NYT Articles on Food, Drink, Cooking, and Culinary Culture (2002–2005)

[DRColby]

It is interesting that we have a Thursday farmers' market. A block away is an Aisian-Hispanic grocery store. The market is staffed by mostly Cambodians who have taken over the truck farming in the Seattle area, not to long ago it was the Itallian decendents controlling the produce business.

Anyhow if I take $10 and go to the Asian-Hispanic grocery store I can come out with enough produce - good produce, some organic, some not - for a week. If I go to the farmer's market I might walk away with a pound of petite potatoes and a couple of tomatoes for my $10.

Earlier this week I sampled 8 Robert Parker wines rated 93 or above. It cost me $200 and there wasn't a bottle "on sale" for under $75. The next day I bought a CA syrah for $4.50 that was just as good to my unatuned pallate.

Can you guess where I shop when I can?

Dave

[malcolmjolley]

[...]I don't think the Op-Ed is her best writing, and although she has a decent point about looking down on folks who can't afford good food, it's a clumsy delivery and a silly argument: every one still ought to eat well, whether they have the cash or not.[...]

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Malcolm, I thought she made the point that it's possible to shop well at both the high and low ends, so I don't think she was making the point that the poor can't afford good food.

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Fair enough. I just re-read her piece, and maybe I'm over reacting.

I'm sure there's room in hyper-bourgeois salons for these sorts of debates, and good for her for questioning the local, regional, seasonal orthodoxy and making fun of us for worshiping the cult of the heirloom tomato. But it's hard to for me see how eating well, doesn't involve fresh produce whether I'm wedding "money to decency" or not.

[JohnL]

I resent anyone who thinks they are better than me (or anyone else) because they  purport to posess better taste.[...]

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Oh, we certainly agree here. A person's capabilities don't make them "better" or "worse" than others, in the sense of having more or less value as human beings. But they might have more sensitive taste buds or/and a more sensitive nose.

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yes--for sure! There are people who taste things other do not. I think the issue here is "snobbery" or "elitism" that is when someone looks down upon someone else.

I think what a lot of this thread is about is Julie's point (however well or not so well put) that often "foodies" (us?) apply our values to others.

This is not necc just to poor folks --it is often other people who do not have the same gustatory values and interest we do.

Why we even do it to each other--witness the long threads about hot dog stand A being 'far superior" to hot dog stand B! Devotees of stand B often infer that those who are promoting stand A are "attacking" their good (hot dog) taste and off we go!!! lol

That is passion--I suppose and can be a good thing.

By the way---I still like supermarket chicken though your comments re: cod liver oil moved me to do a little research--cod liver oil or fish emulsion is a natural product so I am not sure it supports your contention that this is not a 'good thing" to feed chicken. In fact Mother earth magazine includes Cod Liver oil in their recommendation for chicken feed for raising organic free range chickens. All those eggs with Omega three etc is a good thing as far as I can tell.

However-actually being able to taste it in chicken is not a good thing (I agree with you there) I will see if I can detect it (you have a sensitive palate because I doubt many people can detect it).

Back to the issue at hand:

what needs to be noted is: many poor people eat and cook quite well--in fact--based upon census numbers Chinatown is a "poor" neighborhood as is Little Italy in the Bronx (I lived there for several years as --yes a poor person). I would also point out that a lot of my Hispanic friends come from very poor families who were great cooks --witness the varied Hispanic restaurants in Harlem and the Bronx and the Hispanic markets. Also "Soul Food" and the cuisine of the American South is rooted in poverty! Low Country cooking Cajun, Creole.

An episode of Mr Bourdain's Cooks Tour featured a visit to a very poor village in mexico where the cooking was quite amazing.

Monday Anthony made a point about French "peasant" cooking. In fact, I would posit that if not for the ingenuity and resourcefulness of poor people the world of cuisine and cooking would be very boring (and incredibly expensive).

In the end it is a bit dangerous to make sweeping statements--and also to apply a value system on others. Not everyone rich or poor wants to be a gourmet. Yes not everyone has the choice and yes there are too many people who are, in fact, starving. For them, i think Julie is saying, help is anything that will sustain them organic or not. In fact, real help would not be food per se but the means to grow their own food. That is to help themselves.

[russ parsons]

[second, it would be absurd for anyone to deny-- in my city and, apparently in hers, if nowhere else -- that the Farmers Market/Whole Foods (FM/WF, from now on) is virtually bereft of poor and working class people.  Sure, I saw a couple of ladies trying to use their WIC checks the other day, but they were by far the exception.  To argue otherwise is to lose credibility. 

Third, her argument is that, by making a certain type of virtue dependent on income, you risk making people unvirtuous simply because they have no money (and spawn a people who thiunk they are virtuous merely because of their produce and certain insidious marketing campaigns).  I agree with her.

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taking the two quotes in order: busboy, that may be true where you live, i don't know. but i live in long beach and at my friday farmers market, at least half the shoppers are cambodian/filipino/se asian immigrants who are certainly not likely to be confused with your typical whole foods shoppers. at the farmers market in artesia, they are mainly indian. there are farmers markets in almost every neighborhood in los angeles and for every santa monica wednesday market that has the very best established farmers selling to a pretty spendy crowd (though they do take wic), there is another market with smaller farmers selling at lower prices (fun fact: half of all the farmers market farmers in fresno county are hmong).

but even if that is so, it is still beside the point. so what if the customers were all suv-driving yuppies? the fact is that there is no barrier to going to farmers markets. they don't check your W2 when you go in. all it takes is the energy and interest to shop there. granted, that is not something that everyone shares. fine. but again, this "elitist" crap is just that. why does nobody ever accuse the longshoreman who lives down the street from me who buys lakers season tickets (easily $50 a game) of being elitist?

[cakewalk]

But that's precisely the point of contention. (Or one of them, at least.) Who is saying that shopping at WW/FM is a "virtue"? The argument is based on that claim, but I think the claim is false to beging with. Basing one's morality on where they shop for food? I might comment on their sense of taste based on where they shop for food (and be wrong, by the way), but their morality? Their virtue? I think that's completely off-base.

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The propaganda of the organic movement do just that. On the "Breaking the Chains" page of the Organic Consumers Association website, www.organicconsumers.org, there's a link to an article titled "Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Moral". (No prize for guessing what their answer is). Throughout the site, they use phrases like "ethically responsible" and "ethically conscious" to describe themselves. The OCA crusade reeks of moral superiority.

Buying local and organic is a worthy goal. We can all do without the moral rhetoric.

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I think it's worthwhile to take that article a bit past its title:

"Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Moral?

The Christian Science Monitor May 28, 2005

Big discounters help the poor make ends meet, but they create more poverty when they pay low wages and force local stores to close. It's a conundrum facing investors and shoppers alike."

This is not a flippant, judgemental article, and it is well worth reading. And I disagree, I do not think the site reeks of moral superiority, despite its use of the words you quote. As with the article headline, there is a larger context. It must be looked at as a whole, not in bits and pieces.

[Jaymes]

...but again, this "elitist" crap is just that. why does nobody ever accuse the longshoreman who lives down the street from me who buys lakers season tickets (easily $50 a game) of being elitist?

I'm just guessing here, but I think it's probably because he doesn't look down his nose at everybody that chooses not to spend $50 a game for Lakers tickets.

I don't think the 'elitist' label sticks to somebody for what they do so much as for their attitudes regarding why they do it, and their opinion of others that make different choices.

[ingridsf]

My point is that in the name of not being judgemental, the op-ed was judgemental. As I said earlier, ahem, I don't buy organic produce to make anybody feel inferior. But OF COURSE I think it's better. Or I wouldn't be buying it. I may rail against discrimination in one arena and be quite proud of being discriminating in another.

[Carrot Top]

My point is that in the name of not being judgemental, the op-ed was judgemental.

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Beautiful.

And although I really wanted to stay out of this today, I feel a terrible urge to give the American Heritage Dictionary's definition of "elitism" as the word keeps cropping up.

Just to add to the fun, you know.

elitism: 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. 2a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a class. b. Contol, rule or domination by such a class.

[Laksa]

I think it's worthwhile to take that article a bit past its title:

"Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Moral?

The Christian Science Monitor May 28, 2005

Big discounters help the poor make ends meet, but they create more poverty when they pay low wages and force local stores to close. It's a conundrum facing investors and shoppers alike."

This is not a flippant, judgemental article, and it is well worth reading. And I disagree, I do not think the site reeks of moral superiority, despite its use of the words you quote. As with the article headline, there is a larger context. It must be looked at as a whole, not in bits and pieces.

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Debating whether it's right or wrong to shop at Wal-mart would be great for a rainy afternoon, when we both have time to kill and a bottle or two of brandy in the liquor cabinet.

The purpose of my post was to give an example of how the question of morality has been insinuated into the choices we make when buying food, in response to your post stating that you're unaware of such a thing happening. That's all.

I agree with Julie Powell that morality has no place in these discussions, for the reasons already given by her in her article and by posters in this thread.

Edited July 27, 2005 by Laksa (log)

[Busboy]

Lot to get to. Damn worke's been keeping me off the boards.

Malcom: you posted

If you ask me, someone's publicist saw that someone's book was about to be published and wanted to create a little buzz. Why not write an Op-Ed? Hmmm...now, what could we write about? And what position from a foodie would be more likely to be published.

I think the piece is designed more to sell books, than to put forward any coherent argument.

That's far from a discussion of the merits of the piece and, as you admit, sheer speculation. I like speculation, but it's not an argument and it's unfair: people with books coming out tend to believe that they have something to say, whether or not we agree. They also believe they should say it in the Times, as well as between hardcovers, that they look for pulpit such as the Times op-ed page in no way implies that they are merely grubbing publicity. And, if you've ever tried to get something published in the Times (as I have, for clients) you know that they don't roll over for every PR agent with a wordprocessor and a fax.

Bux: I think the confit is a cul de sac best dodged, and would point out that at the time brandade -- and other salt cod dishes -- were invented, the stuff was so cheap they were feeding it to slaves in the West Indies. If salt cod and confit are now glamorous or luxurious, it's because circumstances have changed -- overfishing has decimated the cod stocks, factory farming has lowered the cost of beef and pork relative to duck, refridgeration has come along, fashions have changed, etc...

I believe both Anthony Bourdain and Michael Rhulman (not that these guys are Tenured Professors, either, but I'm sure they have a bit more cred than me) -- the former in his cookbook, the latter in "The Soul of a Chef" make a significant deal of of French cooking's roots in scarcity. AB talks about how the need to prepare undesireable cuts of meet because families were too poor to waste anything. So you cooked trip for three days or kept the hen until she was too old to lay eggs and, to make her more palatable, you invented Coq au Vin. Rhulman talks about haute cuisine, and how chefs, determined not to watse, invented balotines and pates, and turned old bones into stock. (I don't have either book before me, so I may be slightly off). As for using sauces to cover bad tatses, I've heard that many times, but never seen any real eveidence either way. Until then, I put that one out of play.

More to the point:

(Busboy @ Jul 26 2005, 04:35 PM)

We need to look at problems in the world of food, nutrition and eating that occur beyond the perimeters of our class and our farmers markets -- and figure out how to support farmers, fight obesity and save the rainforrests at a price more people can afford --  and spend less energy taking cheap shots at people who bring unpleasant truths to our attention.

Have any of the article's critics implied otherwise? Did Julie make a positive contribution? Does she really get credit for bringing unpleasant truths by stating the obviously true and surrounding it with mistruths? I don't think so. You don't agree entirely with the article, but you're not willing to be critical of the mistruths. In the end, Julie noted that there's not much difference between the good shopper and the bad shopper at both ends of the scale. A proper attack on the negative aspects of the "organic" movement can be made. Julie didn't make it in my opinion and I've tried to explain why I didn't think so.

First, as you know, I think almost anything that makes people think (and argue) is a positive contribution and that this thread is great and that Julie deserves credit for making it happen. Second, I thaught her point that the FM/WF crowd has a tendency towards self-congratulatory navel gazing -- reinforced, in WF's case, by a multi-million dollar marketing scheme -- in the face of much more important problems than was a good and important one. Since others had had the kindness to point out the problems with her piece, I thought I'd bring the other side forward.

Laksa:

(cakewalk @ Jul 27 2005, 07:20 AM)

But that's precisely the point of contention. (Or one of them, at least.) Who is saying that shopping at WW/FM is a "virtue"? The argument is based on that claim, but I think the claim is false to beging with. Basing one's morality on where they shop for food? I might comment on their sense of taste based on where they shop for food (and be wrong, by the way), but their morality? Their virtue? I think that's completely off-base.

(Laksa) The propaganda of the organic movement do just that. On the "Breaking the Chains" page of the Organic Consumers Association website, www.organicconsumers.org, there's a link to an article titled "Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Moral". (No prize for guessing what their answer is). Throughout the site, they use phrases like "ethically responsible" and "ethically conscious" to describe themselves. The OCA crusade reeks of moral superiority.

Buying local and organic is a worthy goal. We can all do without the moral rhetoric.

You go! Whole Food's homepage is a little over-the-top, too, but I have low tolerance for corporate feel-good rhetoric: "Our motto — Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that our vision reaches far beyond just being a food retailer. Our success in fulfilling our vision is measured by customer satisfaction, Team Member excellence and happiness, return on capital investment, improvement in the state of the environment, and local and larger community support."

Russ: I'm starting to think that California really is everything they say, based on the low prices for high-quality produce being reported in this thread.

But:

First, if you impute moral superiority to an economic transaction -- whether it's buying Frog Hollow peaches or building a new wing for the hospital -- that is out of reach for many people, you've created a class-based club of virtue, with a cover charge that keeps the riff-raff out.

Second, there's a whole Bobo thing going on here (and in other areas, as well) where people take things that give them pleasure -- usually things that can be considered indulgent (SUVs, vacation homes, brutally expensive organic strawberries) -- and, since we are a puritan nation, smear a gloss of moral rationalizations on the indulgences we are allowed as affluent people. We need the Chevy Tahoe to carry the kids to soccer and explore nature as a family; we're preserving the wilderness and spending time together with our vacation homes; we're supporting sustainable agriculture and fighting obesity with $6/pint berries. This is what gives rise to the first phenomenon.

And, finally, we begin to believe our own propaganda. If organic strawberries are so "good" why doesn't everyone buy them? Too ignorant? (Advertising and low-quality government publications misleading people who (sadly) can't think for themselves?) Unelightened? (Don't they know what those strawberry factory farmers did to the farmworkers? How can they support Monsanto?) Or... bad moral fibre (did I see a frozen dinner in that bag? And bought with Food Stamps!).

I actually think her larger point, though, is that when shopping and eating become status symbols -- when tomatoes become status symbols and people eat out more than cook in and when the pedigree of the ingredients becomes as important as the quality of the guests -- something has been lost, and people are shut out.

"This is a sentiment that's been treasured since the dawn of cuisine by people who value the art of eating. And it's not only the ingredients - be they delicate heirloom tomatoes or the stalwart hothouse kind - that we share when we eat well together. There is also the love and creativity and work we combine them with - those human qualities that transform food into cuisine, and eating into a pleasure. "

[chefzadi]

I believe both Anthony Bourdain and Michael Rhulman (not that these guys are Tenured Professors, either, but I'm sure they have a bit more cred than me) -- the former in his cookbook, the latter in "The Soul of a Chef" make a significant deal of of French cooking's roots in scarcity. AB talks about how the need to prepare undesireable cuts of meet because families were too poor to waste anything. So you cooked trip for three days or kept the hen until she was too old to lay eggs and, to make her more palatable, you invented Coq au Vin. Rhulman talks about haute cuisine, and how chefs, determined not to watse, invented balotines and pates, and turned old bones into stock. (I don't have either book before me, so I may be slightly off). As for using sauces to cover bad tatses, I've heard that many times, but never seen any real eveidence either way. Until then, I put that one out of play.

There is a professor on egullet, his name is Clifford Wright and he discusses scarcity, food prepartioan and preservation, in his book The Mediterranean Feast

I hear there is a resident French chef instructor here as well.

[russ parsons]

First, if you impute moral superiority to an economic transaction -- whether it's buying Frog Hollow peaches or building a new wing for the hospital -- that is out of reach for many people, you've created a class-based club of virtue, with a cover charge that keeps the riff-raff out. 

Second, there's a whole Bobo thing going on here (and in other areas, as well) where people take things that give them pleasure -- usually things that can be considered indulgent (SUVs, vacation homes, brutally expensive organic strawberries) -- and, since we are a puritan nation, smear a gloss of moral rationalizations on the indulgences we are allowed as affluent people.  We need the Chevy Tahoe to carry the kids to soccer and explore nature as a family; we're preserving the wilderness and spending time together with our vacation homes; we're supporting sustainable agriculture and fighting obesity with $6/pint berries.  This is what gives rise to the first phenomenon.

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again, a) i think we're much more in agreement than not; and b) the discussion on this thread is much more clearly focused than the original article (and where it is not, i'm afraid, mostly stems from the clumsiness of that piece).

as to your point, that is certainly true, but saying that some people who buy frog hollow peaches (peaches .... uhmmmm) do so with an air of moral superiority is far from the same as saying the only reason people buy frog hollow peaches is for that stink ... that's the argument julie seemed to be making.

that and the artificially broad-brush painting of whole foods and farmers markets as the same thing. i mean, that's really beyond comprehension, unless your only exposure to farmers markets are the few "landmark" markets in each city (say, you've only been to union square, ferry plaza, santa monica or dupont circle). i'm very sensitive to this, because i've been writing about farmers markets for 20 years and i am convinced that they have the potential to be a revolutionary economic tool for transforming modern agriculture (or at least a small, niche part of it).

in general, i think our attitudes toward food are hopelessly convoluted, but that's probably another whole thread.

[ingridsf]

I don't agree that morality is somehow out of bounds in discussions about commerce, which is what the piece addresses. Food-related commerce. The question is not of whether morality has a place in these discussions but how to hang on to as much tolerance as possible. And I thought this piece reinforced an us-vs-them mentality, which was not helpful.

The thing is: I DON'T KNOW why Buffy von Snoot bought the $13 long-stemmed strawberries at Mollie Stone. I DON'T KNOW why that "diverse" family bought Hot Pockets at FoodCo.

I don't need to know Buffy von Snoot, or like her, or like what's in her cart. And you know why? Because there's SHAKE 'N BAKE in mine. Underneath the PLanet detergent and free-range chicken.

That's right -- I LIKE SHAKE 'N BAKE. I eat SHAKE 'N BAKE, I don't make my own crumb coating from organic flour, Acme bread crumbs and spices harvested by unionized native peoples and transported by solar-powered sailing vessels with happy happy unionized rowing crews. And I shake it up in a NONRECYCLABLE PLASTIC BAG.

***

My opinion remains that the piece set up straw figures -- the yuppie, bobo, elitist, richbitch, insert your faceless villian here -- to knock them down. This thread has been so much more interesting than the op-ed.

And just because I don't agree with something in the op-ed doesn't mean I think it shouldn't have been written or published.

[DRColby]

Was Whole Foods in Madison unionized?

Or is that not what we're discussing herre, we're just being nice to certain kinds of people?

Dave

[Carrot Top]

Speaking of getting food to the people:  I read a good article about a guy who had a mobile produce shop that brought Farmer's Market-type stuff to neighborhoods without good quality, affordable stuff.

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Great idea. . .both for a small-business owner and for the neighborhoods it would be part of.

I remember. . about twenty years ago in Brooklyn Heights there was a little old Italian guy who came through the neighborhood with his cart full of vegetables actually pulled by a small horse!

Now that horse really sold those veggies. At a pretty penny, too.

[touaregsand]

Speaking of getting food to the people:  I read a good article about a guy who had a mobile produce shop that brought Farmer's Market-type stuff to neighborhoods without good quality, affordable stuff.

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Great idea. . .both for a small-business owner and for the neighborhoods it would be part of.

I remember. . about twenty years ago in Brooklyn Heights there was a little old Italian guy who came through the neighborhood with his cart full of vegetables actually pulled by a small horse!

Now that horse really sold those veggies. At a pretty penny, too.

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I don't know if they are selling produce from farmer's markets, but there are lots of trucks filled with produce and some packaged foods that set up shop in poorer neighborhoods in LA, usually predominantly hispanic neighborhoods. There is also a large Mexican market that offers free shuttle service for customers.

[Pan]

Busboy,

As a non-tenured, non-full professor and a son of two tenured full professors (one retired), I'm here to say that being a tenured full professor is by itself an unimpressive qualification, and does not prove that anyone is an expert on anything, or even that the people in question are decent human beings. Expertise is not a product of paper qualifications. I could say more but this isn't eAcademia, after all, so carry on!

[touaregsand]

Busboy,

As a non-tenured, non-full professor and a son of two tenured full professors (one retired), I'm here to say that being a tenured full professor is by itself an unimpressive qualification, and does not prove that anyone is an expert on anything, or even that the people in question are decent human beings. Expertise is not a product of paper qualifications. I could say more but this isn't eAcademia, after all, so carry on!

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What are you saying about your parents?

[Mottmott]

What a tangled web: food, taste, morality, class, politics, economics, education, ethnicity, snobbery, environment, health, and that's just for starts. Can we untangle it to everyone's satisfaction? Probably not.

What's clear? We all gotta eat something. All will make choices based on what tastes appeal to them, on their cooking skills, on time and price, on the symbolic value of the foods they eat, on proximity of the markets they use, on political/moral issues and, usually, some combination of the above which varies from person to person.

I found the article offensive in that it set up straw(wo)men by stereotyping us by what's in our market baskets and where we shop and its blatant and somewhat indiscriminant classism.

Aside from that I would like to address something not discussed either in the article or on eG: food coops. Of course they vary, so what I say about the one I use may not apply to all. First, the food is as good quality (or better) and cheaper than the supermarkets (including WF), whether you buy organic or conventional produce. It carries a mixture of organic and other foods, including locally grown foods in season. We've even added a small FM stand across the street one day a week. Some food is purchased directly from farmers and local bakeries, including our now delicious daily corn. All our food is marked by its place of origin. (You can skip the Mexican organic strawberries if you have some doubts about how strict their organic controls are.) It attempts to respond to members' wishes about what foods to carry, based on issues of price, organic/non-o, environment or politics.

Oddly, though, I would say most people who shop there are mostly middle/professional class, even though we're within easy shopping distance of poor people. Perhaps the membership requirement is off-putting. (It's like a neighborhood grocery store. People tend to know each other, their kids go to school together, etc.) With the exception of the temporarily poor (students, artists, those just starting out, etc.), saving money is less the reason people join than the sense of control over what the store carries, the ability to consider environmental, ethical, and political issues, the gesture of somewhat stepping out of the mainstream commercial foodstream, and the ability to know where our food comes from. There's even a coop garden patch for those who want to put their fingers in the dirt.

In Philadelphia, the numerous farmers' and ethnic markets attract people of all economic classes. Between the coop and farmers' and ethnic markets, I'm able to limit mainstream supermarket visits to the 3-4 times a year when I stock up on clorox and such. The exception is WF (for meats which are hormone and anti-biotic free and the King Arthur bread flour my coop inexplicably does not carry) and TJ for odds and ends. I'm sure my food bill would be more if I shopped in mainstream supermarkets, especially as the way I shop nearly eliminates factory foods in boxes.

[Busboy]

I believe both Anthony Bourdain and Michael Rhulman (not that these guys are Tenured Professors, either, but I'm sure they have a bit more cred than me) -- the former in his cookbook, the latter in "The Soul of a Chef" make a significant deal of of French cooking's roots in scarcity. AB talks about how the need to prepare undesireable cuts of meet because families were too poor to waste anything. So you cooked trip for three days or kept the hen until she was too old to lay eggs and, to make her more palatable, you invented Coq au Vin. Rhulman talks about haute cuisine, and how chefs, determined not to watse, invented balotines and pates, and turned old bones into stock. (I don't have either book before me, so I may be slightly off). As for using sauces to cover bad tatses, I've heard that many times, but never seen any real eveidence either way. Until then, I put that one out of play.

There is a professor on egullet, his name is Clifford Wright and he discusses scarcity, food prepartioan and preservation, in his book The Mediterranean Feast

I hear there is a resident French chef instructor here as well.

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I heard there is a culinary arts instructor, as well, but I am uncertain whether such a position implies expertise in execution or in history (or both).

For example, I myself once audited a course with an instructor in, comment dit-on, the art of love. While her technique was excellent, her knowledge of the history of her art was minimal (save certain oral traditions that had been passed down to her).

[Pan]

Busboy,

As a non-tenured, non-full professor and a son of two tenured full professors (one retired), I'm here to say that being a tenured full professor is by itself an unimpressive qualification, and does not prove that anyone is an expert on anything, or even that the people in question are decent human beings. Expertise is not a product of paper qualifications. I could say more but this isn't eAcademia, after all, so carry on!

←

What are you saying about your parents?

←

That it's not because they got degrees or a title that they're distinguished and brilliant.

In all seriousness, I'm very proud of my parents. But that's more than I could say for some other tenured full professors I've known.

Edited July 28, 2005 by Pan (log)

[chefzadi]

I believe both Anthony Bourdain and Michael Rhulman (not that these guys are Tenured Professors, either, but I'm sure they have a bit more cred than me) -- the former in his cookbook, the latter in "The Soul of a Chef" make a significant deal of of French cooking's roots in scarcity. AB talks about how the need to prepare undesireable cuts of meet because families were too poor to waste anything. So you cooked trip for three days or kept the hen until she was too old to lay eggs and, to make her more palatable, you invented Coq au Vin. Rhulman talks about haute cuisine, and how chefs, determined not to watse, invented balotines and pates, and turned old bones into stock. (I don't have either book before me, so I may be slightly off). As for using sauces to cover bad tatses, I've heard that many times, but never seen any real eveidence either way. Until then, I put that one out of play.

There is a professor on egullet, his name is Clifford Wright and he discusses scarcity, food prepartioan and preservation, in his book The Mediterranean Feast

I hear there is a resident French chef instructor here as well.

←

I heard there is a culinary arts instructor, as well, but I am uncertain whether such a position implies expertise in execution or in history (or both).

For example, I myself once audited a course with an instructor in, comment dit-un, the art of love. While her technique was excellent, her knowledge of the history of her art was minimal (save certain oral traditions that had been passed down to her).

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no it doesn't and I didn't mean to imply that. And I've repeatedly stated that I am not a historian or scholar. OTOH I also attended culinary school in France that was much longer than the standard 1 1/2- 2 year programs and we were required to take culinary history classes as well. So I do know more about it than the average bear or the average food journalist. Since I am born, raised and educated French it also means that I don't misread things like sometimes happens when an outsider practicing cultural anthropology, not that it's impossible for an outsider to understand a culture.

I'm reading an excellent book at the moment French regional cooking There's a forward by Michel Genin the president and founder of Academie Internationale de la Gastronomie. The idea of the book is to preserve French regional cuilnary traditions. Overall an excellent book. BUT their recipe for gratinee lyonnaise has 1 small fresh red pepper in it. As you may know that's where I was born and started my career including working in classic bouchons.

Still I consider it an excellent book.

Edited July 28, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[Busboy]

I believe both Anthony Bourdain and Michael Rhulman (not that these guys are Tenured Professors, either, but I'm sure they have a bit more cred than me) -- the former in his cookbook, the latter in "The Soul of a Chef" make a significant deal of of French cooking's roots in scarcity. AB talks about how the need to prepare undesireable cuts of meet because families were too poor to waste anything. So you cooked trip for three days or kept the hen until she was too old to lay eggs and, to make her more palatable, you invented Coq au Vin. Rhulman talks about haute cuisine, and how chefs, determined not to watse, invented balotines and pates, and turned old bones into stock. (I don't have either book before me, so I may be slightly off). As for using sauces to cover bad tatses, I've heard that many times, but never seen any real eveidence either way. Until then, I put that one out of play.

There is a professor on egullet, his name is Clifford Wright and he discusses scarcity, food prepartioan and preservation, in his book The Mediterranean Feast

I hear there is a resident French chef instructor here as well.

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I heard there is a culinary arts instructor, as well, but I am uncertain whether such a position implies expertise in execution or in history (or both).

For example, I myself once audited a course with an instructor in, comment dit-on, the art of love. While her technique was excellent, her knowledge of the history of her art was minimal (save certain oral traditions that had been passed down to her).

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no it doesn't and I didn't mean to imply that. And I've repeatedly stated that I am not a historian or scholar. OTOH I also attended culinary school in France that was much longer than the standard 1 1/2- 2 year programs and we were required to take culinary history classes as well. So I do know more about it than the average bear or the average food journalist. Since I am born, raised and educated French it also means that I don't misread things like sometimes happens when an outsider practicing cultural anthropology, not that it's impossible for an outsider to understand a culture.

I'm reading an excellent book at the moment French regional cooking There's a forward by Michel Genin the president and founder of Academie Internationale de la Gastronomie. The idea of the book is to preserve French regional cuilnary traditions. Overall an excellent book. BUT their recipe for gratinee lyonnaise has 1 small fresh red pepper in it. As you may know that's where I was born and started my career including working in classic bouchons.

Still I consider it an excellent book.

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Well, what are you wating for? I've never known you to have to be invited into the ring. Sauces, confit, Escoffier v. Auvergnese housewives? French cusine borne of feasting or fear of famine? Truffles v. tripe?

Spill.

[chefzadi]

Well, what are you wating for? I've never known you to have to be invited into the ring. Sauces, confit, Escoffier v. Auvergnese housewives? French cusine borne of feasting or fear of famine? Truffles v. tripe?

Spill.

Auvergnese housewives are much prettier than Escoffier. An animal that contains ttripe sniffs out truffles. French sauces are really tasty. Duck confit tastes so much better than camel confit made from the hump, French cuisine was born of both feast and famine, as well as secret orders of monks.

[touaregsand]

Busboy,

As a non-tenured, non-full professor and a son of two tenured full professors (one retired), I'm here to say that being a tenured full professor is by itself an unimpressive qualification, and does not prove that anyone is an expert on anything, or even that the people in question are decent human beings. Expertise is not a product of paper qualifications. I could say more but this isn't eAcademia, after all, so carry on!

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What are you saying about your parents?

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That it's not because they got degrees or a title that they're distinguished and brilliant.

In all seriousness, I'm very proud of my parents. But that's more than I could say for some other tenured full professors I've known.

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Reminds me of a post-modern criticism class I took. The professor was related to some famous European philospher. He kept giving us definitions of post-modern terms, all the while telling us it was "so difficult to understand, constantly shifting, no center" he wished there were a book, a dictionary "but impossible really, here are mine, I'm trying to make some sense of it all for you stupid sophomores"

He was reading definitions from a post-modern dictionary that I had a copy of. I showed it to him one day. He reacted like a bad off broadway acting teacher.