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News & ArtsThursday, January 10, 2013
Chow The Restaurant Today and in History
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 9:24 AM
Last night, after watching on YouTube Anka Muhlstein lecture about one of the greatest fictional characters in Western literature, the Baron de Charlus, I stumbled upon this video...
Anka Muhlstein's point is that the modern restaurant has two sources: the city and the aristocracy. In this way, we can see it as a kind of democratization of good cooking. In the past, most people were stuck with badly or poorly prepared foods. An average person could never eat like the few who had access to talented cooks, to people who knew and loved the kitchen. But the city and progressive politics made it possible to spread the art of good cooking to a wider area of the population. Today, we, the urban masses, are pretty much liberated from the idiocy of our kitchens and can enjoy food that's been prepared by those who really know what they're doing.
2
The aristocracy may be a big influence on fancy Michelin-starred dining in Paris, but not so much in the hinterlands of America, where every little town had its diner or lunch counter. The real origin of the restaurant is the public house, or inn, going back many centuries, and often in places a real aristocrat would fear to tread. Whether these places featured "food that's been prepared by those who really know what they're doing" is an open question.
For a Marxist you really don't seem to know a lot about the working classes, Charles.
For a Marxist you really don't seem to know a lot about the working classes, Charles.
4
If we can afford it. Since many of us can't (but for perhaps once every week or two), we've learned to cook well so that home cooking doesn't seem like a step down.
6
The number of unbearably shitty restaurant food, even and especially in urban "paradises" like New York, I've had over the years says otherwise. There are certain things I won't order in a restaurant (scrambled eggs, bacon, omelettes, soup) because I know, invariably, the cook will fuck it up.
7
Yes to what @2 and @6 said. This argument that urban life is some wonderful genesis of materialist cosmotopia gets tiring. Ever hear of phrases like "home cooking" or "like mom used to make?" Some of that is ignorance, granted, yet with a kernel of truth. People didn't need a sanctioned urban establishment to pass down the craft of good cooking.
Who are you trying to convince by the way?
Who are you trying to convince by the way?
8
I doubt that Charles has ever had "home cooking" for one day in his life. Too bad. A good bowl of soup, some meatloaf, biscuits and gravy, real mac and cheese, a grilled cheese sandwich — these are some of the best things in life.
9
Charles--
The invention of haute cuisine was never about democratizing good food. It was never even really about good food. It was first and foremost about *new* food.
All you need to do to understand this is to go somewhere that still has a genuine and genuinely old tradition of cooking. (america doesn't. Seattle even less so than much of the country.) provided you avoid the sectors emptied out by real poverty and deprivation, you will find ample true examples of democratic good food.
To take java as one example (since i've lived there half a dozen years): even if the tradition doesnt perfectly match my taste--i tend to go more for italian--you can find truly excellent, varied, and complex cuisine at any intersection in any town, and almost any village--for pennies. Where food is being murdered in java is in the big cities (mainly jakarta and surabaya), where fashion and money and too little taste are replacing good, widely affordable food with overpriced, unhealthy slop thats supposed to emulate cosmopolitan offerings.
It is really difficult to take your attacks on decentralized cooking seriously, when it runs so flagrantly contrary to what food actually tastes like. But after that video on chicken fried steak, i guess you arent even public taste enemy number one at the slog, so why do i even bother.
The invention of haute cuisine was never about democratizing good food. It was never even really about good food. It was first and foremost about *new* food.
All you need to do to understand this is to go somewhere that still has a genuine and genuinely old tradition of cooking. (america doesn't. Seattle even less so than much of the country.) provided you avoid the sectors emptied out by real poverty and deprivation, you will find ample true examples of democratic good food.
To take java as one example (since i've lived there half a dozen years): even if the tradition doesnt perfectly match my taste--i tend to go more for italian--you can find truly excellent, varied, and complex cuisine at any intersection in any town, and almost any village--for pennies. Where food is being murdered in java is in the big cities (mainly jakarta and surabaya), where fashion and money and too little taste are replacing good, widely affordable food with overpriced, unhealthy slop thats supposed to emulate cosmopolitan offerings.
It is really difficult to take your attacks on decentralized cooking seriously, when it runs so flagrantly contrary to what food actually tastes like. But after that video on chicken fried steak, i guess you arent even public taste enemy number one at the slog, so why do i even bother.
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