On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 13:37:45 +0100, Ian Hoare
> wrote:

>Salut/Hi Frogleg,
>
> le/on Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:01:13 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>>How come "fusion" is brilliant, and "adapting" is godawful?
>
>Because they're two things that are completely different.
>
>I'm not going to argue with you, however, as there's no way I'll succceed in
>persuading you to change your mind. However let me say that I am in complete
>disagreement with you. You see, I HAVE been to Hong Kong and Singapore, and
>I DID take the trouble to compare and contrast Chinese (from various
>provinces) cooking in the USA, in the UK in Australia and in New Zealand
>with those that I found in Asia.
>
>This is a huge subject and nothing to do with the subject of the thread,
>btw.

[Actually, the thread evolved, as so many do. I have changed the
subject here.]

It *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. Perhaps it's all
Vietnamese-American (even when the staff doesn't speak English), or
Chinese-American (even when the cook is in flight from the INS).

Given the interest in "ethnic" foods and cooking, and the
ever-increasing availability of ingredients, I feel there's nothing
despicable about saying one "likes Thai food" when one's experience
has taken place in US restaurants (or kitchens) where some exotic
variety of toad-sweat is unavailable to make a dish entirely
authentic. Chop Suey is "authentic." It's Chinese immigrant
accomodation to locally available ingredients cooked in a Chinese
manner. It wasn't, at first, a "watering down" of fine Chinese cuisne
for Caucasian taste. It was home cooking.
>
>>Much "authentic" cuisine is something I frankly have no desire to
>>sample. I can go to my grave quite satistifed without ever having
>>sampled chicken feet in any form.
>
>I can't disagree with that, though I'm glad to have had the chance to taste
>some other products unavaulable in the USA.

Thanks for the chicken feet exception. :-) I'll exchange an
appreciation of being able to have something we can't get here. Calvin
Trillin maintained that no Chinese restaurant in NYC could equal, I
think it was "Crab in Milk" as prepared in a Chinese restaurant close
to the Golders Green tube stop in London. Then he visited Hong Kong
and found Crab in Milk that was completely off the scale.
Nevertheless, he had a rich, full life with the lesser recipes, and I
presume isn't eschewing NYC Chinese restaurants because they don't
have *perfect* Crab in Milk.
>
>> 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.
If I can only have *real* Chinese in China or Mexican in Mexico City,
I guess I'll have to live without. I *am* delighted that I can either
go to restaurants or cook at home and have such a great variety. I
figure the Pho shop will give me a taste. The taco outlet run by an
Indian family was not so hot(!) with tacos, but sweetly gave me a
recipe/method and some spices for cooking an Indian veg I grew from
seeds passed along from fellow gardeners.
>
>> I am sure that French food in France is superior to that offered by La
>>Maison de la Casa House,
>
>Again, this is off topic, but I CAN confirm that many so called "french"
>dishes that you eat in the States are a travesty of real French cooking. Not
>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. But many French dishes were devised to make
fairly marginal meat cuts into something edible.

> and Vietnamese food in Vietnam more varied
>
>>But "watered down" isn't what I'd call my opportunities to taste pho
>>or sushi or green papaya salad or fettucini alfredo in the US. Wrold
>>cuisines adapt to the availability of ingredients and local tastes.
>
>They do, but it would behove you to display a little more humility and
>regret. If you've not eaten the real thing,

Not a chance, bucko. When my Chinese SIL prepares a meal from
California ingredients, I don't sigh, "oh, I wonder what the Real
Thing tastes like."

> that doesn't invalidate the
>difference. If it's true that some adaptations are made to suit local
>prejudices (balut would be hard for you to swallow),

" balut - a fertilised egg with a partially developed duckling, which
is eaten boiled." You got *that* right. Why on *earth* would I travel
to the source for such an "authentic" snack? When I read descriptions
of whole fried fish with crispy skin, or savory cous-cous, or Indian
rice sweets, my mouth waters. I have no desire whatsoever to go on a
Cook's Tour of strange and unusual food. I don't want to be given a
sheep's eyeball as a treat.

> many others are made
>because access to the real thing is either expensive (importing vietnamese
>mint would be costly) or illegal (some methods of preserving) or difficult.
>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?!

>Fusion cooking is a created cuisine, made by talented cooks to combine the
>best of two completely different strands of culinary philosophy. Usually
>Eastern and Western, it could also be a combination of Japanese and Peruvian
>(as at Nobu) or any two or more entirely disparate cuisines. Actually I'd
>argue that Balti cooking is a fair example of Fusion cooking. It cannot be
>judged except upon its own criteria, I feel.

So nothing is acceptable "adaptation" unless created by talented
(professional) chefs? Adding a little soy, ginger, and almonds to
green beans is phony. Lemon grass and chiles in chicken stock is
bogus. But asparagus with egg sauce ($18) and "mingling with the sexy,
hip crowd"
(http://www.myriadrestaurantgroup.com...obu%20Main.htm)
is authentic?