What seperates "golden era" from "midcentury"?

[1961MJS]

If the food is good, then he shouldn't need to position himself as a preening "artisan" to sell it. ...

Hi

I've been out for a while, but I plan on borrowing the preening artisan quote on a regular basis. I went to a good, relatively inexpensive yuppie restaurant, but it was sort of preening and artisan. They made their own mozzarella and all.

later

 

[LizzieMaine]

Be my guest. The more people calling the "artisans" on their preening the better. Remember, Hector Boiardi was a chef, too.

 

[jamespowers]

Be my guest. The more people calling the "artisans" on their preening the better. Remember, Hector Boiardi was a chef, too.

Yes but he didn't have a big head and his own cooking show on TV.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I tore this article out of the Atlantic a couple of years ago, and stuck into my greasy, stained copy of "The Maine Rebekahs Cook Book."

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Hi

I've been out for a while, but I plan on borrowing the preening artisan quote on a regular basis. I went to a good, relatively inexpensive yuppie restaurant, but it was sort of preening and artisan. They made their own mozzarella and all.

later

Which is funny because mozzarella is very easy to make and requires no ageing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWh2LS9WJIk

 

[Fading Fast]

Which is funny because mozzarella is very easy to make and requires no ageing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWh2LS9WJIk

And in a similar way, "Locally Sourced" drives me crazy. Like most things that have taken on a life of their preening own, there is a kernel of a good idea - sure, nothing wrong with supporting local farmers, nothing wrong with simple freshness and nothing wrong with not shipping food if it is local - but that only works for a very small amount of food, in certain places and comes with a, in most instances, huge cost over what can be had from the global food infrastructure.

It is the near-religious reverence that ideas like "Locally Sourced" have that drive me crazy. Again, nothing wrong with it at the margin, but to elevate it to some alter of food-and-moral worship is obnoxious. Many not-rich farmers in this country and around the world only survive because there is a global food supply chain that they can sell to. Also, many not-rich consumers can feed their families healthy food at reasonable prices because there is a global food supply chain.

Hence, recognize what "Locally Sourced" is - a good idea at the margin, but when writ large and taken as a sign of forward thinking, it is an obnoxious, self-indulgence for people who need to prove something.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's illegal to keep cows, pigs, and chickens within the city limits here, so I don't know where they're getting all this "locally sourced" meat I read about in the restaurant windows. And you can barely grow anything in the soil here, other than a mangy yellow tomato or two, so I don't know how "local" the vegetables are.

The only genuinely local food sold in this town is lobster and fish. Everything else comes from somewhere else -- thirty miles away, three hundred miles away, or three thousand miles away. It's just a matter of how far, and how much of a marketing spin they want to put on it. Because "locally sourced" is not a legally-defined, government-regulated term, it is absolutely meaningless -- and the Boys know that.

That said, I absolutely reject any notion that the only choices are preening locavorism or offering your body and soul to Archer Daniels Midland. In the Era, and as recently as the sixties, there were hundreds of regional vegetable canning companies all over the United States -- the products were canned in the area where they were grown and sold in regional grocery chains, often under store labels, and often under their own brands. These canneries were swallowed up and shut down by the onrushing beast of Big Food, which replaced those hundreds of local brands with a handful of lesser-quality over-hyped national brands -- throwing thousands of locally-based workers, often unionized, out of jobs in the process, and leaving farmers with little choice but to throw in their lot with the ConAgras of the world. I do not consider this, in any way, to be progress for anyone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, "Artisanal Ice."

"Seriously??????"

 

[HudsonHawk]

Meanwhile, "Artisanal Ice."

"Seriously??????"

I have one of those ice cube trays that makes really big cubes, because they melt slower when I'm drinking whisky. I never thought of myself as an "ice artisan", but I also learned today that I'm not part of the "creative class". I guess I'm part of the "get a job" class.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The "creative class" is simply another way of saying "middle-class white people who got laid off in 2008 but know they can still get free wine and cheese at art gallery openings."

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

They could actually get a better meal walking around Sam's Club or Costco when they're giving out free samples.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Three Stooges, anyone?

Meanwhile, "Artisanal Ice."

"Seriously??????"

This reminds me of one of my favorite Three Stooges shorts. The boys are ice men, and Curly starts at the bottom of a very long, steep set of stairs to deliver a block of ice, only to find it reduced to an ice cube by the time he reaches the top of the stairs. When the householder mistakes them for the caterers, Moe orders Curly to "shave some ice", you don't need me to tell you what happened next. When they were preparing canapes, Larry works out that what's wanted is, wait for it, a "can of peas". I can still picture my father busting out in a belly laugh, exclaiming, "How can anybody be so damn dumb?!"

 

[jamespowers]

This reminds me of one of my favorite Three Stooges shorts. The boys are ice men, and Curly starts at the bottom of a very long, steep set of stairs to deliver a block of ice, only to find it reduced to an ice cube by the time he reaches the top of the stairs. When the householder mistakes them for the caterers, Moe orders Curly to "shave some ice", you don't need me to tell you what happened next. When they were preparing canapes, Larry works out that what's wanted is, wait for it, a "can of peas". I can still picture my father busting out in a belly laugh, exclaiming, "How can anybody be so damn dumb?!"

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v500921bMjTt6WH?h1=Three+Stooges+-++An+Ache+in+Every+Stake

 

[jamespowers]

Free sample.

 

[Fading Fast]

I have one of those ice cube trays that makes really big cubes, because they melt slower when I'm drinking whisky. I never thought of myself as an "ice artisan", but I also learned today that I'm not part of the "creative class". I guess I'm part of the "get a job" class.

This is similar to my "locally sourced" post idea where something that has a kernel of a good idea - a bigger ice cube so that it melts slower and leaves the drink purer longer, or using fresh water so that the ice doesn't smell - is taken up by "Hipsters," or the "Creative Class" (that's a new term for me) or whomever and becomes some crazy moral preening that feeds a self-worth-value-judgement meter. That is beyond stupid.

I have, on very rare occasion, noticed an odd smell or taste from the ice in a drink, so if some restaurant or bar wants to mention it uses fresh water or purified water to make its ice - and it actually does that - okay, that's fine (they've solved a very, very small and infrequent problem), but my God, that is certainly not a reflection of some superior taste and olfactory sense that displays a higher developed person or some such nonsense.

In most cases, if a restaurant or bar just uses good old fashion (from the '20s and '30s) food-preparation-and-hygiene standards (but actually does that and, of course, abides by all the new ones), everything is normally fine. And if someone comes up with a niche idea at the margin - a larger ice-cube - that's fine too, but it isn't a reflection of some exalted human status.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Read "The Status Seekers" by Vance Packard -- he had all of this pegged more than fifty years ago. Everything he predicted about the decadence and the marketing-and-consumption-driven ultrastratification of American society, which was well underway by the early sixties, has come to pass.

If he were alive today he'd just shake his head at the artisanal-toilet-paper crowd, but he would by no means be surprised by them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, the Artisanal Organic Locavore Gardeners need to get the lead out.

 

[dh66]

Truly sad, on multiple levels.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Now that's precious. I'd like to know who's the genius who had the idea of becoming an "urban farmer" in a place where the soil has only been contaminated by at least a hundred years of heavy industry.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Organic or not, you've got to be a real boob to eat anything grown in soil within 300 feet or so from a public road, especially in an urban area. All that lead pumping out of car exhausts had to settle somewhere.