Mr. Ruhlman, on another topic can you talk to your buddy Bourdain and ask him the name of the sushi restaurant in the Roppongi district of Tokyo he mentions in Kitchen Confidential?

It was the antithesis of the overly planned, narrow minded foodie approach which insists there is only one way to prepare and eat food. If Caesar had some chicken handy that night, he would have thrown that in, too. Or clams, or moose or whatever.

get over it.

http://www.noanchoviesincaesar.com/

.:tt:.

For a while, I tried to gauge whether or not I should order it by asking if the salad contained anchovies. I’ll never forget the time I asked this question (in a fairly nice restaurant) and the waitress replied, with a beaming smile, “Oh, NO!”

A few restaurants know what a Real Caesar Salad is (like the chain Morton’s), but I, as others have posted here, usually just enjoy it at home.

Where does this all end Mr Ruhlman?

I must start a blog to ingest all this grammatical and foodilogical indifferiantial anticipational way of life…ical.

Fat guy – Little Coat

Coming soon on blogspot if I have time to verb nouns and adjectivize prepositionals.

It was courtesy of my best friend’s parents, who had the courage to quit their jobs and start a business in their dining room (with 3 children dependent on them). They were able to turn that kitchen into a two story office building they had built to their specs, and a couple million dollars a year income 5 years later.

They (and that salad) have always been an inspiration to me of how we are largely in control of our destinies. Prior to that, they were scraping by with Taco Bell and boxes of Mac ‘n’ Cheese while they started their business. But because they didn’t indulge defeatest attitudes, and knew their worth, and were smart, they succeeded.

OK, so I’M an elitist swine – I’ll ‘fess up. And now I crave a good Caesar – WITH the anchovies, not the wussy version. Bring it on. While I wish everyone had access to and appreciated truly great “foodie” food, prepared correctly, with care, pride and good ingredients (and handling), I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone their favorite dirty water dog . . . or mac n’ cheese . . . or whatever.

And I think that’s the real point of the great CC debate – it’s not about Chicken Caesar as a food item, per se, but the bastardization of Caesar to the point it’s not really Caesar. The ubiquitious Caesar we see now usually lacks two of its major ingredients (the egg and the anchovies), and a MAJOR dumbing down of the garlic – compounded with a psychopatically insousciant recklessness towards the lettuce. While I totally sympathize with those whose food choices are predicated by what’s available in the neighboring food court (because you KNOW what real Caesar – or, fill in the food blank – should be), the truth is -

we get crap because we accept crap.

To quote Pinter (Chicken Soup with Barley): “They want the third rate? Then bloody hell – they get the third rate!”

The problem is, it leaves the rest of us with the same oleogenous fructoseness of the Caesar dressing, anaemic iceberg lettuce, refrigerated croutons and, of course, vulcanized rubber chicken.

Thanks for your post…that’s a great response. In response, allow me to clarify just a bit.

Some of you know me and what I have been doing since I graduated culinary school. I’ve chosen to feed people who are either experiencing a disaster (i.e. the general public) or who are participating in getting a disaster under control (i.e. the fire department, etc.). I am responsible for cranking out large portions of mostly cafeteria-style food for people to eat while the fire is burning, the rain is coming down on their flattened houses, and the water is still 5 feet deep at their favorite market. Sometimes we can’t do that and the best we can give people is fast food, p b & j’s, or in worst case scenarios – military M.R.E. packaged food. In each case people are grateful for whatever they get. Likewise I too am grateful because I eat what I serve to people.

But when I get the chance and we have the resources available – we make improvements to the menu. In some cases I’m able to put pretty decent/culinarily acceptable food on the table. Sometimes, I have a choice between really great ingredients and really crappy ingredients (so I take the really good ones instead). When given the chance, I’ll eat in a good restaurant….which in my case (living in L.A.) involves me driving all the way north of San Francisco to The French Laundry. I’ll also, when the mood hits me, have a Tommy’s burger with chili-cheese fries and a Coke – because it tastes good. But I know when I eat that, that it isn’t the best that’s out there. And I know that not every meal has to be a culinary work of art. But I do want to know how to appreciate good food when presented with it.

The point I’m coming around to is that there is no crime in understanding, in studying, in learning what is and is not good technique. I’m certainly not going to turn down a Big Mac in the middle of a category 4 hurricane if that’s all that around. But given a choice and all the other resources – I’m eating something else somewhere else. And when I eat that Big Mac I’m aware of how it could be made better. That’s all I’m getting at.

An example. I recently cooked dinner for a fire department. They were preparing to have a dinner of plain spaghetti and ground turkey, no sauce. I offered to make them prime rib instead. Should they have said, “No thanks – we don’t eat that!” and sent me away? Should they have lectured me on food snobbery and eaten their dry pasta instead? Nope. They were grateful to have something good they weren’t expecting. So it is in other situations. Something good (which is better than the daily normal fare) is put before someone – should they send it back because it isn’t what they usually eat??

The better things in life will come to those who appreciate them. They will avoid those who disdain them.

When this happens it is not the dish that is offensive but it’s endless replication coupled with the reasonable expectation that most times you order it, it will suck. Many of us are as tired of seeing balsamic vinaigrette or mesclun on a menu as we are Caesar Salad or chicken Caesar Salad for that matter. Why? Because most of the time these dishes are lousy.

And what about tomato sauce? I dare anyone here to say that they don’t quiver 3 out 5 time they see
marinara sauce on a menu. Or Alfredo sauce for that matter -which really is not supposed to be a sauce at all but rather a way of treating pasta.

Understanding why this is, does not take more than the recognition that very few foods can withstand the effects of endless repetition by often lousy or careless or cheapskate cooks, restaurateurs and food factory owners. It’s that simple, I think.

Finally, I think that this post has got nothing to do with snobbery or anything other than boredom and angst over the prospect of having to see or eat another lousy version of something that should be very easy to make well, but almost never is.

it is meat for meats sake and brings virtually nothing to any dish it touches while giving the devourer the silly notion that they are eating “healthy.”

that said, why in the hell would you go to cheesecake factory? and what else would you expect?

I’ve always been an adventurous eater; I moved around a lot as a kid and had a foreign-born health nut for a mother, so my childhood diet was highly varied. Then we moved back to my dad’s hometown (Heights shoutout, Mr. Ruhlman!), and my new friends considered my eating habits very strange — they largely preferred grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken fingers, and various other blandly nonoffensive items. I cooked a lot in high school, and more often than not my friends would only pick at what I made, rejecting it with comments like “I don’t eat fruit and meat together” or “I don’t eat .” In short, they were unwilling to try.

Then we went to college and beyond. People studied abroad, went to Peace Corps, went to professional programs and networking events where chicken fingers were not a menu option. And then they started asking me for recipes, for advice, what different things meant — in short, they were asking me for help. And they’ve even started to admit that, back in high school, it was their palates (or their staunch unwillingness to broaden them) rather than my food that was problematic…

The moral of the story? What pisses ME off, as a foodie, is gastronomic narrow-mindedness. Yes, the lunch I had at French Laundry was probably the best meal of my life, but that doesn’t mean the In-N-Out burgers I love aren’t good too — they’re not as good, but then, they serve a different function, and I can afford to eat them much more often than once in a lifetime. Conversely, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying grilled cheese and chicken fingers if you’re also willing to have a go at pho or tartare or whatever vegetable you don’t like.

It’s not about being exclusive or condescending; it’s about recognizing and seeking quality and excellence, in all its manifestations. There is zero shame in that, nor is there any shame in choosing particular areas to focus this purported snobbery; whether in food, design, consumer electronics, art, literature, music, whatever — why does the recognition of quality have to be held against an individual? So Mr. Ruhlman went to the Cheesecake Factory to meet friends and had a shitty lunch. Who wouldn’t rather have a meal with friends that involved good food? How is that wrong?

As others have pointed out, it’s not an either/or situation; either you’re an elitist food snob or you eat anything. I’ll try anything, but I won’t like all of it. Caeser salads can be done well, burgers and hot dogs can be done well, and high-end concept cuisine can be a poorly executed mess. What matters most is that an individual is willing to try, to really try, to fully taste… and if it’s bad, it’s bad. Being able to distinguish one from the other isn’t a flaw, nor is the willingness to express one’s opinion on the matter.

But I’ve gotten past the point where I feel I can judge someone on what they eat. When they eat at my house, they’re going to get really good food (or so I’ve been told). I hope that opens their eyes to more possibilities. But it’s a really sensitive issue, because what people eat does have a lot to do with what and who they are. Attack what someone eats and you attack them. But having what I consider a bad palate doesn’t make someone a bad or a stupid person. People’s food preferences are based on what they ate as children, what they’ve been exposed to, how adventurous they are, how much time they have* and what they can afford to spend. Or maybe they just don’t like something. I can’t force someone to come over to my side, any more than I could force someone to change his/her religious beliefs.

*Although, for real, I’ll be damned if I can understand how waiting in line for an hour or more to get into an Outback saves time. And I draw the line with that damned green bean casserole. At that point, the mocking will begin.