was in fact a response to a previous "blight" - an arcane, impenetrable, confusing, and almost deliberately obfuscatory (is that a word!?) 'system' - or lack thereof - that characterised - and continues to some extent to characterise - the labeling, regulations and description of French wines. In fact this is one of the main things that the French wine industry - which is very fragmented, argumentative and fraught with special interest groups, is trying to address as much as they can in the absence of one voice...

The thing about most Americans is that they don't like to appear foolish - and they don't like to be fooled, and they like to know what they are getting.  Parker came up with a way for them to "evaluate" - in an ironically objective way (I say ironic because obviously it's subjective, based on one guy's opinion, but objective because it was one of the first stabs at a standard). People who don't know anything about wine can decide if they agree or disagree with his opinion - as can people who know loads about wine. For the former, it gives them a jumping off point and takes the mystery away so they can concentrate on enjoying wine rather than looking over their shoulders to see if someone is sneering at them for their choice. And you know what? It's not just Americans...Parker's book has been translated into several languages.  You've probably seen it prominently displayed in the windows of French bookshops..and it's a best seller there. He's even listed in "QUID" - the French book that lists everything/everyone that/who's anything/anyone.

As for winemakers who make wine to accommodate Parker's tastebuds and preferences, if this is true so be it...anyone who's tastebuds aren't calibrated to Parker's won't by those wines, and there are probably a lot of people like that - and I have to believe the market will adjust itself accordingly.

(Edited by magnolia at 7:31 am on Jan. 26, 2002)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - Not to go veering off on a tangent but, Parker 's books are best sellers in France too. He's the most influential critic there. In fact he's the most influential critic anywhere. And the reason for that is exactly what my friend Robert said. He organized wine for consumers in a way nobody ever did before. When you dismiss the people who follow his recommendations, you are insulting people for no reason. Wine is a category that is almost too vast to consider. And if you are a novice at it, there is no better way to find a point of entry than Parker.

As for his palate, he happens to be spot on almost all of the time when it comes to Bordeaux, and he is quite good when it comes to the Rhone. He is "less good" when it comes to other regions, but that is almost always a function of the fact that the style of wine he likes is big, highly extracted and low in acid. In other regions like Burgundy he does less well because the best wines are made in a more subtle style and do not appeal to him. So he prefers vintages like '97, atypical because it doesn't feature terroir to a vintage like '96 which is classsic in style.

Although my own palate prefers wines that are different than many of the wines he recommends, I think all in all he does a good job of expressing his point of view. Whereas someone like Clive Coates does a poor job expressing his point of view. So at least give the guy credit for what he accomplished. And much to the discredit of the people who speak against him, history has been showing him to be right about things, far more often than he has been wrong.

Andy - That Parker has set a commercial standard that wineries try to copy is just the way business goes. There used to be a time when everyone wanted white wall tires on their car. Does anybody ever get white walls these days? The problem with wine is that it was a complicated field that was for the benefit of sophisticats and intelectuals and the general public was pretty much shut out of wine appreciation. Parker helped change that and because the number of people intereted in wine grew, the common denominator of what type of wine appeals to people has changed. So you know have a lot of commercially made, but high end wine made for people. That seems to bother lots of people but I don't know why. There is still tons of great, traditionally made wine to buy and drink.

[Tony Finch]

You Americans are too touchy! I didn't mean to imply that Americans are the only ones influenced by Parker but that its a shame that Americans are so influenced by him because they are such a large and important part of the world wine market.

I don't believe Parker has achieved any of the things his defenders claim for him.There are plenty of wine guides which offer user friendly advice for both the beginner and the 'expert' that do not feel the need to give every wine a rating.It is extremely unhealthy for one man to have so much power and influence in the market.The scores are ludicrous and the system is bogus.Even Michelin doesn't insult our intelligence by marking restaurants out of a hundred.We are adults not children and we don't need it!

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - We obviously do need the 100 point scale becsue so many people flock to it and wine sales have grown at the same rate Parker's popularity has grown. And I disagree with you about there being other useful wine guides. There just aren't unless you want to read pages upon pages of text, only to still come away confused. Numerical scores, whether they be 100 point scale or 3 stars, express preference in a concise way. So what if it is inherently flawed because numbers do not adequately express nuance. Most people just aren't that picky when it comes to wine and when faced with choosing a Cote Rotie between Jasmin and Jamet, are happy seeing one get a 90 and the next get a 92.  In reality, one can write a small tome about the difference between Jasmin and Jamet. But that is really of no consequence to your average diner.

[Tony Finch]

I'm not totally against ratings per se.My argument with Michelin is the narrowness of its perspective,not that it awards stars .My argument with Parker is not that he rates wines at all but that his 50-100 rating system implies a level of rating expertise and precision that is both bogus and misleading.

The fact that its easy to be seduced by it and that lots of people have been only condemns it more in my eyes.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Michelin produce a 'guide', Parker produces a 'guide'. The very term implies levels of subjectivity. Although their popularity invests them with a certain clout, neither publication claims to be definitive or objective. They are merely the most adequate of a motley bunch.

Michelin does matter, just not in the UK.