Salut/Hi Frogleg,

As I said, I'm not going to argue with you. You won't be persuaded.

However there's an error of fact that I will correct.

le/on Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:08:56 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

*is* a large topic for discussion. However,... should I be denied
cooking or tasting Vietnamese or Chinese or Italian or Mexican food in
the US simply because I don't travel to Vietnam or China or Italy or
Mexico? I *know* it's going to be different

No, but you should be aware that what you're eating is vastly different.
Better perhaps in some respects, less good in others.


I am a product of my culture.

I'm amazed that should prevent you from wanting to discover the pleasure of
foerign food as authentically as possible.

Well, I'm *not* someone paid to travel for food or any other purpose.

Neither am I, but I'm sufficiently interested in it to have been prepared to
put aside all the money from ou B&B for two years, so that I _could_ find
out for myself.

all, but certainly cheeses (all the best French Cheeses are made with raw
milk, and as such are banned in the States). meat products and many
vegetables.

We are certainly deficient in cheese. The EU also bans unpasturized
cheese, more's the pity.

This is the error of fact that I want to correct. I don't know WHERE you got
that idea, but it's entirely incorrect. All the cheeses I serve at my table
are made from raw milk, and none are produced or bought illegally or via the
back door.

But many French dishes were devised to make fairly marginal meat cuts into something edible.

It'sa certainly true that the genius of French cooking (which it shares with
Chinese, by the way) is that over the years it has evolved recipes which
convert relatively unpromising raw materials into soimething truly
delightful. Take Coq au vin. A 3-4 year old rooster that has strutted his
stuff in liberty is going to be a pretty tough bit of meat. Roasting ands
grilling - or stir frying - will not give palatable results. However,
marinade it in a somewhat acid wine (to break down the toughness in the
fibres) then sauté it briefly before flaming in brandy and then simmering it
(without boiling, which would toughen the fibres) in the marinade until the
meat is tender (I do it over 3 days, about 2 hours a day), produces one of
the greatest dishes of the world. Recipes in the States (or France or the
UK), using a battery chicken, which would fall to a rag after 1 hour's
simmering are a travesty. Chinese and many other great cuisines have evolved
in the same way. But to go from there to dismiss dfoing all you can to
discover the best cuisines in the world because they are capable of using
such cuts is a kind of culinary iconoclasm that is breathtaking.


But that doesn't stop the result being pale imitations. Try - just once -
making a proper tagliatelli alla carbonara with real home made pasta, real
free range eggs, real italian pancetta and real stravecchio parmigiano
reggiano. I did, and was converted from disliking pasta to adoring it.

One recipe, among all the thousands of varieties of pasta dishes, is
acceptable to you? And *I'm* provincial?!

I didn't say that. But when you try the real thing, you realise just how
pallid the substitutions have made it.

Fusion cooking is a created cuisine,

So nothing is acceptable "adaptation" unless created by talented
(professional) chefs?

I didn't say that either. I was arguing that the thought processes and
creativivity are entirely different.


bogus. But asparagus with egg sauce ($18) and "mingling with the sexy,
hip crowd"
(http://www.myriadrestaurantgroup.com...obu%20Main.htm)
is authentic?

I've not followed the link, but all cuisines are capable of excess and not
all cuisines are uniformly successful. In fact all creative invention (art,
literature, music, cooking) is likely to produce somewhere between 80% and
95% dross. Time alone will tell whether any particular invention is genius
or dross. I don't, not by any manner of means, allow myself to be hypnotised
the the glamour element in any cooking style, no matter how popular or how
well written up. All I said, and stand by, is that the compromise that
substitutes a battery broiler for a rooster bears no relationship in
creativity, to the creation of a dish using eastern ingredients and western
cooking techniques (or the other way round) by someone who has spent his
whole life tasting and judging severely her culinary creations.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare

Sometimes oi just sits and thinks
Sometimes oi just sits.