Salut/Hi Ed Rasimus,

le/on Mon, 25 Apr 2005 11:08:41 -0600, tu disais/you said:-

>On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:28:34 +0200, Ian Hoare >
>wrote:

>Ian offers an excellent treatise on the proper roasting of beef while
>simultaneously stereotyping and occasionally bordering on offending
>some of his American friends.

If I used stereotypes, I'm truly sorry, I had no intention of doing so.
Forgive me. However, I do stand by what I sald about chowder, which I had in
a number of restaurant chains until I learnt that it was uniformly awful. I
admit to being a slow learner, but I do so love it, that I kept hoping to
find one that wasn't over salted, heavily thickened either with cornflour or
with modified starch, and under endowed with cream and clams.

>I've got to ask where else in the world but the US can one find
>quality, flavorful, economical, and untainted beef so readily
>available?

Venezuela. The best beef I've ever had was there. But that's not really the
point. I was referring to the availability of good beef for roasting in the
UK.

>My exposure to English wine (is that an oxymoron or merely a
>possessive phrase?)

There is some - a tiny amount - and some of it is nearly drinkable. But a
restaurant isn't going to stock much of it for obvious reasons.

>>>What are the facts? My cookbook of traditional British recipes lists
>>>"Quiche Lorraine" and "Croque Monsieur". I will credit the British for
>>>recognizing good food when they see it, though.
>>
>>That's a good reason to criticise your cookbook, not the cuisine.
>
>Does the criticism involve the crediting of the Brits or is the
>identification of the QL and CM as British recipes?

The latter. Mind you, that's nearly as bad a solecism as that committed by a
recent British immigrant here who put Paella into his english language book
on correzian cooking. He also managed to make a grammatical error in the
title (sourgrapeish s******).

>Grilled ham and cheese seems a pretty generic dish to attribute to ANY national
>cuisine.

No Ed, in your entirely laudable wish to tease me, don't make silly
gastronomic mistakes. Croque monsieur is a slice of ham and a slice of
gruyère, (not random cheese) in a sandwich, which is then fried - not
grilled. Because the USA invented the sandwich toaster, one might just as
well accuse your country of inventing the dish, which is ideally adapted to
the sandwich maker.

Actually, there is a long and honourable tradition in the UK of a bacon and
agg pie, which is quite close to the Quiche Lorraine. But my guess would be
that - as in the case of Clafoutis and Toad in the Hole - this is a
coincidence rather than borrowing.

> I can only note that most Americans would identify pizza as Italian.

Which, given the dish you call pizza, would be something less than true. The
Italian original bears little relationship to the products of Pizza Hut,
Pizza express, and the other fast food chains. Sure there's some kind of
crust underneath and some kind of topping, often with tomato, above. I have
to confess to greatly preferring American pizza, by the way, to the
original, which I find truly boring.

> Chowder is a distinctly regional dish and seldom seen in most of the states except in cans.

You make my point. An unsuspecting foreigner, arriving in the States, and
asking for and receiving a chowder, "knowing it to be an american
speciality", would be served a disagreeable travesty. Do that with several
of the other well known "american dishes", and you can understand how they
will leave with a poor impression of American food, while you (and I, having
eaten better, too) will defend it as being delicious as a cuisine.

> Fruit pie of any can is multi-national

Nope, it's English. The pie - generic - is an English invention.

> and meatloaf is so generic as to defy identification with a cuisine.

Don't agree at all. Although polpettone exists in Italian cuisine, it bears
very little relationship to meatloaf, as I've seen them. I don't know of a
Spanish dish of the type, nor of one in the UK or Ireland. That leaves
Germany and Poland (I'm thinking of source countries for mass USian
immigration), whose cuisines have much in common. And lo and behold there
are two dishes "Fashiert" which I used to have in my childhood, and which is
translated literally as "minced" and "Falsches Hase" - false hare. Both of
these are similar, Germanic and I'd claim them to be obvious forebears of
your Meatloaf.

>Now, to be technically correct, we could cite "chop suey" as an American creation.

Indeed.

>But, I'd rather point to the cooking of the great Southwest with its Mexican and Native American inspired dishes.

I have the greatest admiration for Mexican cooking. Although in the 2 months
we were there, we only touched the surface of the possibilities, I was
amazed by its diversity and subtlety and above all by its breadth. Of all
the cuisines I've had in the Americas, it was by far and away the most
interesting.

What I'm saying, and with no intention of demeaning or diminishing, is that
dishes that are commonly thought of as being "American" often owe their
origins to those of the immigrants who populated the USA and made it what it
is today. I don't think a dish needs to have been originally created in the
Americas to be legitimately considered to be American. It is sufficient for
it to be generally adopted, and significantly changed.

>>By those criteria, some of the best loved "American" favourites are British
>>in fact.
>
>those best loved Brit recipes would be?

Apple Pie, roast beef, bacon generally, beef casseroles. Lemon meringue pie
and its variants, jello (not a thing to be particularly proud of,
admittedly) Muffins, most american cakes, spring instantly to mind, but
there are dozens. However, I think we're digressing here.

>>Bol" is on the menu in many an entirely british household. Not a very good
>>Spaghetti Bolognese, certainly. Similarly, there are many thai influenced
>>dishes that are becoming fast favourites.
>
>And, let me note that Indian cuisine in major British cities is alone
>worth the trip .

Agreed, though at the moment I think it's too early to say that __indian
restaurant food__ is yet British. It will become it in time, I suspect,
rather as dishes like kedgeree (kitchiri bhoona) and mulligatawnee (muligoo
tunni) have become genuinely british - and transformed almost out of
recognition in the process.

One of the most truly awful british dishes is "Curry". As I used to have it
as a schoolboy, it was a badly prepared beef stew, always made with the
nastiest, fattiest, most gristly bits of meat. Into this unspeakable brew
were thrown raisins (with seeds, naturally) and apples. Then at the last
minute they would liberally "season" the dish with "curry powder". This was
of dreadful quality, and because of the way in which it was used, was
uncooked. It gave the finished (as bad a perversion of the word as can be
imagined) dish a nasty tasting grittiness that I remember in stomach heaving
clarity 50 years later. I almost had to be DRAGGED to eat at Veereswamy's
(Almost the only Indian Restaurant in London at the time) back in around
1960, so badly had my experiences traumatised me. I can remember to this day
my utter astonishment and delight. Though with what I know now about Indian
cooking, I'd probably judge it as pretty mediocre nowadays.

>>I call Roast Beef a defining dish, because it both demonstrates the strengths of
>>English cooking (at its best) and its weakness (at its worst).

>>chemicals in its blood. These criteria alone make it extremely hard to find
>>meat that is good enough to make a roast worthy of the traditions.
>
>Nebraska in the US offers some excellent examples of grass fed beef in
>a region with enough grass to pull it off properly.

I WAS referring to the availability of such meat in the UK.

>>roasting the very lean grilling cuts, or - worse the pot roasting cuts (US
>>Top round, bottom round, blade steak) as is so often done. The smallest cut
>>that can be roasted successfully will weigh from 2-3 kg.
>
>Dunno where you draw the assumption that Americans would choose round
>or blade or even chuck for preparation of a roast beef.

I wasn't talking about Americans. I was talking about _English Cuisine_. I
used american names for cuts, in deference to the language spoken by the
majority of readers here.

>>depending upon the season. It is best accompanied by a top class burgundy
>>from the Dijon end of the Cote de Nuits. Clos St Jacques, or, better, a
>>Chambertin from a good traditionalist grower. But a 20 year old Hermitage
>>isn't bad with it either. There is no better meal in the world.
>
>Great English wines all. Ooopps.

All wines well known in the UK and very much more part of British culture
than they are of American culture, where, if we were to descend to your
level of snidity, the height of food/drink matching excellence for much of
the last century seems to have been sweetened iced tea and/or coke with
chicken fried steak.

>>In practice,

[snip]

>>themselves be travesties. It is hard to imagine anything much nastier.
>
>I think you've just stated the case against British cuisine quite
>nicely.

No I haven't. Read on...

>>But just as one should not judge American food by the glop served as Chowder
>>in every restaurant chain in the States, so one should not judge English
>>food by the travesty served in the average corner caff either.

There are two separate issues. What dishes _should_ be like, and what you
get in restaurants. I defend British cuisine and American cuisine elsewhere
on the basis of what it is capable of, not on the basis of the muck that is
often served up to the public in most places.

>>Steak and ?? Pie and pudding (?? can be kidney, mushrooms or oysters)
>
>An acquired taste. Can be sublime. Usually a challenge to ingest.

Exactly, "can be sublime". The cuisine is excellent, its execution is all
too often awful.

>>Chicken, cottage and shepherd's pies
>Similar dependence on organ foods.

Absolutely wrong. No offal in any of these. The major ingredient in Cottage
pie is minced beef, and in Shepherd's pie it's minced lamb or mutton. I've
never seen a recipe that calls for any offal, though one could perfectly
well mince up some heart to add complexity of flavours.

>>Spiced beef (silverside)
>>Raised pies.
>
>Krispy Kremes anybody?

Whatever are these?

>>Pigeon pie
>>Venison casseroles

>Why ruin a good chunk of deer by over-cooking en casserole?

When it's your age, Ed, it's about the only way to make it palatable!


>>And when it comes to desserts, even top french chefs have always admitted
>>England's supremacy.
>
>They died during the Revolution I believe. Victims of the Reign of
>Terror.

Nope, most escaped to the UK and had a huge influence on (some would say
"perverted") British cooking in their day and ever since.


>Some of those are wonderful, but a steamed pud takes an incredible
>amount of port to be upgraded to delightful.

Nonsense. Try a sussex pond pudding, or little sticky toffee puddings, or
fair knights of windsor.

>>The problem facing the average visitor to the UK, is not that there is a
>>fine English cuisine, but to find it.
>
>You do keep it hidden well.

Not really "hidden" as inadapted to restaurant cooking.


>>I'm tempted to ask you, Dimitri to list half as many excellent truly
>>American dishes. (Not counting those originating in the UK).
>
>The previously mentioned fried chicken (pan, roast, deep, battered or
>basted),

Agreed. Limited, but excellent.

>pecan pie,

Agreed, though far too sweet in 95% of cases. Would you like the recipe I
use, which isn't too sweet and which I often serve here? (I should also add
that Pecan pie has a close British homologue "Walnut pie").

>Tex-Mex or SW cuisine (they are distinctly different.)

Indeed they are and both truly excellent, as long as they're not being used
as a measure of the size of your manhood by the number of jalapenos, New
Mexico and Red Savinas used to cook it and the volume of "Texas Pete",
"Ring of Fire", or "Dave's Insanity" sauces with which it's doused.

You could also have mentioned Cajun and Creole cuisines, which are also
excellent.

>Seriously, food is not a zero-sum game. Simply because one gives
>credit to a national cuisine does not mean that another is inferior in
>any way.

There we are in 100% agreement. One of the things that really drives me mad,
is the propensity of the French to do just that.

> It still must be noted, however, that perception often comes very close to equaling reality.

Grin... I'd hate to see american food being judged in that way!

> And, the perception of most folks is that British cuisine is heavily dependent upon the immigrant ethnic
>cooking of the former colonies and sadly lacking in the Anglo-Saxon basics.

And that perception is - as I've said - based on what was available in most
restaurants in the UK since the 1st world war. The quality of restaurant
cuisine in the UK has changed dramatically in the last 15 or 20 years, Ed.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
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