Fine Dining vs. Cheap Eats

[Bux]

jaybee, French haute cuisine may have no leader, and I've said that recently in a post somewhere on this site, but there are a significant number of chefs who are producing first rate food. The single strongest voice in western cooking these days may be Ferran Adria in Catalunya. The strongest movments today may be in Spain--in Cataluya, the Basque provinces, Madrid and perhaps elsewhere. While some of the best chefs in New York today show strong Italian influence, I don't know that it's haute cuisine that serves as the influence even if their food is haute cuisine. I also don't know the names of Italian chefs. Perhaps they are household names to cooks. I know the names of several Spanish chefs and their kitchens are increasingly being sought as places in which to stage. Nevertheless, we are all limited by what we know and what we don't know. Italy is an area in which I have very little familiarity. I've loved almost every meal I've had in Italy from the simplest trattoria to three star restaurants, but I am not drawn to the food. I've been increasingly drawn to Spain for the food in spite of the fact that decades ago I dismissed Spanish food as heavy and uninteresting.

[Jinmyo]

And the British upper class would not or did not support the establishment of an "haute-cuisine?"  The french aristocracy seemed hell bent of eating well, why not the British?  or did they just send out for French?

Ack! jaybee, please don't set the Plotnicki machine at that angle. There are already 5 or 6 pages about this...

Steve, Steve, have mercy...

[jaybee]

Ack! jaybee, please don't set the Plotnicki machine at that angle. There are already 5 or 6 pages about this...

Jin, I didn't read Plot's comments. These are based on my own predjudices!

[jaybee]

The single strongest voice in western cooking these days may be Ferran Adria in Catalunya. The strongest movments today may be in Spain--in Cataluya, the Basque provinces, Madrid and perhaps elsewhere.

I spent a collective six weeks in Barcelona, Madrid, La Mancha and driving south and up to Seville. I was struck by the richness, variety and quality of the food. Barcelona, like New York, hosts restaurants from all the main Spanish regions. The food from Galicia was my favorite. You comments notwithstanding, I predict a gradual rise in popularity of haute-Italian over the next 5-7 years. Spanish outre cuisine is too far afield from the tastes of all but the most sophisticated eaters, and the quality of ingredients (shellfish) more difficult to obtain with regularity given the small demand.

French haute cuisine may have no leader, and I've said that recently in a post somewhere on this site, but there are a significant number of chefs who are producing first rate food.

I did not say they were not producing first rate food. I said the cuisine is stagnant. The collapse of "nouvelle" or its integration in to the French mainstream spelled the end of the last wave of innovation (good riddance, IMO). Like Broadway, French cuisine rides on revivals of classics and great bistro fare. Many regional Italian cuisines are unfamiliar to the mainstream of high-end eaters (excluding the gastronomes that post here) and so will be "discovered" and form a new trend. This will take at least five years and will be in full swing by then. Mario Batali is just the first to lead this movement. He is to Italian food as Julia Child was to French cuisine in the 1960s.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I just got back from Craftbar where I had some good charcuturie, some excellent prosciutto wrapped fresh figs and a lovely veal stew with some teeny roast potatoes along with a great bottle of 1989 Jamet Cote Rotie. Yummy dinner.

"But that's the equivalent of saying that better beef costs more than worse beef. Of course it usually (but not always) does."

Fat Guy - But better beef *does* cost more than worse beef. Of course there are external factors that impact cost like location (geography)

. But if I am correct, my previous statements qualifies things by saying "all things being equal" meaning, eliminate unique circumstances. If you were to eliminate unique circumstances, I think you would find that price is a pretty good corollary for quality.

Lets take my example of Burgundy and Roumier. Roumier makes the following wines;

Chambolle-Musigny

Chambolle Musigny Les Cras

Charmes-Chambertin (which is made by Bonnefond and vinified by Roumier)

Chambolle Musigny Amoureuses

Bonnes Mares

Musigny

Starting with the village Chambolle, and stepping up to the Musigny, the price goes up at each step. The point you're focusing on which is how much it goes up, isn't really relevent to my point. My point has to do with Christophe Roumier being able to acknowledge the difference and determine which wine is of better quality than the others. The incremental difference is of no importance. What is important is that a difference has been distinguished by the winermaker and that somehow correlates to price.

That Musigny has qualities that are not present in Les Cras is not in dispute. But what the people here seem to be saying is that Les Cras can be better than Musigny because it's all subjective. I say that's nonsense. Anyone who thinks Les Cras is better than Roumier's Musigny *doesn't know anything about wine* and that's really a polite way of saying their palate isn't good enough to know the difference.

I think to say that this perspective is acceptable because a pseudo-governmental sanctioning group designated certain wines as better and worse under the A.O.C. system and that doesn't apply to food that isn't sanctioned is a bogus argument. We should be able to tell based on our own palates. To say that if an A.O.C. sanctioning committee would annoint pale supermarket tomatoes at the lowest rating but since that hasn't happened it's a matter of opinion is not the greatest argument in my book.

Better is better and worse is worse. Either you can taste the difference or you can't.

As for the simple vs complex argument. For some reason people want to say that I have argued that more always means better and that things that have for example, more ingredients are always better than things with less ingredients. I haven't said that. I have said that things with more ingredients are more complex, hence better, *when they are prepared well.* Obviously perfect Tuscan beans are much better to eat than bad cassoulet. But did I really have to state it that way? Don't you think it is implied when I say things of better quality are *better*?

Jaybee - Jazz is dead because the harmonic and rhythymic possibilites have been exhausted. Once they went to Avant-Garde or Free-Form jazz, that was the death knell because it was evidence they were exhausted. French cooking is sort of the same. And while I can't say that all the possibilites have been exhausted, it's close.

G. - You are going to have to explain the difference between cost and worth. You have me baffled on that one. As to disagreements even amonst the informed, you won't get any argument from me that on that level subjectivity exists. But the issue really is, Who is the informed? From the way people talk about subjectivity here, any opinion is informed. And while there are obviously things that are subjective in nature, subjectivity shouldn't be used as a cover by people who can't tell what is a poor performance or are unable to tell the difference between something that tastes good and something that doesn't.

Jin - I'm going to give you a pass on this one. The arguments against British food are already well stated. And everytime you post the picture of that pie they are reinforced.

[Toby]

How'd they do the figs? Were they grilled? (I used to do those a lot when I lived in the Bay Area.)

[jaybee]

Jazz is dead because the harmonic and rhythymic possibilites have been exhausted.

Until someone with the genius of a Bird comes along and creates a possibility no one thought possible. "Discovery" my favorite quote goes, "is seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one has thought."

[LaNiña]

all the....possibilities have been exhausted? That's absurd. Jaybee is right. All it takes is one visionary who sees it differently, or in a new light.

[jordyn]

. But if I am correct, my previous statements qualifies things by saying "all things being equal" meaning, eliminate unique circumstances. If you were to eliminate unique circumstances, I think you would find that price is a pretty good corollary for quality.

All things being equal, supply and demand determine price. Usually, a superior product will be in greater demand, but not necessarily. Sometimes items are in demand because they are trendy; sometimes good items are overlooked by the public at large, which allows a savvy consumer to obtain a high quality item at relatively low price. These aren't "unique circumstances" because they happen all the time.

Similarly, items that are scarce are abnormally expensive. Fat Guy's example of a ruined crop of citrus may be an exceptional case, but there are many cases of items being continuously expensive because of scarcity alone. Is platinum "better" than gold? It's more expensive, but this probably doesn't have much to do with the relative merits of the metals, and has everything to do with scarcity. Similarly, in wine, does a bottle of Screaming Eagle cost many hundreds of dollars because it is the absolute best wine, or because so little is produced each year? Obviously, a base quality needs to be there for there to be sufficient demand, but if the supply is small, crazy things can happen to price. This has a significant degree of relevance to many luxury food items which are quite scarce.

[LaNiña]

Metals are a great example, thanks, Jordyn. I was in the fine jewelry business for years (still dabble). Diamonds are not scarce, yet they cost a helluvalot. And that's because of an artificial market, a syndicate, and some very good marketing/brainwashing. The cost of a diamond is only what the market, and human foolishness, will allow. I personally would never waste a penny on a real diamond, but does that mean a diamond has no objective worth? For some people, spending thousands of dollars on a diamond is certainly worth it, because it has meaning. For me, knowing that even the big experts are hard-pressed to tell the good fakes from the real thing makes the idea of spending money on a diamond as ridiculous a thing as I can imagine (suckers!). It's the same with wine for some people. We had this discussion in that fine food vs. flute discussion. Worth is determined by what something is worth to an individual or group of individuals. Cost is determined by what the market will bear.

[jaybee]

All things being equal, supply and demand determine price. Usually, a superior product will be in greater demand, but not necessarily. Sometimes items are in demand because they are trendy; sometimes good items are overlooked by the public at large, which allows a savvy consumer to obtain a high quality item at relatively low price. These aren't "unique circumstances" because they happen all the time.

In Japan, some melons are absurdly expensive, purely for the act of giving a gift that the receipient will know where the giver perceives the recipient to be on the social heirarchy. In Japanese culture, cost bears little relationship to rarity but to perceptions dictated by social mores.

Cuban cigars are $20 or more a stick here, yet I buy them for about $250 a box of 25. These could be resold for two or three times the price. Scarcity, badge quality, bragging rights are more involved than smoking quality, since there are some Dominican cigars that US cigar smokers like more (though they wouldn't admit it).

[Steve Plotnicki]

Toby - Yes they were grilled and I believe balsamic was drizzled. Quite good and caramelized on the outside.

Jordyn - I've drunk my fair share of Screaming Eagle and I can't tell you if it is worth $1300 a bottle, but I can tell you that it has unique qualities (in certain vintages only) that other Ca. cabs don't have. So there is a qualitative basis for the price being aggressive. But clearly the extremely small supply drives price here more than anything else. But if it was made in similar quanitites as Bryant Family and Colgin (things being equal,) it would probably sell for the same price, maybe a hair more because it's unique.

The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of whether it is worth the price because they have created a false market, diamonds are beautiful and unique and so is Screaming Eagle. Cubic Zirconia is not beautiful in the same way. Artificial things usually aren't as beautiful as natural ones. If I am sitting in a restaurant and a woman walks in with large diamonds that are of good quality, I notice. That's what drives people to wanting them. How much they will pay is a different matter.

Jaybee and Nina - Well the proof is in the pudding as they say. There hasn't been an advancement in jazz since about 1967. That's 35 years. I don't think it's because of an abnormality in the birthrate. Waitiing for "someone to come along" and revitalize it is like waiting for Godot. It ain't going to happen anymore than someone is going to write the logical followup to La Traviata. Jazz, meaning the type of music that was played from 1928 through 1967, as opposed to jazz meaning a strategy of playing music that is applied to different harmonic and rhythymic structures that we wouldn't traditionally define as being jazz, is dead. Just like opera in the style of La Traviata is dead. The reason for it's death is not a failing of the human race. It's a limitation in the harmonic possibilties in the music.

There are lots of types of music that aren't written anymore. How about Broadway show tunes like Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhklahoma where the wind goes ...... You know why they don't write songs like that anymore? They wrote them all already. I know that sounds funny but it's true.

[jordyn]

Jordyn - I've drunk my fair share of Screaming Eagle and I can't tell you if it is worth $1300 a bottle, but I can tell you that it has unique qualities (in certain vintages only) that other Ca. cabs don't have. So there is a qualitative basis for the price being aggressive. But clearly the extremely small supply drives price here more than anything else. But if it was made in similar quanitites as Bryant Family and Colgin (things being equal,) it would probably sell for the same price, maybe a hair more because it's unique.

The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of whether it is worth the price because they have created a false market, diamonds are beautiful and unique and so is Screaming Eagle.

Steve, you're right that if there were nothing interesting or compelling about scarce products, they still wouldn't sell for very much.

My point is simply that scarce products are not accurately priced relative to their quality. I bet you could name a whole bunch of wines better than Screaming Eagle for half the price.

Paying more in such a case gets you something unique, but not necessarily of better quality than the cheaper item.

[LaNiña]

But the only reason a diamond is "interesting or compelling" is because the marketeers TOLD you it is. And that's the only thing that determines their cost (and worth, in this case, in my opinion).

Plotnicki, if you argued about things you actually know about it, well, then you'd actually be arguing about things you know about.

[Bux]

[i spent a collective six weeks in Barcelona, Madrid, La Mancha and driving south and up to Seville.  I was struck by the richness, variety and quality of the food.  Barcelona, like New York, hosts restaurants from all the main Spanish regions.  The food from Galicia was my favorite.  You comments notwithstanding, I predict a gradual rise in popularity of haute-Italian over the next 5-7 years.  Spanish outre cuisine is too far afield from the tastes of all but the most sophisticated eaters, and the quality of ingredients (shellfish) more difficult to obtain with regularity given the small demand.

...

I did not say they were not producing first rate food.  I said the cuisine is stagnant.  The collapse of "nouvelle" or its integration in to the French mainstream spelled the end of the last wave of innovation (good riddance, IMO).  Like Broadway, French cuisine rides on revivals of classics and great bistro fare.  Many regional Italian cuisines are unfamiliar to the mainstream of high-end eaters (excluding the gastronomes that post here) and so will be "discovered" and form a new trend.  This will take at least five years and will be in full swing by then.  Mario Batali is just the first to lead this movement.  He is to Italian food as Julia Child was to French cuisine in the 1960s.

One of the arguments given for the superiority of French food is the ingredients. I think you are right about Spain having some incredible ingredients whether it's the seafood they take from the waters or the pigs and sheep they raise, the quality can be incredible. It's part of the reason Spanish restaurants in New York have not measured up to those in Spain. My understanding is that even the Spanish hams we are now importing are not really Spanish hams, but hams that are cured in Spain from the meat of pigs raised in Denmark. Spanish farms have tried to get USDA approval.

Since Plotnicki assures us that quality will rise and be recognized. I'm not ready to rule out the possibility that American gastronomes will recognize Spanish haute cuisine. Italian has been with us for a long time. Maybe Mario will be the avant garde of a new Italian food renaissance in the states. In the meantime I hear of more young American cooks going to Spain and my guess is that what they learn there will be seen in American restaurants. Time will tell.

By the way, the Craft Bar "charcuturie" Plonicki mentions is Italian in influence and one of the better instances where an Italian influence can be seen. I don't discount the influence. I'm just not willing to write off Spain. Nor am I ready to write off France where the chance of discovery and new possibilities being found is at least as likely as in the music of jazz. Probably greater.

[jaybee]

I have a theory that I could market two small lapel pins, each an unusual color with a hard to copy design imbedded in them. One would sell for $10,000, another for $100,000. With the right kind of pre-marketing, there are lots of people who would buy the $10,000 pin just to show others they can afford to spend $10 grand on a useless bauble. A smaller, but still impressive number of people would buy the $100,000 pin for the same reason. This is the psychology that drives price in high end stuff, which has nothing at all to do with quality. There are lots of Donald Trumps in the world who want others to feel inferior to them, and ability to spend is their flag. And there are lots of schnucks who will fall in right behind them.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Jordyn - As I was trying to explain to Fat Guy, who seems to have disappeared, the amount of the price differential isn't as relevent in the first instance as the fact that an increment needs to exist. That's really the issue we seem to be trying to get our arms around. Is there such a thing as better quality that refutes subjective arguments?

Nina - Lxt refuted that point earlier today when she said it doesn't make a difference how one comes to know that something is superior, or what motive one has. Things are only superior because *once upon a time somebody figured it out.*

"Since Plotnicki assures us that quality will rise and be recognized. I'm not ready to rule out the possibility that American gastronomes will recognize Spanish haute cuisine. "

Bux - Thanks for the plug .

The thing I can't get my arms around with the new Spanish cuisine is why is it happening? I would be a lot more comfortable pronouncing its future dominance if I knew why it was occuring in the first place. Since I haven't been there, I'm sort of at a loss to understand it. But I'm usually good at assessing food from far away if you know what I mean. But this food is different.

[John Whiting]

And the British upper class would not or did not support the establishment of an "haute-cuisine?" The french aristocracy seemed hell bent of eating well, why not the British?

I was talking about an *indigenous* English tradition, not an imitation of the French. Dorothy Hartley's _Food in England_, Jane Grigson's _English Food_ and more recently, Laura Mason's _Traditional Foods of England_, among others, make this quite clear.

Diamonds are not scarce, yet they cost a helluvalot. And that's because of an artificial market, a syndicate, and some very good marketing/brainwashing.

Nina puts her finger on the most important factor in the "value", not only of diamonds, but of stocks and bonds, which are bought, not because of their inherent worth, but what the buyer thinks others will value them at in the future. The dot.com bubble showed us how this operates.

And I wish that correspondents would stop talking about a "free" market. Everyone who follows economics, whether of the Left or of the Right, knows that this hasn't existed for decades and becomes ever more distant with every corporate merger. Occasional spasms of pseudo-competition immediately subside into the managed status quo. With a single country dominating the world as never before, the pattern has been set in stone (or some more modern, shiny, superficially flexible material ) Please understand that this is no longer a "left wing" opinion, but an observation shared, at least in private, by all economic observers. I only mention this, not to start a political argument, but to point out that we just can't talk about modern culture, including gastronomy, in terms that were appropriate a generation or more ago.

All things being equal, supply and demand determine price.

But they no longer are. Ever.

[Fat Guy]

You are going to have to explain the difference between cost and worth. You have me baffled on that one.

Hahahahaha. I can explain it: Just because something costs more doesn't mean it's worth more. Could anything be more obvious? I find it inconceivable that you're grappling with this point, a smart guy like you.

I have said that things with more ingredients are more complex, hence better, *when they are prepared well.*

I'm just dying to hear why you think that's so obviously true.

things of better quality are *better*

Oh, that's what you were saying all along? I didn't realize this was all just one big tautology for us to sort out.

But wait a second, that's not what you're saying, is it? You've defined betterness in terms of cost. You've defined betterness in terms of complexity (well-executed complexity). You've defined it in terms of everything but quality.

And what I'm saying is that cost does not inherently equal quality, and if you think it does I've got a bridge to sell you. When you say all other things being equal, maybe cost does equal quality, but how is the world of food an all-other-things-being-equal situation? I guess my examples of lobster and cod being reject-foods until they became scarce made no impression on you.

Likewise complexity -- even assuming flawlessly executed complexity -- does not inherently equal quality. You can't think that. In fact I predict you will back away from that position because you can't possibly defend the theory.

Now if you want to say all of the above is true in most cases I can probably agree with you. But that would mean you'd have to allow for a minority of cases wherein simplicity equals quality and cost doesn't equal quality. That's the universe I live in, and it's the universe you live in too whether you acknowledge it or not.

[John Whiting]

StevenS is a self-professed conservative who thinks undogmatically. Wish there were more.

[Fat Guy]

John, I don't care what everybody else says about you, I find you charming on occasion. And as an expression of my gratitude for your kind words I've repaired your signature line.

[Jinmyo]

Steve, there are few occassions when John is less than charming.

Steve P, I agree with you about jazz although I'd put it's demise slightly earlier (as I don't care for later Davis, Coltrane or Coleman).

[John Whiting]

Steve, there are few occasions when John is less than charming.

But on those rare occasions -- Oh boy!

[macrosan]

And what I'm saying is that cost does not inherently equal quality, and if you think it does I've got a bridge to sell you

Steven, please take care. An inner voice (which has never let me down in the past) tells me that you may not be able to fulfil delivery of this item. I think MrP may already have bought it from several other vendors ....

[Fat Guy]

Hush!