Food Enjoyment

Kennyz wrote:I've been making a concerted effort these days to enjoy mediocre food more. It goes against years of training, but life is too hard otherwise. This was, after all, chopped medium rare beef and fresh bread. How bad can that really be? Before turning over my new leaf, I'd probably have scored it a 3.1 instead of a 6.7, and written some scathing account of why Fox & Obel should be embarrassed to serve such amateurish crap. Life really is better now.

This comment on another thread intrigued me, and started me thinking again on something I've thought about before. If we could all take a "blind taste test," and the only criterion that mattered was not a chef's creativity, or the rarity of ingredients, or the unheard-of-ness of a flavor combination, but simply how good does it taste, how much more often might we discover that we are getting everything we can ever want from the simplest things? By "blind taste test" I'm imagining a condition in which I don't know the provenance of the food choices before me, or their cost, and I'm simply asked to tell you which is bringing my mouth more pleasure. In front of me in my imaginary example is (1) something from Michael Carlson/Graham Elliott Bowles/Grant Achatz/Rick Bayless, (2) a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and (3) a plate of simple spaghetti and meatballs in marinara sauce that my wife prepared. I have a feeling I'm going to choose (2) or (3) a surprising percentage of the time.

This does not mean I don't appreciate and fully enjoy the novelty of food prepared by a great chef, or the experience of going to a great restaurant. I do. But those are things that involve my mind. If I'm talking about things that involve my taste buds, and only my taste buds, well, my taste buds don't have a mind. They only know how to taste. And left to their own devices, they might decide that the quest for satisfaction is a simpler one than my mind sometimes makes it out to be.

interesting theory.

I would probably choose a variation of # 3 most of the time. I think a good homecooked meal typically outdoes 99% of the things I can eat out.

I agree with the assertions but I also appreciate the "theater" and artistry of the fine dining experience and what it does for my senses. For me, it's like comparing community theater (no offense intended to community theater participants on the board) to a Broadway production. Sometimes I like to treat my sensory receptors to a night on the town, when they probably are happy dining in most of the time.

Davooda

While my husband's homemade pasta sauce and meatballs are one of my favorite dishes...I do enjoy eating out for similar reasons as Davooda. I think of it as an afforable luxury or mini vacation, if you will. We (now) tend to go to places recommended here and when we hit a home run with a GNR (like Sun-Wah) where we have a great meal, bring great friends, have a great time and the total bill is fall-off-your-chair in disbelief low...that trumps the homemade pasta sauce and meatballs--well, at least 90% of the time.

However if it was truly blind (can't feast with your eyes...no peeking at the plating) and under the same setting--at home / kitchen table with homemade dish vs. fast food vs. professional chef dish...I still think that hubby's meal will win.

Our perceptions cloud all of our judgments, especially aesthetic ones.

"In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine." http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/ ... f_wine.php - I can't figure out how to insert a link

Also, middling wines cannot be reliably distinguished from expensive ones. If we know the prices then most often we like the more expensive wine. But without prices in a blind taste test, expensive wines are selected as often as inexpensive wines by "experts". (But really bad boones farm crap is not selected - it has to taste reasonably good.)

Also confounding our judgments is the halo effect - if someone does one thing good they are perceived to do all things well. Could Charlie Trotter make a good Italian Beef? Probably. Will it be perceived as great - you bet. Will it be better than the folks at Chickies or Johnnies? No. But it is impossible to make aesthetic judgments empirically.

How are we to judge accurately? We can't. We just eat stuff we like.

I agree that expectations cloud judgment -- but there is a degree to which it is useful to have expectations at least be part of judgment, if it doesn't keep one from enjoying simpler pleasures. If one is going to pay a great deal of money for food, one should expect something at a bit higher level -- more artistry or better ingredients or something. However, that is more a financial decision than an enjoyment decision. I can go crazy over good, simple mac and cheese -- but not if it costs $200. I'd still enjoy the flavor, but I'd resent the expenditure. But yeah -- there is a lot of simple stuff that is absolutely great, and even not so simple stuff that comes out of my kitchen and the kitchens of friends, or is eaten at sidewalk cafés or bought from street vendors.

I can remember laughing at myself many years ago (I'm thinking maybe 30), a few nights after my first visit to Le Français, at the time the best restaurant in the country, because I was making a pan of something budget-friendly like hamburger stroganoff, and was delighted with how good it was. I thought it was really funny that, just a few nights after having one of the most sublime meals of my life, I was so happy about this goop in the pan -- but it tasted really good.

I've enjoyed a lot of weird things over the years -- but price is a factor. I might still have enjoyed the taste of the hamburger stroganoff at a higher price point, but I wouldn't have been happy about it.

So I think it's almost separate things -- or it should be -- and it applies to more than just food. However, if the price is reasonable, it really is a blessing to be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of stuff that is "ordinary."

I'm not sure that I agree that it is impossible to make aesthetic judgments empirically, just unlikely. One has to think about it.

I also wonder about "we just eat stuff we like." That may be true of those of us who think about food, but I'd bet that the halo effect gets a lot of people to eat stuff they don't like because they're supposed to like it. However, I do agree that, while we need to stretch ourselves, or we'll miss things, that eating stuff we like is a good goal.

Many of our memorable meals are not only based on how good the food was but also the circumstances at that time, whether be with friends, or solo. The sophistication of the food then usually plays a secondary role.
I remember once heading to Madison to visit friends on a bus, I arrived ay 8pm, by the train tracks there was a diner called Dolly's Diner, I was very hungry so I thought I eat before arriving at my friends few minutes of walking distance. I had a meal of chicken livers, which to me was one of the best meals I ever had. I don't know if it was actually a great dish, which I am pretty sure it was good, but the setting, a cold midwestern night, a lone sparse diner by the train tracks bright with florescent lights, it was like a movie scene.
Going back to your test, our mental state at that time could directly effect the preference of the choices.
Now a days, unfortunately when we go out, too often we forget that we are out for a pleasurable evening and tend to analyse the food, service and our surroundings too much and forget the main purpose our dining, to enjoy and
"restore" our well being, thus the origin of the word, restaurant, a place to "restore" (ant) oneself.
Not always but usually I feel simpler meals play a bigger role, because we are at our more relaxed and personal stage in an comfortable environment which can be home or anywhere.
Eating out can be just as memorable, however at fancier restaurants, where "cooking to impress" plays a role sometimes it can be a challange.
If you go back on your most memorable food experiences, you will find that besides the food your emotional state then played a big role enjoying that food and always was a pleasant one.
Except the time in a fit of anger while arguing and preparing dinner for my new wife, I threw the frozen burgers on the floor, which broke to pieces all over the kitchen floor, realizing after few minutes when we made up, our dinner lay on floor, which I dutifully collected and we had our dinner, which became a memorable one too.

Food enjoyment is a combination of a lot of things, and choice #1 (Michael Carlson/Graham Elliott Bowles/Grant Achatz/Rick Bayless) offers a more multidimensional experience than choices #2 or #3, which is not to say #2 and #3 don't please the buds, though that may be all they please (and that, of course, may be enough).

The pleasures of choice #1 are more cerebral (some of these chefs intend to "redefine dining"), and plates from at least the first four of these chefs can be ironic, witty, inventive, thought-provoking, etc., which choices #2 and #3 do not pretend to be.

I was thinking recently that I doubt anyone "craves" the food at Schwa or Alinea -- you may enjoy the food immensely, but "satisfying a taste" is probably not why you go to eat at restaurants like these.

riddlemay wrote:If I'm talking about things that involve my taste buds, and only my taste buds, well, my taste buds don't have a mind. They only know how to taste. And left to their own devices, they might decide that the quest for satisfaction is a simpler one than my mind sometimes makes it out to be.

The problem here is that your taste buds can also deceive you. Food scientists have been able to manipulate the sodium and sugar content of food, without you perceiving the manipulation, for several decades. Consider High Fructose Corn Syrup. Your taste buds may really enjoy the "flavor" of HFCS but that doesn't mean it's good for you - especially in the high amounts we Americans consume it.

For me, taste reigns supreme but with a caveat - I would like to know what I'm eating. Fresh is better than frozen and way better than processed. Balance is also important - sweet, sour, bitter, salt - the complete dish/meal is well balanced and most of the time I can figure it out. Sometimes, a well trained chef (or cook) can put that ideal meal together for you to fully appreciate - that includes my mom/wife/me. It's taken me the better part of 15 years to learn enough about food to actually understand what to look for. My learning process seems to almost be a one-way street, meaning that once I sample the food as it's supposed to be, I rarely go back (I don't eat a lot of commercial "fast" food). I still have a way to go for sure but it's been a fun journey.

I think if you focus solely on taste, you miss a large part of the eating experience. The appearance of food, the smell, the texture, even sometimes the sound of food can enhance the eating experience. This is partly why blindfold tastings can be really misleading -- but also, as pointed out by tyrus -- we've had our tastebuds manipulated over the years. Food manufacturers have done lots of research on getting us to focus on only our tastebuds -- why McDonald's food tends to be overwhelmingly salty and sweet, for instance; it gives us an instant high and we sort of forget everything else about the food -- the lack of texture to the burger or the fact that the beef doesn't really taste like beef. Or that industrial canned vegetables tend to taste like "canned vegetables" and not the vegetable they are. If you're raised on this, then these foods please your tastebuds. (By way of example, I have a friend who was raised almost exclusively on processed foods (her Mom doesn't cook). If she is tasting something -- she prefers, by large margin -- salty foods because that's what she's used to. By paying attention more to the appearance of her food, though, and making more of an effort to eat quality, well-prepared food as an adult have been the means by which she is "re-training" her taste buds. Left to their own devices, they're deceptive.)

By including other senses in the eating experience, we take ourselves one step closer to true eating enjoyment.

All different topics here. The hamburger post quoted in the OP was more about putting up with food that's mediocre and/or not as advertised, without getting all fussed. I think there's really a point to that; life's too short. Enjoying simple, unpretentious food is different. I don't think there is a dilemma between that and enjoying cuisine. Everyone knows what it's like to have a hot pretzel on the street for lunch and experimental cooking for dinner. And then there is enjoying food that you know is kind of bad, like the bowl of cheap packaged ramen with all the fat and salt that just hits the spot that day.

As far as "fancy" cuisine, my opinion is that some people are born attracted to complex, layered flavors (or at least quickly become that way); some can develop a taste and some couldn't care less. My grandmother was a sophisticated cook. Some of her many grandchildren looked forward to her food and discussed it, others dutifully shoveled it in and others didn't eat a bite. Anthony Bourdain wrote about his oyster awakening as a kid in France. Some people don't need an awakening and for others it never comes. And that's fine.

I've enjoyed, and found illuminating, all the replies.

To put another dimension on this, my wife makes us delicious dinners, but her food would never be confused with Julia Child's. I say this knowing that she would not be insulted at all by the remark, since she has no intention to cook like Julia Child. She throws together healthy ingredients that she thinks are going to taste good together, and they do. Nevertheless, despite the casualness of her approach, I have found myself many a night thinking: "If the only things that remained the same here were me, her, and this plate of food, and you changed our surroundings from our kitchen table to the dining room of a fabulous restaurant, run by a famous chef, and this very dish I'm eating now had been described in menu prose that romanced all the components of the dish, and it had a price tag of $35, and I ordered it, right now I'd be raving about how amazing it is, and feeling that my $35 spent on the entree was justified." Yet the actual cost of ingredients might be $5.98 and her total time in preparation fifteen minutes. (Not including cooking time.) Noticing something like this causes one to wonder whether all the disposable income one has been pouring into restaurants has been well-spent.

Mind you, this doesn't cause us to go out to eat less. If we didn't enjoy dining out, I wouldn't be attracted to LTH. But it is a calculation that sometimes causes me to doubt the rationality of the practice! (While not discounting at all the importance of sparing her the labor of cooking, both of us enjoying dishes she wouldn't make, the celebratory routine-breaking, socializing with friends, all the non-strictly-taste-sensory things restaurants are good for.)

David Hammond wrote:Food enjoyment is a combination of a lot of things, and choice #1 (Michael Carlson/Graham Elliott Bowles/Grant Achatz/Rick Bayless) offers a more multidimensional experience than choices #2 or #3, which is not to say #2 and #3 don't please the buds, though that may be all they please (and that, of course, may be enough).

The pleasures of choice #1 are more cerebral (some of these chefs intend to "redefine dining"), and plates from at least the first four of these chefs can be ironic, witty, inventive, thought-provoking, etc., which choices #2 and #3 do not pretend to be.

I was thinking recently that I doubt anyone "craves" the food at Schwa or Alinea -- you may enjoy the food immensely, but "satisfying a taste" is probably not why you go to eat at restaurants like these.

The thing I wonder is whether the choices are - to an extent - mutually exclusive. Is it possible that people who seek and enjoy Schwa/ Alinea type places actually lose some of our ability to appreciate a fine, medium-rare burger for what it is? Are those of us who look at the "cerebral" side of eating as able as others to simply "please our buds"? I'm not sure, but I'm leaning toward thinking there is a degree of mutual exclusivity here. Some kind of left brain/ right brain stuff, where the more you develop the left, the more you lose on the right.

Kennyz wrote: The thing I wonder is whether the choices are - to an extent - mutually exclusive. Is it possible that people who seek and enjoy Schwa/ Alinea type places actually lose some of our ability to appreciate a fine, medium-rare burger for what it is? Are those of us who look at the "cerebral" side of eating as able as others to simply "please our buds"? I'm not sure, but I'm leaning toward thinking there is a degree of mutual exclusivity here. Some kind of left brain/ right brain stuff, where the more you develop the left, the more you lose on the right.

I'd like to think that the answer, at least for me, is no. I get pleasure from all sorts of food, but for different reasons. In Spain, we ate at Rafa's the night before we ate at el Bulli. These are two restaurant experiences that could not be more different. I was able to take away a fair amount of pleasure from each but for entirely different reasons.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is plenty of room in my brain to crave both a black truffle explosion and a steaming bowl of birria.

jesteinf wrote:

Kennyz wrote: The thing I wonder is whether the choices are - to an extent - mutually exclusive. Is it possible that people who seek and enjoy Schwa/ Alinea type places actually lose some of our ability to appreciate a fine, medium-rare burger for what it is? Are those of us who look at the "cerebral" side of eating as able as others to simply "please our buds"? I'm not sure, but I'm leaning toward thinking there is a degree of mutual exclusivity here. Some kind of left brain/ right brain stuff, where the more you develop the left, the more you lose on the right.

I'd like to think that the answer, at least for me, is no. I get pleasure from all sorts of food, but for different reasons. In Spain, we ate at Rafa's the night before we ate at el Bulli. These are two restaurant experiences that could not be more different. I was able to take away a fair amount of pleasure from each but for entirely different reasons.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is plenty of room in my brain to crave both a black truffle explosion and a steaming bowl of birria.

I hear you, and I think I'm much the same way. The bigger problem might be whether you can enjoy a middle-of-the-road bowl of birria once you've tasted the likes of Zaragoza. Or do you just sit there eating what's probably a perfectly tasty bowl of goat analyzing how they could have done this or that to make it better. Do you lose your ability to appreciate it for what it is. Same with things like out of season tomatoes. Are they really that bad? Probably not, but I've loathed almost every eating experience I've had when someone has tried to serve me one of those.

Then I guess the question is, why would you want to enjoy a middle of the road bowl of birria or an out of season tomato, or really mediocre anything. Obviously some of these things are pretty easy to avoid (I hardly ever get tomatoes on burgers or sandwiches because 99% of them are crap).

Sometimes, though, it's impossible. There are certainly times when we wind up at restaurants we'd rather not be at because someone else planned the dinner, or it's a big group celebration, or it's a work thing or whatever. Well, for one thing, it's just one meal so I can force myself not to dwell on how unhappy I might be. But even in the most mediocre of circumstances and surroundings there can be good to be found. Take Lloyd's in the loop as an example. I detest that place, but I end up there a fair amount because it's right next to my office and we have a fair number of work meals there. I avoid going as much as I can, but sometimes I just can't avoid it. So, when I'm forced to go, I will only order the seafood cobb salad. It's certainly not my favorite thing in the world to eat but it is actually pretty good and about a million times better than anything else I've eaten there.

jesteinf wrote:Then I guess the question is, why would you want to enjoy a middle of the road bowl of birria or an out of season tomato, or really mediocre anything...

You know, "if you can't be with the one you love, ..." For me, I want to get better at living in the moment, enjoying things for what they are rather than lamenting what they could be. I fear that all this talk and left-brain analysis of food makes it harder to do that. A "mediocre" bowl of birria is probably a really pleasurable thing in its own right, but people like us have a hard time recognizing that. My Fox & Obel burger wasn't half as good as a dozen other burgers I've had this year, but why should that stop me from enjoying, even savoring it for what it was? Maybe we all need a little more Pizzaboy in us.

Kennyz wrote:Maybe we all need a little more Pizzaboy in us.

Bite your tongue!

Kennyz wrote:A "mediocre" bowl of birria is probably a really pleasurable thing in its own right, but people like us have a hard time recognizing that. My Fox & Obel burger wasn't half as good as a dozen other burgers I've had this year, but why should that stop me from enjoying, even savoring it for what it was? Maybe we all need a little more Pizzaboy in us.

Kenny-

Are you going all soft on us? With all this philosophizing, pretty soon, I won't be able to distinguish your posts from riddlemay's.

Kennyz wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Food enjoyment is a combination of a lot of things, and choice #1 (Michael Carlson/Graham Elliott Bowles/Grant Achatz/Rick Bayless) offers a more multidimensional experience than choices #2 or #3, which is not to say #2 and #3 don't please the buds, though that may be all they please (and that, of course, may be enough).

The pleasures of choice #1 are more cerebral (some of these chefs intend to "redefine dining"), and plates from at least the first four of these chefs can be ironic, witty, inventive, thought-provoking, etc., which choices #2 and #3 do not pretend to be.

I was thinking recently that I doubt anyone "craves" the food at Schwa or Alinea -- you may enjoy the food immensely, but "satisfying a taste" is probably not why you go to eat at restaurants like these.

The thing I wonder is whether the choices are - to an extent - mutually exclusive. Is it possible that people who seek and enjoy Schwa/ Alinea type places actually lose some of our ability to appreciate a fine, medium-rare burger for what it is? Are those of us who look at the "cerebral" side of eating as able as others to simply "please our buds"? I'm not sure, but I'm leaning toward thinking there is a degree of mutual exclusivity here. Some kind of left brain/ right brain stuff, where the more you develop the left, the more you lose on the right.

I don't see it as an either/or equation.

Here's a quote from an email I got today from a guy I was meeting for lunch at Manny's:

"Anyone who would choose to spend 200+ bucks at a fancy place so they can get a plate with some colored foam in the middle that they call “molecular gastronomy”…over one of the sandwiches we’re going to eat today…is a total jackass."

The response I emailed back to him:

"May I have both, please?"

David Hammond wrote:I don't see it as an either/or equation.

Here's a quote from an email I got today from a guy I was meeting for lunch at Manny's:

"Anyone who would choose to spend 200+ bucks at a fancy place so they can get a plate with some colored foam in the middle that they call “molecular gastronomy”…over one of the sandwiches we’re going to eat today…is a total jackass."

The response I emailed back to him:

"May I have both, please?"

Well, sure, it's great to be able to have both when the whim strikes. But one thing that interests me (philosophically--heh) is that we tend to think there ought to be a correlation between cost/dearness/scarcity and pleasure. When, in fact, if it were possible to rank both the pastrami sandwich and the molecular whatever on the same pure pleasure scale as each other (I realize this can't be done, but it's a thought experiment, give me a break) the pastrami sandwich might get an 8.9 on a scale of 10 and the molecular whatever might only get a 7.2.