Personal Taste

[LaNiña]

Me too.

Well, I was trying to make a point about dinner jacket etiquette, but I think I'll skip it.

Oh don't, please.

[LaNiña]

"Doesn't Moonlight Sonata sound *right* in a certain key?"

That's not a good analogy, because the Moonlight Sonata was *written* in a certain key, and it is not meant, ever, to be transposed to another key. It would be like taking a great painting and putting some kind of translucent colored film over it to change the hue. That would not be a matter of interpretation, it would just be wrong.

On another note (pun intended), my family and I have been drowning in these discussions for 24 hours now. My mother apparently stayed up half the night thinking about the hierarchy of art as she views it, and we asked some questions this morning that warrant some thought.

First of all, what makes one art higher on the hierarchical scale than another, for example, when we compare cooking with music? Is it that the "raw ingredients" are further and more dramatically transformed from beginning to end? For example, I don't think embroidery is very high up on the hierarchical scale. It's purely technical execution - as opposed to the person who may have designed the pattern. Why do we, as a society, value music and fine arts above cooking, as art forms? I suppose partially it's because a composer starts with nothing - a pencil and a piece of paper. A painter starts with blank canvas and a medium of some kind. A cook, on the other hand, has some science to use - or so I believe society perceives it. Even a moderately experienced cook knows how an onion reacts when it's placed in hot oil. I think society believes that anyone can cook - after all, all you have to do is follow a recipe, right? Anybody can be Julia Child if you just pay attention to the steps. Of course it's not true, but the same can't be said for other art forms.

My 4 year old nephew, listening intently to all of this, says in an exasperated tone: "Hey Nina, can we just bake some brownies already? I have a recipe."

[Fat Guy]

Okay, I guess the dinner jacket example would be too esoteric anyway (midnight blue is actually the preferred color among many connoisseurs because under artificial light it produces a deeper black appearance than a black dinner jacket -- Fred Astaire routinely wore midnight blue formalwear), but let's look at a similar issue: Brown shoes with a blue suit. This was unequivocally considered a faux pas in the early part of the 20th Century. It is still thought of as a faux pas by some. But when Edward, Duke of Windsor, thought by pretty much everybody to be the best-dressed man of his era, started wearing brown suede shoes with his blue suits, it became instantly unassailable and remains so to this day.

[lxt]

Steve P:

I'm also glad you aren't the opera czar in this country because they would have to shut all the opera houses down.

Not really, I’d just change the “objective standards” for hiring talent. For now, I’ll reserve the right to bring rotten tomatoes to the performance just in case. However, I do wonder how many restaurants that concentrate on décor rather than food would have stayed open had you been the czar of restaurants.

Finally I don't think how a composer marked the tempo is analagous to how a steak gets cooked.

Of course, it is. You think that rare meat has an objective quality that overcooked one doesn’t, but refuse to apply the same standards to music. It sounds best at a certain tempo because that degree of emotional, structural, logical etc. music character “maximizes the experience and flavor.” It is as objective as your attempt to describe meat quality cooked at a certain temperature.

I think it's more like a composition sounding better in a certain key.

Not always. Many vocal songs written by Rachmaninov, for instance, are printed in different keys for soprano or mezzo-soprano. I can assure you, they sound wonderful either way.

In reality, the difference between steak ordering and a black tuxedo with brown shoes is that when you enter a tuxedo store you are not suggested by the salesman to buy black with brown. The standard calls for black with black. It is your right and your choice to select any combination, but this option is not “on the suggested menu” of the store. With steak, however, you are offered three choices: rare, medium and well-done. If the last option were removed from the suggested menu of restaurants, the patrons would still be able to order to their preference, but it would be an exception rather than the norm. That is how you educate people: by letting them know what the standard is.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"In reality, the difference between steak ordering and a black tuxedo with brown shoes is that when you enter a tuxedo store you are not suggested by the salesman to buy black with brown. The standard calls for black with black."

Of course this is absolutely right and it corrects my desperate attempts to craft the proper analogy . That was my original theme wasn't it? We are prepared to allow a tuxedo salesman to tell us how to dress, but not a chef to tell us how to eat. And a chef is far more practiced at his craft than a tuxedo salesman is at his. The reason black shoes with a tuxedo is "right," is everyone accepts that standard. But not everyone accepts the standards about how meat should be cooked. That is really the issue and.

[ahr]

Steve, enough pussyfooting around. Perhaps the time has come to open a thread on Natural Law.

[Jinmyo]

That is really the issue and.

I like how Steve sums up yet threatens elaboration.

[Fat Guy]

This is an interesting discussion by a bunch of people who have obviously never set foot in a men's formalwear shop in the United States of America. No well-dressed man has ever purchased a tuxedo at such a shop. And if you listen to a clothing salesperson's advice on how to dress, you deserve what you get.

Plotnicki: How many chefs in the Western World do you believe have earned the degree of deference you're proposing?

[hollywood]

Steve, not only should it be considered right to wear black shoes with a tuxedo, it is right. It is right to serve pasta al dente and steak rare or medium rare. But we can't insist that everyone do it. I think, though, that that does it for this particular point.

Wasn't it Zappa who said, "Brown shoes/Don't make it/Quit school/Why take it?" I rest my case.

[Robert Schonfeld]

What's a formalwear shop?

Midnight blue will reflect more light than dead black, hence its preference for professionals and people for whom being seen in a certain light is important. For statistical purposes, all tuxedos to be seen at your run-of-the-mill affairs are black, and are worn with black shoes, but, I've forgotten why this matters.

More interestingly, brown suede shoes with a blue wool suit (so that the textures of the garment and the footwear are compatible), represents an interesting possibility for attire in a restaurant setting, in which fashion can play a part consonant with the surroundings. In business, otoh, black shoes would be expected for the most part. Unless, of course you're British, in which case, options also extend to yellow socks.

[Fat Guy]

Except for your comment about the complementary textures of wool and suede (which is beside the point, since any suit one would wear during the acceptable season for suede shoes would automatically be wool), none of that is a statement about what actually looks better. It's just a set of rules. Here's how we dressed in the 15th Century:

Fashion is pretty much 100% about agreed-upon constructs. There's no actual reason black shoes are preferred with blue suits; it could just as well have gone in the brown direction. The standard isn't about what looks better; it's about a little test to make sure men in business know how to conform to certain rules. So the question is, does cuisine simply follow the same sort of pattern? Why are all of us conscientious eaters pretty much in agreement that a steak tastes better medium-rare than well-done? Is it just a fiction we've all agreed to uphold? In 100 years will the prevailing opinion perhaps be that the well-done steak tastes better and you're an ignoramus for thinking otherwise? Or, when we say the medium-rare steak tastes better, are we making a meaningful argument about the nature of the product? If it's the former, we're just talking about fashion. If it's the latter, we're talking about something else. Who's on which side?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Trivia question

Who wore the first tuxedo?

Answer

History of the Tuxedo

Fat Guy - I think many more than we realize. But just to pick a number, on a worldwide basis? I would venture to say 50.

Robert S. - I should add to your point that Italian males only wear brown shoes. Some of them do not even own a pair of black shoes. Black is worn only to the most formal occassions or by the type of Italians who don't qualify for this discussion. They wear brown with grey as well. I always find the contrast startling when going from Italy where they wear brown shoes with grey suits (a softer look) to France where they are wearing black ( a harder look.)

[Fat Guy]

With scarlet satin lapels, no less!

In terms of deference-worthy chefs, even if the total came in at 500 or 5000, you'd still be talking about a small enough group that the average person will never once eat a meal prepared by one of those chefs. And there are no Compact Disc recordings or other cheap reproductions of meals at Pierre Gagnaire. So what is the rational move for the average person: Deference to the chef or non-deference to the chef? And if the rational move is non-deference (which it is), where does it get us to say it would be better for our society to accord more deference to chefs?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy - Well look at it this way. In France, they have a right way to eat. Same in Italy. Many countries have gastronomic customs that the general population basically follows that also maximize the dining experience. And it isn't a matter of the general population allowing the chef at Sizzler to decide the degree of doneness for them, it's little things like drinking wine with meals. 30 years ago, nobody in the U.S. but Francophiles and little old Italian men drank wine. Now wine is everywhere. So dining custom changes slowly. Look at sushi. The same people who eat raw fish often order it cooked through. Someone should tell them there's a gap in that logic.

[Jonathan Day]

Clearly if we could interview the great chefs of the world, we would find out that their motivations are properly balanced between passion and finances And I don't see how an emphasis on either makes their food any better. Now whether a chef who dislikes his job can make a delicious meal is another issue. Because most things artistic need inspiration that comes from a source other than a bank. As I've said in the past, food needs to have soul. That people choose to make smaller incomes in order to practice their chosen vocation while commendable, doesn't prove that greedy chefs that only care about money can't make good food.

Of course this is an empirical question. My own assertion is that we would find that the best chefs start with passion and pick up finances as a means to an end. I would further assert that is almost impossible to produce not just good food (i.e. cooked to a precise recipe) but a good total experience if the primary goal is money. If profit is the main goal, in any event, you will go for economies of scale, mass production, replicability. How many high-end restaurants in hotel chains (Hyatt, etc.) are that good? I know that there are some chain hotel restaurants that manage to do good work, but there are not that many.

As for lawyers, many of the young people that I meet today go to law school because they can't figure out what else to do. Getting a law degree or one from business school is becoming happenstance for an entire segment of society. I am intimately involved in this issue because the daughter of a cousin of mine who I'm close with, and who is sort of living with me for the summer is going to be a senior at a top U.S. university this year, after having spent her junior year at Oxford. She would very much like to go to jounalism school but the thought of making $30,000-$40,000 a year upon graduation isn't doing it for her. So she's studying for her LSAT's (law school exams) instead. And based on the type of test scores she's getting she will get into a top school and upon graduation, probably make in excess of $100k a year. So money very much dictates what we do with our lives.

Or more precisely: money has had an important role in what this young woman is about to do in the next stage of her career. I could cite many examples where people have chosen another pursuit because it "spoke to their condition" even at the sacrifice of considerable income. I know of many cases where early in life a decision was made to go for law or advertising or investment banking, primarily because of the money, and people subsequently "downshifted" to a career producing less money but (for them) more happiness.

I speak with a lot of young people who have chosen to work in a large professional services firm not because they love to serve clients but because they see it as a way to increase lifetime earnings. Very few of them succeed. At some point the stress of providing service exceeds the financial benefits, and they leave. I hope it goes without saying that I am not speaking of your relative here, and I wish her every success in law school and a great law firm.

If I may frame this principal a different way, I think people just want to be happy with their lives. And many people realize that having an income that supports the lifestyle they want to lead means that there are compromises you have to make. And as long as you are happy with those compromises then you should be entitled to the lifestyle of your choosing.

Of course. Every decision involves compromise. I would never preach to anyone that they should live this way or that way. All I am asserting is that it's harder to produce superb cuisine -- with "soul" as you aptly put it -- if you are in it primarily for the money.

the way the market generally measures things is by money. I think that we are just stuck with that for now.

By "the market" do you mean the equity markets? If I really knew how they measured things then my chauffeur would be writing this note.

And the "principal of obliquity" does not include the emotion of resentment as a valid one because the market doesn't see it your way.

All that the principle of obliquity says is that in business it is better to aim at some goal other than a financial one: customer service, or quality, or the like. Of course the financial result needs to be a good one, and there is no gain in producing a stupendous product which you then sell for less than it costs you to make it. This has been discussed at length in Collins and Porras's Built To Last. Johnson and Johnson is a good example.

Click here to see their "credo", or statement of corporate principles. Note that their own profit is important but comes last on the list of objectives. I think this is exactly right.

I'm not sure where the emotion of resentment comes in. Are you attributing this to John Whiting? I have no data about his emotions, nor any desire to attribute motives to his comments.

I believe it cuts off right there because right in your example about lawyers you say that the money follows the passion. I couldn't agree with you more. But with the one gigantic proviso being, you are happy allowing economics to be the ultimate measure of success.

No, it is one measure of success for me, one way of keeping score. It is hardly the most important.

Or, are content with some other non economic measure of success that is self rewarding.

Exactly.

But the principal doesn't reorder the world according to your sensibilities.

A world re-ordered according to my sensibilities would not be good for most people!

But trying to reel this point in back to the original one, a meal is the same type of balancing act. What I've been pointing to is that the culutre and history of dining has given the diner too much control over the meal. To the point of it being detrimental to the final result. All parties, the diners, the chef, the staff need to be on the same side. And while not saying that dining is like going to the opera, I can assure you you would eat much better if more of this aspect was included in your meals.

This is one reason I have put a lot of effort (and money) in learning to cook and in building kitchens here and in France that are capable of working at close to high professional levels. For my last birthday party my wife brought in a chef to prepare a lunch for around 20. It was a wonderful morning, because I didn't have to worry about selecting anything other than the wines or about cooking. As you say, cook and diners were "on the same side". I must say that I find it harder and harder to get similar experiences in restaurants. Not impossible, just more difficult.

As for Craft, I don't know of any restaurants in France that allow you to bring your own wine. But I do know of some in London. When I'm over there in Septemeber we can organize a big shebang at one of the restaurants that allow it.

That sounds very good, an opportunity to continue this interesting and enjoyable conversation and to learn more about food and wine.

* * * * *

Just one more note on this theme. Social scientists do regular surveys of "happiness" measures -- for example, in the US General Social Survey there is a question that asks, "Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?".

The methods and the data in these surveys are subject to fierce debate, but what is clear is that happiness as measured by the surveys has not increased in any way proportional to economic improvement. All though Britain is nearly 3 times richer than it was 50 years ago, overall well-being levels have hardly budged. A recent paper surveying happiness levels from the early 1970s to today found: no trend in the US, a decline in the UK, Italy and Germany, and an increase in France. See Cooper et al, "Status Effects and Negative Utility Growth", Economic Journal 111 (July 2002).

[Jonathan Day]

"Objective" means that something exists independent of any person's perception. An absolute. Something about which nobody in her right mind, in full possession of the facts, could rationally dispute.

Objective simply means “uninfluenced by emotion, surmise or personal prejudice” or a “material object as distinguished from a mental concept, idea or belief” (Webster). It is a set of standards that prevail only at certain time, and it is a perfectly good term to use for evaluating food.

How would one distinguish the quality of a musical performance for instance? One would know that a composer marked the tempo of a specific musical piece to be Allegro (fast). It is an objective standard identified by a composer/professional. Had the musician performed the selected musical piece in a different tempo, say Largo (slow), it would’ve been a good indication of its poor interpretation. Analogously, if an expert were to mark a steak to be cooked rare as an objective norm, then overdoing it would by default be considered to be a poor performance.

After the musician followed an objective standard, however, more complicated and rather subjective elements are involved to form one’s opinion of the performance. It depends on this person’s natural talent, taste, experience, personal preferences etc. For example, one may like that the selected musical piece is played Allegro toward Presto (very quick) whereas the other would like it played Allegro toward Moderato (moderate). I’ll let you improvise an analogy with steak.

The definitions of "objective" that I have cited in this board came from Collins and the Concise Oxford. These dictionaries and Webster's were presumably prepared by experts. Yet there can be nuance between their conclusions.

How much more so in discussions about food?

I suppose you could be "objective" in evaluating whether a dish was prepared according to a specific recipe. For example, I could arrange for a battery of scientists to watch Thomas Keller prepare a poached foie gras, measuring and monitoring at every turn. They would videotape, weigh, count each grain of salt he added.

Then they would go into a duplicated kitchen and try to do the same thing again. Whether it worked or not (and I am almost certain it would not) I'm not sure we would say that they were "cooking" in the same way.

(This is a variant on Searle's "Chinese Room" argument about language, but that's another story.)

One reason the analogy with music doesn't work all that well is that, especially in the last century, there are musical scores of almost perfect provenance, in some cases featuring detailed performance information. As a composer I can not only write Allegro but also MM crotchet (quarter note) = 92. There is one score for Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.

(I believe that the use of metronome markings is also the subject of substantial debate amongst music scholars, but again that is another story.)

Cookery, in contrast, is still more like ancient music where there are many variants and, for the most part, anonymous authorship. I could try to play the Jupiter Symphony "exactly as Mozart would have wanted it played" (though personally I find the idea a bit silly) but I cannot try to reproduce the "original" bouillabaisse, because it doesn't exist. There is no single perfect recipe for bordelaise sauce. The river of tradition flows on. I think this is true for music as well, but it is hard to see how it is not true for cookery.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"My own assertion is that we would find that the best chefs start with passion and pick up finances as a means to an end."

Well if all we are talking about are people with ideas and no money, of course that's the case. But people who start out with money usually act differently and act according to their level of wealth. I can think of very few children of billionaires who decided to become haute cuisine chefs. But they might buy a vineyard or finance a restaurant. Or they might start a book publishing company etc. People with money have a completely different view of the world. I started a company in 1981 with a partner for the equivelent of 20,000 pounds in an industry I was passionate about. But if I was the son of someone very wealthy, I might have chosen a different industry completely or gone about being in my industry in a different way. So while I agree with you if we are talking about an art or a craft, I don't think this applies to lawyers and accountants.

I must have two dozen friends who are lawyers who range from senior partners at top firms in the country to solo practicioners with modest practices. Aside from one friend, they all hate their job. Most of the lawyers I know think their job is scummy and they all stick with it for the money. In fact, almost all of them would love to quit their jobs today. But that doesn't stop them from giving their clients good advice or writing excellent briefs. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss money as something that provides motivation for people.

We are getting away from food a bit but we might as well see this point through. Yes there are people who go to law school and then decide to "downgrade" their careers but in my experience most of those people do it because they aren't on partnership track. Sometimes that is purposeful and people decide they just don't want to put in the effort or want a different lifestyle. But many other people just don't cut it for one reason or another. These types of "professional" jobs are quite different than jobs that have an artistic component. Choosing between being a lawyer and a being a ballet dancer is not the same as choosing between being a lawyer and a journalist. Excuse me for saying it but anyone can be a lawyer. There are thousands upon thousands of them. But being a professional ballet dancer, well that's special.

"By "the market" do you mean the equity markets? If I really knew how they measured things then my chauffeur would be writing this note."

No I mean that Johnson's & Johnson's mission statement is not evidence of anything and the reason the "principal of obliquity" works is that it allows a free market to measure things. The fact of the matter is that in business there is no chicken and egg dispute. You have to have an idea and way to implement it to first in order to make money. Those things need to be in line before financing, and profit is a result of proper execution. Great ideas while needing money for implementation, exist independant of it. But in reality, great ideas contain the concepts of compromise and balance by implication.

"I must say that I find it harder and harder to get similar experiences in restaurants. Not impossible, just more difficult. "

I'm surprised to hear you say that because I see the trend just the opposite. Maybe not in the U.K., and to be honest, I haven't experienced a U.K. chef or top captain coming out to the table and chatting about the evenings menu. But it happens quite often in NYC at certain places and it's always available at a haute cuisine restaurants in France. Could this be about British rigidity? One of my favorite topics. Where is Wilfrid when we need him? Maybe Gavin can sit in for him today?

As for my favorite subject, objectivity and food, one needs to draw lines. While there are numerous variations of bouillabaisse, you get the honor of naming your fish soup that way merely by adding a certain list of fish, veggies and spices to the pot. But what decides the standard between good and bad BB? Because I know you agree with me there are good ones and bad ones. Where is the line and how do we draw it?

[Robert Schonfeld]

It's just a set of rules. Here's how we dressed in the 15th Century:

Thanks for reminding me why it matters, FG.

I seem to remember people dressing something like that in the sixties.

Just for the record, since you brought it up, midnight blue "looks better" for the reason I gave, but we're not going to discuss visual perception here (unless it relates to food), are we?

And as for the Italians, well, they're Italian. Who else could still get away with wearing an overcoat draped over the shoulders?

[lxt]

I suppose you could be "objective" in evaluating whether a dish was prepared according to a specific recipe.

The distinction between the end results of the rare steak vs. well-done version is quite an objective measurement. Independently of one’s preference, a statement that a rare steak is juicier and tenderer than the well-done version of it is a fact. It simply describes the amount of juice produced and the texture of the meat based on different preparation methods.

One reason the analogy with music doesn't work all that well is that, especially in the last century, there are musical scores of almost perfect provenance, in some cases featuring detailed performance information. As a composer I can not only write Allegro but also MM crotchet (quarter note) = 92. There is one score for Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.

The analogy presented concentrated on the deviation from the “detailed performance information” indicated in musical scores, i.e. standards set by composers, to objectively identify bad performances. It was directed toward strengthening the point that had steak preparation standards been recognized (analogously to the standards set by composers), it would’ve been much easier to judge the quality of the prepared meal for the general consumer.

As to the subjective part of tempo interpretation, your example of Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress falls under the specific category of neoclassical standards where objectification in the form of a very explicit rhythm, similar to a Cubist collage of everyday objects, does not leave room for improvisation. Metronomes existed for centuries, yet were never utilized in works of Romantics, for instance. Works of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt or Rachmaninoff are dependent on the performer’s personal perception, his emotions, his imagination etc. and are strongly based on the personal interpretation. This is where different Allegros come in place, and you can choose whichever one is closer to your own vision (a subjective measurement.)

[LaNiña]

When I try to explain this to people, I usually do a comparative listening of several versions of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. I am most happy with the tempi in Isaac Stern's performance with the NY Phil, conducted by Bernstein. People are often shocked when they hear the significant differences - but it really is a matter of taste, or perhaps simply what one is most used to.

Maybe this could also be done with bouillabaisse, for example. We could do a tasting and see which is "better," and try to figure out which is the best, and why, for all involved. I'm wondering whether some of us would recognize when it is "as it should be," and what that would mean for different people.

[Steve Plotnicki]

But all you're saying is that there is no answer as to what the perfect BB is but that there is a range of acceptable versions. Just like the Beethoven Violin Concerto. The issue is what makes a BB, or the concerto unacceptable? Same with a steak. On an objective level, at what point does cooking it make it *too dry* so it has lost it's flavor?

There was a discussion about interpertations of classical music possibly before you joined the board. I had said that if we had for example, Beethoven's recording of his violin concerto, there would be less wiggle room in how it is performed. This exact debate takes place in jazz today. There is one school that says that the compositions are what is important and that the musicians have to improvise new solos. That improvisation is the cornerstone of jazz. Then there is the classicist approach promoted by Gunther Schuller and a few others that say that improvisation was just a method of composing and the pieces should be reproduced exactly the way they were originally recorded.

As a lover of jazz, I find myself agreeing with the former on an intelectual basis but as a pragmatist I realize that the young players do not play up to snuff compared to their elders and they would be better off performing it note for note with some room for improvising. And it's my personal opinion that had we had recording technology available during Beethoven's lifetime, many of today's "interpertations" wouldn't be accepted because they would be too far afield from what he intended once we could prove in the absolute exactly what it is he intended.

[LaNiña]

Yes, I agree with you. That's one of the reasons that there are these pushes toward playing pieces on "period instruments" - I have mixed feelings about it. Had Beethoven had today's instruments available, might he have preferred them? Who knows.

But about food, like with the doneness of steak example, I think it's more difficult to set a standard, a "right" way, because it is not a select group which eats - every person eats, and every person is somehow "entitled" to choose, subjectively, what tastes good to them. I'm not sure we'll answer this question. Perhaps it's a question of exposure and training and interest.

[nyfirepatrolchef]

muttering:

@#$%&*#@ Iain at macy*s

@#$%^$#@ tartar sauce on a @#$%&**$@@ing Reuben

@#$%^&^*^%$#@ing customer is always right (sorry Granfather the diner owner...thats BS!...if the customer is always right let em cook their own damn food!)

[Jonathan Day]

A former professor of mine, David Tracy, put it better and more clearly than I can. The following is from his book, The Analogical Imagination (Crossroad: New York, 1981).

I have adapted it very lightly because the original is talking about philosophical theology. But I think it applies to what we are talking about here.

We are required to develop a nonclassicist notion of the classic.

Otherwise, the alternatives seem bleak. The only move beyond the self [i.e. "I like what I know and I know what I like"] seems to be by expansion of techniques for scientific and social control. We may run for security to the increasingly heteronomous privatization [i.e. entrenched schools of thought, each disparaging the others] in which once proud and enriching traditions harden into ideologies and once daring interpreters of the tradition become bureaucratic personalities.

Or we may continue to risk an intellectual life by interpreting a tradition. The task, like that of our counterparts in the arts, in philosophy, even in science, involves a risk worth taking. We can enter into a disciplined and responsive conversation with the subject matter -- the responses, and, above all, the fundamental questions -- of the tradition.

Yet what is authentic conversation, as distinct from idle chatter, mere debate, gossip or nonnegotiable confrontation?

Real conversation occurs only when the individual conversation partners move past self-consciousness and self-aggrandizement into joint reflection on the subject matter of the conversation. The back-and-forth movement of all genuine conversation (an ability to listen, to reflect, to correct, to speak to the point -- the ability, in sum, to allow the question to take over) is an experience which all reflective persons have felt.

Serious, I know, and laden with phrases like "heteronomous privatization", but wise words nonetheless. The "disciplined and responsive conversation" with the great culinary traditions is the one worth seeking -- whether you call it "objective" or "intersubjective".

(Legal department: the citation contains about 220 words. I am certain that David would not object, though I have not consulted him. Is it OK to leave this post in place?)

[Jaymes]

....every person eats, and every person is somehow "entitled" to choose, subjectively, what tastes good to them.  I'm not sure we'll answer this question.

Yes, everyone is "entitled" to choose but no one is "entitled" to dictate, in a free, capitalistic and democratic society, what a merchant must proffer. That is one of the most sacred tenets of capitalism.

If I open a restaurant or any other business, I choose what I want to offer for sale, whether it's shoes, or baseball memorabilia, or automobiles, or rare chunks of beef. That is the first step.

The customers then decide if they wish to buy what I have chosen to offer. That is the second step. Period.

If I don't want to offer for sale any particular dish (or other product), no one has the right to make me. Ergo, if I do not wish to sell New York strip steaks cooked any more than medium rare, that is absolutely my prerogative. It's just not negotiable, nor is it some big question for the ages. It's simple.

And the people who are "entitled to choose what tastes good to them" are also entitled to take their preferences and money elsewhere.

And if I cannot draw enough customers to buy what I DO choose to sell, I will not be able to stay in business, but that is the unavoidable choice that retail business owners make every single day.

If someone comes into my "Medium-Rare or Rarer Cafe" and demands their steak well-done, I have the right to instruct my waitstaff to say, "We believe that particular cut of meat does not have enough marbling to be cooked well done and still remain properly juicy, so WE DO NOT OFFER THAT. We can prepare your steak medium rare, or perhaps you might prefer to choose another dish that we DO offer, such as this chicken dish, or that salmon."

This is not to say that I or anyone in my imaginary restaurant has the right to be rude or condescending, but I should not be forced or coerced into selling a product I do not wish to sell.

It just so happens that I did, for eight years, own a business. And sometimes we would get clients who attempted to dictate to us what we should sell them. It only took me the first year in business to learn that acquiescing to ill-informed demands was exceedingly bad policy. If we sold someone a product that we knew to be inferior, or that we didn't believe in, or that for some other reason we just did not wish to sell, it would invariably come back to bite us in the butt.

So, I and my staff would simply say (in an unemotional and nonjudgmental tone), "I'm sorry, but we just DON'T OFFER THAT. We believe you would be happier with another product that we DO sell, and we can explain to you the features and benefits of the other product."

If they insisted on the inferior product which we could neither endorse nor guarantee, we would just say, "I'm sorry, but we do not offer that. Because we do not sell what you want, we believe you would be happier elsewhere."

Period.