'Emerging food styles'

[Adam Balic]

(Adam Balic @ Aug 17 2005, 09:08 AM)

The peasant eats

Bony fish with relish

The rich man

Is shown

Whole great fish

Which metamorphose

In the kitchen to

Filet de Soles à la dieppoise?

Very interesting. I think that there are (or have been) other issues other then ease/comfort of eating, but it is a very good point. Do you think that this has any influence on some of the emerging styles of cooking were food is pesented in figurative manner, rather then producing food 'which tastes of itself'?

Carrot Top

After trying to sort out this question, I am still rather only half-way there if even that in terms of being sure what it is I think. . .  but if I understand you right, then I think yes.

There are several points which come to mind. First is the attenuation of "lots of ingredients" into one finessed single thing. . .a sauce, a forcemeat, a reduction of "whatever" for whatever purpose. That costs money in terms of having lots of stuff to start off with. . .and it takes time in terms of skilled labor, which also is an expense. This removes these foods from the availability of the "everyday person" in most parts of the world. And it is an approach to food being "figurative" as you said, rather than direct.

Then there is the fact that there has to be some intelligence of a creative sort used to make food more "figurative" than just tasting "of itself". This creativity is not found everywhere, and of course creativity (partnered with the ability to turn it into something real) has always been in demand among those who have had the free time and education of whatever sort to appreciate how buying creativity can set them, themselves, apart from the madding crowd. On the flip side of this, many people who are very wealthy are actually very creative themselves, and have a habit of appreciating it in other people in other fields. . not all the wealthy have inherited their money. Lots have made it in various creative ways themselves, even if that creative way has to do with playing with numbers or trends rather than playing with food, or paint.

As to what form that creativity takes in the way of food . .i.e. whether it is something novel or whether it is something more traditional (i.e. "nouvelle" cuisine as opposed to "haute cuisine" to use two examples that are rather standard in terms of our common understandings) that, ultimately, is up to the person that is doing the consuming of the creativity.

But it is an essence of "having something different than the norm" done to the food that is important. The food is removed to a higher plane. There are no memories of dirt floors or fishing nets anywhere to be found in the idea of the food as it sits on the table. One is removed from the idea of having ever had to use one's hands to do a job. One is taken to the place where minds are used instead to do a job. Easier in ways. More comfortable.

It has a lot to do with defining one's class, I think. And I don't use the term "class" perjoratively, but rather just as a figure of speech. I don't like the term "socio-economic group", it makes me feel queasy. 

What do you think? I am sure that you have some ideas I've never thought of.

Oh. Mostly what I like to eat is things that taste as much of themselves as possible. My taste is for the very simple, the pure, that which does start and end right at the earth, the soil, the attention given to the original ingredient. I guess I'll always be a plebe.

[Adam Balic]

No I am completely out of my depth on this one, I simply don't have a wide enough perspective on the topic or any knowledge of fine dining.

From this narrow perspective I find it interesting that a lot of them more creative food that I see discussed here and else where in the food media, resembles some aspects of Roman/Medieval/Renaissance high end food. Whether this is coincidence or reflects some underlying similarity in philosophy I can't say. "Apple Caviar" would sit very comfortably within a Roman meal of other such 'fake foods' (there is most likely a better word then "fake", can't think of it this early in the morning).

From the class point of view "Apple Caviar" is interesting as it has rapidly become clichéd, a sure sign of its downward mobility. In six months time will there be an elite diner who would enjoy eating it?

This isn't new, any brief observation of dining habits in the last 1000 years shows the same trend again and again. In modern Italy it is fun to observe the number of Renaissance high end food items that have ended up as feast/festival foods of the people, for instance.

*How long before the use of commercial enzymes, gels, chemicals becomes so widespread (even I have bought alginate for God's sake), that the next 'big thing' will be a more towards more 'pure' ingredients, a bit like happened during the early "nouvelle cuisine" movement. Or will there be another direction?

But, if this pattern is true, then the majority of elite diners are also part of the process, so one wonders if there has ever truely been an diner with individual palate or intellect? Not that this really matters I guess.

* Not a negative comment on the use of these items at all. I think that it is very interesting how the best chefs have used these items to introduce a new type of purity into their cooking.

[Ondine]

I find it interesting that the approach in a lot of high-end dining nowadays is towards degustation or otherwise pre-planned menus, with a lot if not most of the variables in the meal controlled by the chef or establishment.

I can see it as a refinement of catering to a chef's artistic sensibilities, as well as allowing a showcasing of the restaurant's resources and reach.

Somewhat like the 'cocooning' trend of the 90's, I notice a trend in high-end dining towards having everything taken care of for the diner; you could almost use the "full service" moniker for it. (Or maybe it's just me.)

It seems to suggest a new form of cultural blending to me.

I once heard it said that in the West, the most gracious host strives to make available the widest possible range of choices for their guest/client, so they can choose what pleases them the most. And in the East, the most gracious host instead makes available one exquisite option only, to free the guest of the burden of choice, and to release them to simply relax and enjoy.

Is this plausible? And if so, where do you think we will go from here?

[jackal10]

High end has a number of factors:

a) The clients are mostly not hungry

b) The clients mostly do not have a "foodie" palate, with few exceptions. A few foodies will go once a year for the experience, but real foodies tend to be poor. The bulk of people are there because its the place to be, or is the most expensive restaurant in town and they are showing off.

c) Thus presentation is as important as taste

d) Novelty is important, but not scarily novel.

My guess is that we will see the swing back from molecular gastonomy inspired foods to comfort and local foods, served in small immaculate portions, with chefs climing they cook with passion, not science, before the next wave of novelty. Might that be babyfoods? Maybe, but I doubt except in certain fetish scenes

[Wendy DeBord]

High end has a number of factors:

a) The clients are mostly not hungry

b) The clients mostly do not have a "foodie" palate, with few exceptions. A few foodies will go once a year for the experience, but real foodies tend to be poor. The bulk of people are there because its the place to be, or is the most expensive restaurant in town and they are showing off..

Wow, I've thought that..........but never dared to write that. I LOVE such honesty and daring................and you make me darn curious what your exact thoughts are on Will's cusine. Is it art? Shouldn't one be able to explain why something is or isn't an art to "defend" your position? Is it enough to call it art and not give any reasoning to it?

[jackal10]

I wonder why you haven't dared write it? Maybe I've been around restaurants too long...

Most high end restaurants will have, maybe disguised or set about with twiddly bits and small courses, buried in their menu some variation of

Starter - Maybe vegetable terrine, with two coloured sauces, but when I grew up it was Prawn cocktail. Maybe Foie Gras or Oysters at the high end

Plain meat, either steak or a roast

Something with chocolate.

Lets see. Take at random The Fat Duck (and I did not look before I wrote the above)

On the a la carte we see

Ballontine of Foie Gras

Lamb or venison or Pork (no beef!)

Delice du Chocolat or Chocolate fondant

French Laundry (Per Se don't put their menus on line)

Duck Foie Gras

Calotte de Boeuf Grille

Valrohna bitter chocolate souffle

This menu could be had anytime in the last fifty years. Chefs may be imaginative and cutting edge, but their audience, who pay the bills are not, or at least only a tiny fraction of them are. Its what people want, and have as their expectation, and dislike straying too far from. Natural selection works. If you don't serve something like this, you make a lot less money, and probably not enough to survive.

I've never been fortunate to sample Will's cuisine. I read his piece not so much as "art" but as stream-of-conscieness exploring ideas for a new dish, a thought experiment for an imaginary restaurant.. Good stuff, even if cryptic, and a few sidetracks thrown in. I think the idea of high-end restaurants having echoes of a baby like experience has merit - soft foods, decisions made for you, care in the hands of others and so on, and may be interesting to explore. The fact that he has just had a baby may be formative as well.

I'm sure he did not intend to stray too much into the literal fetishistic "adult baby" scene, (but he just might have for fun and frisson). I'm sure there are specialist service suppliers and web sites if that is your thing.

Restaurants like "School Dinners" http://www.schooldinners.com/menu.html treat their customers as children (Hooters + infantalism), and you can be spoon feed by a nubile waitress. They have been serving their particular clientele for many years (I've never been, nor do I intend to btw)

Edited August 18, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Daniel Rogov]

I'm not sure precisely how to hone in on the focus of this thread........Mentioned to this point has been made of Roman food, Nouvelle Cuisine, defining of "foodies", food/chefdom as art, and issues of hunger versus appreciation......

Considering that Carme described Roman dining as "sumptuous and, magnificent but fundamentally barbarous"; that Bocuse (mistakenly identified as the father of nouvelle cuisine instead of Fernand Point) admitted that his own interpretation of "nouvelle cuisine" was little more than a bad joke; and that El Bulli with some of the perhaps for the moment interesting but certainly outrageous dishes has made it to nearly everyone's list of the best restaurants in the world, is it possible that what we are talking about is nothing more than historical hiccups in the definition of what makes up fine dining?

There is nothing whatever new about the degustation menu (it was offered by Beauvilliers in his restaurant, Le Grande Taverne de Londres in 1782) and surely nothing new about the concept of fusion cuisine (Marco Polo reported on the "marriage" between East and Western culinary influences). As to defining "foodies" (A term I dislike even though I adore the book by Ann Barr and Paul Levy), I prefer to think of those who perceive food as I do as "gourmets" and while true that hunger is rarely the issue with such people, these are indeed a distinct species of people who give priority in all human affairs to the discriminate enjoyment of food.

Fads, changes, shifting scenes?...... Indeed yes, but that is true in all affairs of the heart and the mind.... until, of course, we return to the one critical issue, and that issue relates to one thing and one thing only - the measure of good taste.

Let's put it this way - I refuse to worry about the culinary scene so long as there remain people to whom margarine remains largely abhorent, who cry when a sauce curdles, to whom a fine steak badly prepared is aesthetically offensive, to whom the use of a Bearnaise sauce that comes in a jar sounds like a bad joke, and who are revolted by the thought of dining on a frozen dinner that comes in a compartmentalized aluminim tray seems disgusting.

There will be "next scenes" in both what we eat at home and on what we dine on at restaurants. I'm quite sure Esquire, the New Yorker, the New York Times and others will be delighted to supply us with such lists. I will even read them. I will not, however, be either shocked or interested in them. Nor will I allow myself (except in my role of critic) to follow them. But then again, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will indeed be there in my role as critic.

Edited August 18, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[pedro]

My guess is that we will see the swing back from molecular gastonomy inspired foods to comfort and local foods, served in small immaculate portions, with chefs climing they cook with passion, not science, before the next wave of novelty. Might that be babyfoods? Maybe, but I doubt except in certain fetish scenes

←

Santi Santamaría pretty much agrees (see Living Heritage at the Daily Gullet)):

Pedro: You mentioned in one of your books the likelihood of restaurants becoming museums.

Santi: This is the opposite direction. I believe that cooking is a living heritage, culturally alive. Since the very moment that you can’t have specific dishes that you’ve known and enjoy from popular cooking, either you cook them yourself, but you have to know how, or you go somewhere to taste them. I’m sure that local cuisines are going to be reborn. There would be those who will want to dig into them. I’m convinced.

Because a time will come when people will get tired. I remember, years ago, when people who didn’t watch art cinema were treated as culturally ignorant. In the end, you went to the movies and watched absolutely boring films. Today, we see the same with cooking: there are people who are capable of going to a restaurant, paying 150€, not to enjoy what they’re eating, but because they feel compelled to say that they do enjoy it. Because socially, if they say they haven’t enjoyed that cooking, they will be labeled as ignorant. We’re not in that league.

How do we, people who truly love traditional cooking, who believe in working with a cuisine of good products, that think modernity is not shrillness but an evolution in tastes and techniques -- how do we position ourselves in a market that it can be said punishes the formal, the correct, the well done? It’s not easy. The public doesn’t penalize us. To the contrary. But in the media there are things that are difficult to understand. There are cycles.

[JohnL]

Well put-Daniel!

You have provided a lot of perspective.

Somehow, after reading your post the world seems more ordered and at peace!

There is an interesting thread in the Pennsylvania board:

"A Tale of Two restaurants" that participants in this thread might find worth reading.

Briefly, it looks at meals at Le Bec Fin and Striped Bass--two approaches to high end cooking. It touches upon the "classical" vs the "innovative" debate quite nicely.

[Carrot Top]

From this narrow perspective I find it interesting that a lot of them more creative food that I see discussed here and else where in the food media, resembles some aspects of Roman/Medieval/Renaissance high end food. Whether this is coincidence or reflects some underlying similarity in philosophy I can't say. "Apple Caviar" would sit very comfortably  within a Roman meal of other such 'fake foods' (there is most likely a better word then "fake", can't think of it this early in the morning).

From the class point of view "Apple Caviar" is interesting as it has rapidly become clichéd, a sure sign of its downward mobility. In six months time will there be an elite diner who would enjoy eating it?

This isn't new, any brief observation of dining habits in the last 1000 years shows the same trend again and again. In modern Italy it is fun to observe the number of Renaissance high end food items that have ended up as feast/festival foods of the people, for instance.

*How long before the use of commercial enzymes, gels, chemicals becomes so widespread (even I have bought alginate for God's sake), that the next 'big thing' will be a more towards more 'pure' ingredients, a bit like happened during the early "nouvelle cuisine" movement. Or will there be another direction?

But, if this pattern is true, then the majority of elite diners are also part of the process, so one wonders if there has ever truely been an diner with individual palate or intellect? Not that this really matters I guess.

* Not a negative comment on the use of these items at all. I think that it is very interesting how the best chefs have used these items to introduce a new type of purity into their cooking.

In regards to the Apple Caviar and its ilk. . .and the fact that these sorts of things end up first and sometimes only on the tables of the wealthy. . .whether the wealthy be from Ancient Rome or from current-day Manhattan. . . to my mind that is because of the ability that wealth allows for one to play with the food. Most people in other categories of financial status are more interested in just getting the food on the table somehow. To my mind, it seems that we now have an enormous group of people being more interested in creative ways with food not only because of the fact that travel and therefore exchange of ideas in food has become more common but also that we have a much larger upper-middle class than ever before in history (that I am aware of, though please correct me if I am wrong. It would be interesting to know of this and of the things that happened in a similar food/economic/political culture).

Having money frees up people to be able to play.

Now as to Jack's point, that the very wealthy are often not so imaginative with their food choices, I would agree. . .but with a stipulation. The very wealthy who are accustomed to being very wealthy are not often so imaginative. But "new

money" people more often are. Again, same thing. When one has the chance, the opportunity, to play, to buy creativity, to be something "different" than before due to lack of funds, it often takes the shape of trying on food styles. Old money has often had the chance to taste it all and has settled into its (or their) own style. Nonetheless, this style still is often more "haute" than "peasant". From what I've seen, anyway.

Your "trickle-down" theory is interesting. . .I hadn't thought of that. Can you give us some examples? I can't think of anything in particular of this sort in today's world. . .unless it is something like Knorr's Bearnaise Sauce .

Now. . .has there ever been a diner with an individual palate or intellect?

Honey, I gotta tell you. Be a chef for one day, and you will find out just how amazingly individual people are about their food. Or instead, just line up ten people in a row and ask them what they think about a particular dish you've served them. . .and insist that they be honest (as honest as they would be if they had to pay for it! ) Oooooh boy. You will definitely see individuality.

[Carrot Top]

Fads, changes, shifting scenes?...... Indeed yes, but that is true in all affairs of the heart and the mind....  until, of course, we return to the one critical issue, and that issue relates to one thing and one thing only - the measure of good taste. 

Great line, Rogov.

That strips it down to what matters, doesn't it.

It reminded me of something I'd read, so I looked it up:

"We plan, we toil, we suffer - in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The Empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake up just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs. And, again I cry, how rarely it happens! But when it does happen - then what a moment, what a morning, what a delight!"

J.B. Priestly

Yes. . .how rarely it happens. . . and what a delight when it does!

[Adam Balic]

Fads, changes, shifting scenes?...... Indeed yes, but that is true in all affairs of the heart and the mind....  until, of course, we return to the one critical issue, and that issue relates to one thing and one thing only - the measure of good taste. 

Great line, Rogov.

That strips it down to what matters, doesn't it.

It reminded me of something I'd read, so I looked it up:

"We plan, we toil, we suffer - in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The Empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake up just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs. And, again I cry, how rarely it happens! But when it does happen - then what a moment, what a morning, what a delight!"

J.B. Priestly

Yes. . .how rarely it happens. . . and what a delight when it does!

←

True, but what people mean by "good taste" changes geographically and temporally.

RE: "Trickle down". Emilia-Romagna's Pasticcio di tortellini is a good example, basically a Renaissance high end dish that is now extant festival dish. Siena's various spiced cakes are another example. The English trifle is another. Use of Spices in western european cooking. More detailed analysis has been made on the subject by others, looking at English food in the 18th century and observing up to a 60 year lag in the creation of a dish/style of eating (say in French high circles) and its migration down the Class slope. Supermarkets now sell duck confit, who was eating this 20 years ago?

[Carrot Top]

True, but what people mean by "good taste" changes geographically and temporally.

RE: "Trickle down". Emilia-Romagna's Pasticcio di tortellini is a good example, basically a Renaissance high end dish that is now extant festival dish. Siena's various spiced cakes are another example. The English trifle is another. Use of Spices in western european cooking. More detailed analysis has been made on the subject by others, looking at English food in the 18th century and observing up to a 60 year lag in the creation of a dish/style of eating (say in French high circles) and its migration down the Class slope. Supermarkets now sell duck confit, who was eating this 20 years ago?

I wonder. . .it would be interesting to try to come up with a list of things that would define "good taste" across a variety of cultures and time. Not a list of characteristics that would define "good taste" in a specific sense for specific things, for as you say that is certainly often temporal and geographic, but a list of characteristics that might be global or beyond time constraints. A list of classic things that would define "good taste" beyond all boundaries. I do think there are similarities in how all (or most) people(s) or cultures have defined this as much as there are similarities in all (or most) other classic rules of life. I think we are basically more alike than we are different, and it does seems that there are classic things that should hold true in a "global" sense (using the word not only in its geographic meaning). A classic definition of good taste.

The examples of "trickle-down" that you gave with the 60-year lag were good examples of migration down a class slope.

I wonder. . .did industry in the form of any sort of possible mechanization of any of the parts of the making of the dish occur in these examples? It is a bit of a stretch to think of "mechanization" during the Renaissance, but it could be that a new sort of tortellini press was developed that was affordable and available to the everyday person in the case of the Pasticcio de Tortellini. . .and maybe with the spiced cakes there was some sort of availability of spices made to the public through better trade routes through political negotiation or better built ships that lowered the prices? It is interesting to think of these things, isn't it.

The Trifle I can't figure out at all. . because all of those ingredients were probably available to the "common folk" weren't they. Hmm. Maybe the invention of a better eggbeater/ mechanical whisk that would beat the cream faster than the older version? Or maybe something to do with refrigeration that would allow it to "hold" better than lugging in iceblocks to the icehouse?

Ah, well. Who knows. Maybe it is all more arbitrary than that.

The duck confit, though. I think of that as a peasant dish that was originally created to preserve the duck meat through the winter rather than trying to keep the ducks alive (heh heh, they would have been "fresh-frozen" then, no?). So I can't put it in the trickle-down theory but rather in the cultural-exchange group, with a hint of something else added. . .I don't exactly know how to phrase it. . .reverse-snottery perhaps?

Fun stuff, Adam.

[jackal10]

Trifle is the descendent of Fools, which in turn derive from Sylllabub. http://www.themediadrome.com/content/artic...cles/trifle.htm

[Carrot Top]

Trifle is the descendent of Fools, which in turn derive from Sylllabub.

Yes, I'd forgotten that!

I do love that line you wrote, though. Quite poetic. Almost Shakespearean, really.

[jackal10]

Some of us wuz edificated to spik proper...if only I could type

OT, You can trace a lot of food customs back to medieval court customs or older, and thence to great houses, and so to large hotels and the like.

Edited August 19, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Daniel Rogov]

I wonder. . .it would be interesting to try to come up with a list of things that would define "good taste" across a variety of cultures and time.

I will not be foolish (or egotistical) enough to venture into defining the universals that make up "good taste" but I am egotistical enough to give two quotations from and thus associate myself with Oscar Wilde...

"Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life"

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best"

Edited August 19, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[Daniel Rogov]

A bit of consideration and what the heck, I find that I am indeed ready to post about what I find the one universal in determining "good taste".......and that is the Golden Rectangle. Holds true throughout all of history and prehistory, all cultures and even all pre-cultures..... Beyond that, I suspect we'll find not a single "universal".

If anyone is curious and of a slightly mathematical bent see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRectangle.html

Edited August 19, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[Adam Balic]

Trifle is the descendent of Fools, which in turn derive from Sylllabub. http://www.themediadrome.com/content/artic...cles/trifle.htm

←

And bastard combinations of these. I have a nice 18th scottish trifle which is a mound of wine soaked biscuits, apple fool/snow and a layer of sylllabub.

Earlier trifles were like fools or in some cases what would be called a junket now (milk set with rennet). Sugar was expensive and in the 16th-17th C in England, highly in vogue due to the recent increase in avalibility (West Indian plantations). Actually, sugar is another example of a downward class spiral. I have a nice recipe for chicken with a sweet custard sauce fro this period if you like....

The early recipes for trifle appear in quite high class cook books, written by male chefs, then a bit later female cooks for ladies, then a bit later then that female cooks for domestic servants.

Another interesting item is the garnish that formed a "ragoo/ragout". Orginally French, based on a complicated and expensive meat reduction sauce with a garnish of cockscombs, meat balls, mushrooms etc Over 50 years or so it ended up as a aspirational Middle-Class English dish, with the difference that the meat sauce was cheaped to the point of nothingness (carmel brown with lemon pickle or just gravy) and recipes suggested the use of fake cockscombs and cheap garnish. (I think that this cheap, but aspirational cooking, was the graveyard of Englsih cuisine BTW). By this point there is no way that the wealthy (unless very old fashioned) would touch such a dish.

"mechanization" isn't such an issue I think. But it can contribute to the supply and demand issue. If something is cheap and plentiful, then it doesn't have cachet. So yes, pasta (specific types) was once a high class item in Italy, until it was mass produced.

Edited August 19, 2005 by Adam Balic (log)

[Carrot Top]

I will not be foolish (or egotistical) enough to venture into defining the universals that make up "good taste" but I am egotistical enough to give two quotations from and thus associate myself with Oscar Wilde...

"Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life"

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best"

He did have a way with words, didn't he.

What wonderful nonsense. Especially the first one.

[Carrot Top]

A bit of consideration and what the heck, I find that I am indeed ready to post about what I find the one universal in determining "good taste".......and that is the Golden Rectangle.  Holds true throughout all of history and prehistory, all cultures and even all pre-cultures.....  Beyond that, I suspect we'll find not a single "universal".

If anyone is curious and of a slightly mathematical bent see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRectangle.html

Really, Rogov. What the heck indeed.

Some nice line drawings there, but it might have been better to try to speak Zulu to me.

Mathematics is not my forte. . .and this is a good thing, for it allows me to consistently misunderstand my bank account, which then allows me to try to emulate Oscar Wilde in always being satisfied with the best.

So. . ."good taste" can only be defined mathematically? Pah.

C'mon, try a translation. Words, please.

[Carrot Top]

I have a nice 18th scottish trifle which is a mound of wine soaked biscuits, apple fool/snow and a layer of sylllabub.

I have a nice recipe for chicken with a sweet custard sauce fro this period if you like....

My first thought was that your trifle recipe sounded very sexy, Adam.

But why, when I reached the second line, did I start thinking you sounded like my Jewish grandmother?

Sorry. It must have been Rogov's math post that made me this way.

P.S. Actually, yes. It would be nice to see the recipe for chicken with sweet custard sauce if you find time to post it! Thanks!

[Carrot Top]

Another interesting item is the garnish that formed a "ragoo/ragout". Orginally French, based on a complicated and expensive meat reduction sauce with a garnish of cockscombs, meat balls, mushrooms etc Over 50 years or so it ended up as a aspirational Middle-Class English dish, with the difference that the meat sauce was cheaped to the point of nothingness (carmel brown with lemon pickle or just gravy) and recipes suggested the use of fake cockscombs and cheap garnish. (I think that this cheap, but aspirational cooking, was the graveyard of Englsih cuisine BTW). By this point there is no way that the wealthy (unless very old fashioned) would touch such a dish.

Mmm. I remember reading of these garnishes in Larousse when I first started cooking. How I longed to make that strange thing! I even went into some butcher shops and asked if they could get cockscombs. Well. That made their day.

Interesting that it ended up in what you call aspirational English cooking. I wonder if that is what is happening with us here in the US in ways. Derivations of fine things watered down to terrible parodies of the original, in the ways of middle-class convenience foods.

[Daniel Rogov]

Karen, Hi.....

Well, I warned people with that link about having "a mathematical bent". As close as I can come in words is the following definition:

A golden rectangle is a rectangle with dimensions which are of the Golden Ratio, 1 : φ (i.e., 1.6180339887498948...). It yields another rectangle with sides of the same proportions when sectioned in a particular manner. That is, sectioned into two shapes: firstly a square with one side being one of the lesser sides of the surrounding golden rectangle; and secondly a rectangle composed of the remainder. The new, smaller rectangle is thus a golden rectangle itself.

Wasn't saying that good taste can be defined mathematically, only that the only concept that seems to triggers aesthetic satisfaction across history and cultures (including in research done on children as young as three years old) is that of the golden rectangle.

As to Oscar Wilde - indeed he had a way with words. After all, anyone who "dies as I lived ....beyond my means" can't be all bad.

With regard to cocks' combs...should you truly be in the market, try nearly any good poultry shop in France or Italy. With further regard to those classic sauces and garnishes from Larousse.....agreed that these are dated and difficult. Doesn't stop them from being delicious. For nearly five years between 1990-1995 I had a regular weekly column in which some of those classics were presented, together with historical/mythological anecdotes as recipes. Truth is I never dreamed anyone would prepare the dishes and no one was more surprised than me (well, perhaps my editor) when clubs formed in various cities of people who would prepare one of those recipes every week.

Edited August 20, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[EdS]

...

So. . ."good taste" can only be defined mathematically? Pah.

...

←

Good taste? I don't know. Beauty? Perhaps!

Maybe there's an underlying mathematical logic to good food that has yet to be identified.

Edited August 20, 2005 by esvoboda (log)