You make some interesting points, but I think there is a flaw in the notion that cuisine designed around lower priced parts is necessarily inferior.
Classic French cuisine was based on utilizing every part if the animal, the result of cost efficiency.
American Soul Food was based on using ingredients discarded by plantation owners who kept the more expensive and more highly coveted foodstuff for themselves.
I think your theory is too general and doesn’t accommodate examples like these.
Sometimes necessity really is the mother of invention.
Tommy I haven’t seen your name in ages. How are you?
I agree with the proffer that superior craftsmanship does not always result in a superior product. I also agree that there are instances where the application of craft is unnecessary to enjoy something. However, that does not negate the fact that a high level of craft is something that is objectively present or not. Similar to terroir, complexity, power etc., a high level of craft is something tangible and it is not a matter of opinion. Does Bill Klapp agree with that or not?
Faulkner - Unless you have had a large lobster in a place like a top American steakhouse, you would not understand what I am talking about. I would be happy to show you the next time you are in NY. Lobster is on me.
Doug Johnson - Are you telling me that there is a practice among a segment of the Chinese population where they have created an entire sub-culture around a specific aspect of the dining experience? If there is I would love to hear about it. Why don’t you educate us on what that is because I have certainly not come across it.
On the night I was there I could swear that they told me that the large lobsters they were offering were Scottish. But I could be mistaken. I will pay more attention next time.
I think your server was mistaken, Steve, each branch keeps several tons of Canadian lobsters alive in tanks, and pretty good they are too, excellent value. Russell’s right, though, Scottish are vastly better, given of course appropriate storage, transportation and care in the cooking.
This is a most enjoyable trip down memory lane. Your perspective, which I always appreciated, hasn’t changed, and nor has mine really.It’s much closer to Bill’s than yours, but in the end these things aren’t so important
You know I disagree with you about it not being important because it is. To me, the rest of us eat worse because of the Bill Knapp’s of the world. I believe that Bill argues for a level of excellence that is substandard, and that ultimately trickles down into everything we eat. I mean if he thought it was okay to eat frozen rather than fresh food, should we adopt that standard because he thinks it’s okay?
I am all for people doing and eating what they like. But I am not for people imposing a standard on others based on the limitations of their knowledge or aspirations. Craftsmen should be applauded for their good work, not dismissed as overrated because their particular talent does not float your boat. And if you do not know how to assess or appreciate what a craftsman does, that is your problem, not the problem of the people who appreciate the craft.
It’s embarrassingly awesome,and yet he keeps coming.
My jaw is still on the floor…
I haven’t seen this much self delusion since the comings and goings of JLeve…
I don’t think anything doug says could change your mind but you’re inaccurate. Chinese cuisine is so specialized on china and Taiwan. Streets are dedicated to one sole fish that they’ve crafted for a long time.
Sure it’s not a $150 omakase experience but if that’s your only criteria you’re ignoring the majority of real japanese cuisine.
Charlie Fu - No one was talking about the majority of Japanese cuisine. I was specifically addressing a single issue which is the quest for excellence at the high end. If I read your post correctly, you agree that it exists in Japan but not in China correct?
Is there a way I can ignore the posts made by Bill Boykin so I don’t see them? You know like getting rid of a specific person’s feed on Facebook
I actually agree with you more than I disagree with you. That said, the area of dining that you play in is more akin to haute couture as it relates to fashion, or F1 as it relates to passenger car production. The haute couture designers are extremely important in the world of fashion/apparel even though no one, including them and their models, wants to wear such clothes all the time. Of course Thomas Keller doesn’t want to eat at a michelin starred restaurant every night. But if he is looking to see who is pushing the envelope in the culinary world he is likely not going to search out a road side bbq shack (which doesn’t make that shack’s bbq any less delicious).
Whether it is the culinary or design world, the world as a whole is more exciting with these people experimenting and influencing the way their respective industries operate. That these restaurants, automobiles, architecture or couture apparel are not for everyone is besides the point.
It’s funny, the last tome I debated this stuff with Steve several years ago I think his view was in the ascendant. It’s the other way round now so I guess I’ll have to join his team, always being on the side of the underdog. Though I think the chefs he most admires have largely joined the other team.
Thomas Puricelli - Ah finally a reasonable person!
I was recently on a trip to Houston and Austin for the purpose of eating. I met my friend Eliot Wexler on the trip. Eliot is the owner of the restaurant Noca in Scottsdale, AZ Before meeting me for dinner in Houston, he spent a few days in Austin. While there he went to eat at Franklin BBQ. I don’t know if people here have heard of the place, but Aaron Franklin raised the bbq bar by sourcing briskets from Niman Ranch or Creekstone Farms I can’t remember who, and coming up with a unique way of preparing them which includes how they are handled when they come out of the smoker. After dinner in Houston, and after breakfast at the magnificent Laredo Taqueria, we drove to Austin by way of Lulling and Lockhart so we could stop for bbq. City Market in Lulling came up first, and the very first thing that Eliot said after tasting it was “commodity meat.” I knew what he meant right away. The meat they were using meat could be purchased at the local grocery store. And while that level of quality might have been good enough in the past, it was not good enough after having experienced Aaron Franklin’s bbq.
Now I assure you that there are many bbq aficianados who would give me a hard time about wanting to have better quality meat, the same way that Bill Knapp is giving me a hard time about whether better culinary craftsmanship is necessary. But where Bill loses me is why he feels entitled to lecture me (or anyone else for that matter) that noticing these types of things, and basing what gives us pleasure on them, is not necessary to enjoy them? I mean aren’t the people I am pointing to living proof that they are necessary? And that is why there is so much name calling going on from Bill Knapp and Bill Boykin. There is no reasonable argument as to why bbq with artisanal meat is not preferable to bbq made with commodity meat, if that difference is what makes the experience tick for a specific person.
Tom Blach - I agree with you that many of the chefs have switched their focus and they are more ingredient intensive then they used to be. Personally, I find the fine dining experience less enjoyable as a result. Since my personal motivation is to try and discover chefs who have created new techniques, if I visit a restaurant that is the latest craze, and I find that they are using techniques that were created 10 years ago, I am not all that impressed. So my current batch of favorite restaurants has to do with instances where chefs have married ingredients, technique and sense of place into a seamless experience. Faviken in Sweden would fit that bill as would In de Wulf in Belgium.
Fair enough, Steve, I’m not going to make value judgements about personal preferences. For me what is exciting about new techniques is the way they can make great ingredients give more of themselves, though once you cut up a fish before you cook it you have lost half of its intrinsic quality
You know as long as this thread is supposed to be about steak in Europe, I should throw my two cents in for La Paix in Brussels. It is a brasserie in the Anderlicht neighborhood of Brussels, and it is only open for lunch on weekdays save for dinner on Friday nights. David Martin, the chef owner, is really into meat and on a typical day he offers Charolais beef, German Simmenthal, Belgian or Dutch beef, Danish beef and Rubia Gallega which is the special breed of beef that comes from Gallicia. To make things better, Martin trained at Arpege and at Bruneau and his starters are worthy of a one star restaurant. Ordering a big steak, and a bottle of Jean Foillard Cote de Pys is one of my favorite meals in Europe. And if you go with a group of people you can order a variety of steaks and do a tasting.
Doug humor me. Ignorant of what? And don’t generalize. What is it that you think I do not know about Chinese food, which is not allowing me to assess the level of craftsmanship that is found at the best Chinese restaurants? I really want to know as I am someone who tries to absorb as much information about cuisine as I can. I am happy to lose the argument and get better information about food in the process. I could care less which cuisine is better. I just want to know more about food.
I bought some great “steaks” in Amalfi that were farmed in Tuscany. If my terrible Italian serves me they were actually veal or young cow. If I could figure out how to post pics off of Flickr I would put them here.
Steve, please, slow down and let your brain engage before pounding on your keyboard. First of all, it is hardly fair to ask people to prove your ignorance of things like Chinese and Japanese food history. You have obviously not studied these things, and what you know appears to be what little you have encountered while eating your way through Michelin guides. No proof is required of ignorance so manifest and profound. They have told you that you are wrong and why. You were so completely wrong that it took them but a few sentences to dispatch you. Point two: you do not read what others are writing here. You just blather on and use the rest of us as strawmen for your absurd posturing, attributing to us things that we did not say or even imply. Logical, rational discourse requires that you read what is being said and respond appropriately. I will try to sift through the dog’s breakfast that you have posted here and fashion a few paragraphs that will focus your ideas for you and provide some basis for actual dialogue, should you be inclined to engage in dialogue rather than soliloquy.
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