slightly OT and LONG: Dinner at Manresa

They sure do dress well, though - especially the ladies.

Dimitri

Greetings Ian;.

You reveal the source of your troubles with North American chowder sampling by the use of one word; CHAIN.

Sweet loving Jeehover man, real, quality chowders are only to be found in small Mom and Pop joints one has serious misgivings going into. Year before last Margaret and I spent 11 days touring the Canadian maritimes, revisiting old haunts and mostly avoiding cities like the plague and ate chowders (fish and/or clam) every day in search of the best one. Most chowders were at least very good, a few were scrumptious and one, just one,a fish chowder served in a little "Family" joint on the outskirts of Annapolis Royal was absolutely to die for.

Why do my fondest memories always somehow revolve around the food?

"Cwdjrx _" in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3176.bay.webtv.net...

I agree. Several (18) years ago, having seen the photo of Filet of Beef in Aspic "Strasbourgeoise" in the US's _Gourmet Cook Book_ (1950, not the recent revised edition) for a couple of decades, I thought it was time to try the dish. (This recipe has more beef filet than Cwdjrx suggested, and more than a "row" of truffle pieces, in fact it is stuffed with black truffles, in bulk. Which were expensive in the 1980s, though not as much so as today. That was during the temporary interval when almost everyone in the US thought that truffles meant something made out of chocolate.)

Quality local butchers do exist in the US and one happened to be next door to a source of truffles in Oakland, California. I made an incision down the filet, stuffed it with a ruinous supply of fresh black truffles peeled and dipped (parboiled? don't remember) in Madeira, wrapped the filet in caul, tied it, seared, braised with a little Madeira to medium-rare, cooled, chilled, surrounded it with a thick blanked of incredibly good Madeira aspic, laid out on a platter with garnish or two, photographed it (as not the sort of thing one makes every day, not this one anyway), and took it to a party where a surprisingly large fraction was consumed by the calculating Gershon Rabinowitz, a Platonist at the University who engineered sundry ruses to save face, while relentlessly returning for more. By the time the party's best-known cook arrived (Paul Bertolli, still at Chez Panisse then), it was all gone. In fact it went fast, regardless of Rabinowitz's attentions.

(Another anecdote from the same party is in my amazon.com comments on Wechsberg's little classic _Blue Trout and Black Truffles_ by the way.)

--Max

Salut/Hi Chuck Reid,

le/on Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:30:37 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

I think you should read my comments in the context of the discussion. While I lived in hope that I might be served a decent chowder, this wasn't the real thrust of my comment. What I was trying to explain to Ed, is that the average moderately informed foreigner, arriving in the USA and seeking "good american food" might well order clam chowder in various places throughout the USA and never get anything even nearly good. And they could well depart your shores with their prejudices regarding the poor quality of food in the USA healthily reinforced. But you, and Ed, and I for that matter, having had really good american food can defend the cuisine per se while at the same time admitting that the experience of the average visitor might be bad.

And if you admit that this is true in the USA, then I think you ought perhaps to allow me to say the same for the UK.

Well, I guess it was down to breast feeding. Either you were, or you weren't. Or perhaps you were only sometimes. It clearly made you orally obsessed!!

(GDR- vfafiad)

Greetings Ian;

Mystery solved! ;>)))