Gastronomy in France in Flux?

[Bux]

My serious answer, Bux, is 'I don't know'.

I suspect the answer is that change is our only constant. Dishes come and go and chefs are determined to offer us something new until the old is resurrected as new again. Your thoughts on potage foam are logical and it may or may not happen. Sorry I don't subscribe to the inevitable. Whatever happens will seem inevitable in hindsight and be easily explained by those who can deconstruct the past. No surprises there. The last revolution was correct, the next is perverse unless you are part of it.

Satisfaction is the fulfillment of learned desires. Old guys will be satisfied by what they've learned to like and young guys will be the explorers. Of course there's the oddball old guy whose learned to like discovery instead of mashed potatoes, but that really just means he finds new ideas "delicious." It's all so predictable, yet some of us argue as if there's a cause here.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"For whom exactly are Robuchon's mashed potatos a metaphor, and for what?"

For the people who liked eating them. And the metaphor is some statement about their lives. What the exact metaphor is, and will it have a lasting impact on culture, I'm not getting into that one but I think Whiting is close. But these are all things that history will prove out. But one can't argue with their short term relevence because you still hear of Robuchon's disciples serving them.

I think to focus on that particular item, which I only used as an example because their fame has transcended being eaten by fanatic diners, is a mistake. The issue is that all things artistic that we take to in a big way are a reflection of ourselves. But some things are a reflection that become indelibly etched in our culture. And some things are temporary and fleeting. And Robert B. makes the excellent point that once upon a time Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler were extremely relevent to fans of jazz. But over time people came to realize that what they reflected was something that wasn't permanent in our culture. They just were a product of an "institutional vaccum" at the time.

Bux - We are most certainly searching for insight. The sceptics among us keep asking how the Adrias of the world are going to be famous in the long term when people like you aren't saying on eGullet that your meal there was the most delicious meal you ever had? So far, nobody seems to have an answer for that question other than what I will encapsulate as "delicious doesn't matter. Intensity of flavor, interesting texture, contrasting temperatures, that makes the meal interesting to the extent where delicious, as we old timers define it, isn't as important as it used to be." Now I might have gotten it wrong but that's how it sounds to me. And I say nonsense to that. The issue always was, is now, and always will be who makes the most delicious food. And until you tell me that Adria makes the most delicious food in the world, you can't convinve me his techniques will last in the long term. Unless of course, somebody incorporates the technique into food that is drop dead delicious.

[Fat Guy]

Define delicious.

[Steve Plotnicki]

No cross-examination. What's the point of defining delicious. Do you believe that there is a disagreement about the word delicious?

[robert brown]

Let me couch what can be called the “potato argument” in these terms: The Adria skeptics are concerned for the future course of top-echelon cuisine because they see Adria leading the way into a Brave New World of dining. Whether rightfully so or not, they see the possibility that the next generation of the most gifted chefs will minimize, de-emphasize, or abandon altogether the cornerstones of what today’s experienced or well-traveled eater holds scared. These are the integrity of produce-- be it how it tastes, looks, feels in the mouth and to the touch ( I like to eat with my hands) and , as a related matter, the importance of the grower, breeder, farmer, and the purveyor; the perversion or abandonment of preparations that have stood the test of time; the loss, or near-loss, of geographic specificity resulting in an internationalization of cuisine and the loss of definition between country and city dining or ,say, American and French or French and Italian cuisine. Beyond this, there is the fear that this kind of cooking will be attempted by lesser chefs who may represent the phenomenon of tools and techniques falling into the wrong hands, thus perverting dining at lower levels. Of course there will always be bistro cooking and “internationale” Italian restaurants, but those of us who seek the highest expressions of culinary craft sometimes go beyond this level of cooking.

Already I have experienced schizophrenic dining experiences in which Adria-type creations are mixed in with classic regional cooking. I always find this disquieting and discordant. This is typical in other creative endeavors when sudden change occurs after a lengthy period of quietude or lack of innovation. ( I just saw that Steve P. elucidated the same concept.)`The problem is that there are not very many places to go where one can dine at the very top level. It is that this category can become quickly infected and swayed by fashion that the Adria skeptics find worrisome, the few, for now, that there are.

[Fat Guy]

No cross-examination. What's the point of defining delicious. Do you believe that there is a disagreement about the word delicious?

Yes because again I think you're using it as a stand-in for familiarity. That's how the Plotnicki eGullet Flat Earth Culinary Creationist Society defines deliciousness, isn't it? Like LXT, I don't recognize a distinction between intellectual and non-intellectual deliciousness, because anything above the level of banana pudding requires some degree of training to "get."

[Steve Plotnicki]

"Like LXT, I don't recognize a distinction between intellectual and non-intellectual deliciousness, because anything above the level of banana pudding requires some degree of training to "get."

I knew if I asked you to explain it my life would be easier. The definition of delicious in the context we are using it is, the word people use to explain the emotion they experienced when they visted Robuchon. Whether it's the right word or not, I have no opinion on. But it is the word that is used after people eat meals that they like so I feel like I am on firm ground using it here . So once again, the issue isn't whether people could find this kind of cooking delcicious, the issue is will they? And given the current environment of cuisine, and looking at it in the context of all cuisine, and given what people say about it, I have certain doubts. But my doubts will be assuaged when people come back from eating there and tell me their meal was delicious, i.e., they loved the way it tasted on a sensual level, not the way it made them think about the meal. You can't intelectualize sensuality.

[ahr]

All this talk about the concentrated essence of food minus its usual bulk and texture got me to musing about the ability to “think” in tastes.

Having bought a bunch of lovely little peppers from Toby at the Greenmarket -- some tasty but mild, and a few hot little Habanero numbers -- and upon spying an aging chicken breast lying in a corner of the freezer, I was trying to decide what to prepare for dinner: a simple stir-fry, a soupy chili, something really queer with a cheese-thickened wine sauce? I realized that I was imagining the taste, tongue, tooth, and mouth feel of each of dish as I thought of it -- not just intellectualizing that I really don’t like jalapeno cheese, for example, but actually, kind of, more or less, sort of tasting it. I’m an adequate cook at best, but this seems a useful trait, and I was wondering whether it’s common, especially among the food-obsessed.

Most all of us can “hear” music silently in our heads (when those voices don’t intrude), we can visualize stills and movies, sometimes in color (the ability to dream in color, I believe, varies among individuals), and any teenage boy can fantasize touch, but what about mental tastes and smells?

The next step, of course, is to fantasize entire meals without actually eating them: the ultimate intellectual cuisine, and the ultimate weight-loss diet. After that, virtual restaurants… Adria, watch out! You’re already obsolete.

[Fat Guy]

I was wondering whether it’s common

Yeah, it's called being on a diet. Or driving across the Dakotas. Or spending a week on a cruise ship.

[Toby]

All this talk about the concentrated essence of food minus its usual bulk and texture got me to musing about the ability to “think” in tastes.

... I was trying to decide what to prepare for dinner: a simple stir-fry, a soupy chili, something really queer with a cheese-thickened wine sauce?  I realized that I was imagining the taste, tongue, tooth, and mouth feel of each of dish as I thought of it -- not just intellectualizing that I really don’t like jalapeno cheese, for example, but actually, kind of, more or less, sort of tasting it.  I’m an adequate cook at best, but this seems a useful trait, and I was wondering whether it’s common, especially among the food-obsessed.

Yes, I've always wondered how that works, particularly in how we understand how our palates work. Is it a computation in our brains of taste memory/experience and imagination/intuition? And how much of this stimulates appetite and/or satisfies hunger?