That’s how I feel about the PBS series, New Scandinavian Cooking.
Here’s an example. On a recent episode, chef Claus Meyer prepared a salad. One of the ingredients was first-harvest baby new potatoes from Denmark. It turns out that these first-harvest new potatoes are highly prized; so much, that the farmer can sell them for 150 Euros per kilo. (That comes out to $95.00 per pound - - for taters!)
The salad dressing contained honey from the almost-extinct Scandinavian black bee, only two of which are known to exist. Oh, and also vinegar that had been infused for fourteen days with chanterelles from a nearby forest. (Like I’m going to have that knocking about in my cupboard).
Baby Romaine lettuce was the leafage, but it was laced with edible wild pansies from a field in Denmark. They couldn’t be your garden-variety pansies. They had to be wild pansies.He held the salad up, smiled and said, “Enjoy!”
I thought, “You arrogant prick!”
Julia Child would never prepare such items on her programs. She probably would say the same thing had she seen this Nordic bozo present such a salad. Once when an interviewer asked what she thought about Nouvelle Cuisine, she warbled, “Well, it just doesn’t look very ‘foodey’ to me.”
I love that.
Julia rocks.
That's just stupid. No one should go on about food that's not accessible. That's just plain masturbation.
ReplyDeleteLorraine: I couldn't have said it better myself.
ReplyDeleteI agree... WTF? (as YS would say). I do love, though, the food show where the guy - Andrew Zimmern I think - travels around and eats weird food, like he ate haggis in Scotland, faggots, peas, whelks, cockles, and laverbread in Wales, jugged hare, jellied eel, and zungenwurst at Harrod's in London. At least that stuff is REAL food that REAL people eat, just not here in our particular region, and it's not outlandishly expensive. It's just weird, like octopus or head cheese.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point of sharing the recipe? He should have just ate it on camera saying, Mmmm that's so good.
ReplyDeleteGina: I LOVE the Andrew Zimmern show. You're right. At least it's real. Stinky tofu and all.
ReplyDeleteK.A: Good point. You should watch that show just to see how ridiculous it is.