Beard dinner at Charlie Trotter's

[BuzzDraft]

I have no idea why Trotter is so famous. I'm open to being enlightened.

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Well, he was the guest chef in the front row on Emeril Live tonight. That got him some exposure and name recognition with the large number of average restaurant customers in the U.S. who watch food shows to learn some new things beyond what they've experienced.

[iheartoffal]

I have no idea why Trotter is so famous. I'm open to being enlightened.

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Well, he was the guest chef in the front row on Emeril Live tonight. That got him some exposure and name recognition with the large number of average restaurant customers in the U.S. who watch food shows to learn some new things beyond what they've experienced.

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Jesus, I would sh*t myself if I had to cook in front of CT. Did Emeril seem nervous?

[robyn]

Robyn, enlighten me. How was Trotter's revolutionary according to the above?

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I think Trotter was part of a group of chefs who changed high end cooking in the US in the 1980's (Alice Waters was earlier - 70's - but most of the chefs came - or matured - in the 80's). Before that - high end eating in the US was mostly "borrowed formal French". In the 80's - a lot of chefs started experimenting with lots of things - fresh local ingredients - new cuisines based on those ingredients - lighter/different touches when it came to things like sauces - etc. There are a fair number of chefs in this category. People like Wolfgang Puck - who opened Spago in 1982 - Norman Van Aken - who wandered from restaurant to restaurant in Florida in the 80's and wound up opening Norman's in 1995 - and Trotter - who opened his restaurant in 1987 - were in the thick of these developments (in fact Trotter worked in one of Van Aken's kitchens ages ago and they're good friends).

Was he the most important person in this group? Probably not. But I'm not sure there's a single most important person in this group. It wasn't as if one chef started it all - and everyone copied that chef. Each chef took the basic concepts - and ran with them. Is Wolfgang Puck more important than Doug Rodriguez? Probably - but I'm not sure (I know he's more famous but I'm not sure he's more important). Rather than getting into arguments along these lines - I prefer to think that each of these chefs made important contributions to American cuisine. Collectively - as a group - they changed its entire face. Robyn