[The Scream]

The Mr still has a few cookbooks from his days as a culinary student in France. They look positively ancient.

[Sneakeater]

ETA: at the risk of a disasterous derail....Italy has always been a cooking rather then cuisine country.

I was putting off saying that in hopes that you were gonna.

[LML]

The quality of a cuisine or gastronomic movement that finds previous cuisines or gastronomic movements to be dated is the defining quality of a cuisine or gastronomic movement that will eventually become dated itself.

Saying that something is 'modern' today is that same as saying something is 'so 2010' in twenty years time.

If the kind of cooking that becomes dated has an analogue at all, surely it must be the fashion industry.

[Orik]

True, but it is very difficult to find clothes for sale that were not impacted by the fashion industry when they were produced.

[Anthony Bonner]

The quality of a cuisine or gastronomic movement that finds previous cuisines or gastronomic movements to be dated is the defining quality of a cuisine or gastronomic movement that will eventually become dated itself.

Saying that something is 'modern' today is that same as saying something is 'so 2010' in twenty years time.

If the kind of cooking that becomes dated has an analogue at all, surely it must be the fashion industry.

sure but how does that contradict what is being said here?

[Stone]

Does anyone get remotely excited when they open a menu to see seared ahi tuna and mango salsa?

[Orik]

seared ahi tuna deserves a thread "I don't get it, and I don't think I should"

[LML]

sure but how does that contradict what is being said here?

It would seem inconsistent to blame food for being dated whilst praising food for being modern since it is a common quality of both that is at once the object of blame and praise.

[Lex]

The things that are trendiest are the first things to become dated.

[robyn]

Without wishing to complicate the issue unduly: while cuisine becoming dated is inevitable, my long-standing complaint is that there are many features of classic cuisine which could usefully be revived in a modern idiom, if only chefs had the patience, the time and the technique.

I'll throw out one example of this being done successfully: Kreuther's squab-foie croustillant at Atelier - classic in conception, contemporary in execution.

ETA: The one thing I have been pleased to see over the past ten years is a return to the sheer variety of main ingredients one sees on old menus. A decade ago, I constantly griped that the average New York fine dining menu gave you a choice of beef, chicken, lobster, tuna and some white fish. This has changed, for the better (although few realize that scattering menus with sweetbreads and brains and cockscombs is a reversion to how upscale dining used to be).

I agree with your first point - but would expand this further to classical - or basically normal - ingredients. I love squab - and I order it whenever I can to see how different chefs prepare it. Agree about the squab at L'Atelier (which I tried in May). OTOH - some chefs' attempts to use the ingredient are a total flop IMO. Maybe to call one's self a chef - one ought to be able to do an Iron Chef kind of test and prepare at least 5 dishes containing 20 common ingredients.

Not sure about your second point. There is an unfortunate tendency for high end restaurants in the US to go 100% tasting menu - which is very limiting IMO. I much prefer a 3-5 course menu where there are at least 5-10 choices of main courses. Robyn

[Sneakeater]

Just thought I'd repost something nux wrote in a thread on the New York Board about the restaurant Chanterelle, where a discussion of this general topic came up earlier this year:

food is just as trend- and fashion-driven as clothes, shoes, haircuts, etc. there is a reason lobster newberg is not on many menus these days.

Chanterelle speaks of the time it opened, it continues to serve the same food in the same way. the dining scene has evolved with new flavors, techniques, presentation, etc.

fashion is cyclical, of course, so we see dishes, ingredients and preparations come back. and, gasp, there will be time when pork belly falls out of favor too.

[robyn]

The things that are trendiest are the first things to become dated.

Then - after they have become old hat even at Ruby Tuesday - sometimes they come back - with any luck in a more thoughtful way than they were presented originally. I think sun dried tomatoes fall into that category. Robyn

[Sneakeater]

Yeah, I just read some Famous Chef or other saying that he thought sun-dried tomatoes had become undervalued as an ingredient, and that he's been using more of them (again) in less blatant ways than in the past.

I wish I could remember who it was.

[robyn]

To whoever is claiming fashion and technology are not changing food very rapidly, I propose taking a look at the Time Life Foods of The World series.

I have some of those books - and I think you'll find a lot of classical recipes in them. Like Coq au Vin in the Cooking of Provincial France (a recipe I've prepared many times in the almost 40 years since I bought the series). You're not exactly talking Sandra Lee recipes or anything like that. So are you saying that Coq au Vin is "out of style"? It is certainly an old dish - but one worth eating IMO. Robyn

[Anthony Bonner]

Yeah, I just read some Famous Chef or other saying that he thought sun-dried tomatoes had become undervalued as an ingredient, and that he's been using more of them (again) in less blatant ways than in the past.

I wish I could remember who it was.

I saw this too. And its going to drive me crazy.