Trotters: The sociological implications of fine dining

I've been waiting months now to do my report on Charlie Trotters. Two friends from out of town, along with Cathy, joined me at the kitchen table way back in fall. I just got a writeup in the Oregonian so I need to wait a couple days to put up my blog entry, but both of my friends have put up theirs (finally).

See here:

http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2005/03/my ... -part.html

and here:

http://www.dallasfood.org/modules.php?n ... cle&sid=26


The first one is written by a friend who is a political philosophy professor. He writes:

In George Orwell's fantastic Down and Out in Paris and London, he talked about how he worked as a plongeur (a dishwasher and general errand-boy) for a just-opened restaurant in Paris. His workday was hell, and the conditions in the kitchen were worse.

....

Orwell then went on to talk about rickshaws, and the people and ponies who carry them. The animals are driven until their death, and then shipped off to the knacker; the men run themselves ragged, "earn thirty or forty rupees a month, and cough their lungs out after a few years." And for what? The luxury of riding in a rickshaw--usually an uncomfortable and even slow ride--is hardly great; it only exists because the upper classes (or those who wish to pose as such) of south and east Asia long considered it vulgar to walk. "They afford a small amount of convenience," Orwell wrote, "which cannot possibly balance the suffering of the men and animals. Similarly with the plongeur....He is the slave of a hotel or restaurant, and his slavery is more or less useless. For, after all, what is the real need of big hotels and smart restaurants? They are supposed to provide luxury, but in reality they provide only a cheap, shoddy imitation of it....Some restaurants are better than others, but it is impossible to get as good a meal in a restaurant as one can get...in a private house....Essentially, a 'smart' hotel is a place where a hundred people toil like devils in order that two hundred may pay through the nose for things they do not really want."

....

Orwell ended Down and Out by resolving, among other things, to never again "enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant." "That," he concluded," is the beginning." He may be right to think so; maybe the complicating costs and distractions of pursuing great food in even as careful and admirable an environment as Charlie Trotter's just can't be justified. I'm not sure. I know that the artistry of food doesn't call to me the way it calls to so many others, and I'm fine with that. As with most every act of cultural consumption, the gains have to be weighed against what that cultural practice depends upon, and what it encourages. It'd probably be much, much better if all of us stuck with eating simply and humbly. But for those who want a good honest show, if only once, I know a great place in Chicago I'd recommend in a heartbeat.

The second link responds:

In a way, Trotter's is the liberal ideal of a restaurant--a small chef-owned place that creates good full-time jobs and uses environmentally respectful ingredients to prepare brilliant, healthy food. (Mr. Trotter also gives back to the community in a number of laudable ways.) It's the antithesis of the usual whipping boy--the vast, international chain that abuses its part-time employees, tramples the environment, is an eyesore on the street, and peddles ungainly servings of unhealthy, unpalatable junk food, creating a health epidemic among the poor who are only able to afford the stuff because of its low cost (due to the aforementioned exploitation). But there's a fly in the ointment. A serpent in the Garden. Trotter's is expensive.

The irony is that the lack of exploitation--both human and animal--is a significant contributing factor to the high price of the meal. And the demands and expectations of the clientele are a driving factor in the lack of exploitation. This is especially true on the animal side. The desire for organic, natural, humanely treated, locally sourced, independently owned small farm/ranch foodstuffs is a disproportionately upper class concern. Poorer people are, in general, far more interested in the price of a dead chicken than in its genetics, chemical makeup, and provenance. The price tag at Trotter's buys happy chickens that run free, eat organic heirloom corn, and don't have their bills clipped. The price tag buys the efforts of happy, hard-working, talented kitchen and wait staff. If the price is too high, one can always make trade-offs in quality or release the ethical/ideological thumb cuffs. The question of exploitation, therefore, seems much more natural with a mid-priced or inexpensive restaurant.

....

Being mindful, aware, and appreciative of food, birds, architecture, etc., is a form of uniquely human care. It is a recognition of beauty in the quotidian. Is that kind of mindfulness strictly necessary? No. But is it worth it? Certainly, to those who feel the call. To others, the pursuit of a passion--whether it be great barbecue, birds, a career in acting, music, or an obscure niche in academia--will seem quirky or perhaps even destructive.

I'll have my report up in a day or so, but won't be quite so philosophical. I do think both entries are fairly provacative, however, and raise some good points. When is luxury art, something soothing or inspiring to the soul, and when is it just vanity or excess? Can a person who lives in the city and drives an SUV make the same claims as someone who eats haute cuisine or buys an expensive piece of art?

Much to chew on, ha-ha, but one question I would pose to your friend is how he knows that Charlie Trotter provides "good full-time jobs." Is that an assumption based on the fanciness of the place, or does he actually know what Trotter's employment policies are? Perhaps your friend is in fact knowledgeable about this, and I'm not suggesting that I am. But I wouldn't assume that high-end places necessarily provide better for their employees, as least in terms of percentage of profit. And it's sometimes true that the wait staff may do okay financially in expensive establishments (though I'd wonder about their benefits), but the busboys usually still get sub-minimum wages and work like dogs. (Again, maybe your friend knows the specifics at Trotter's -- I don't.) But that's one way in which the enjoyment of a restaurant meal differs from the enjoyment of great fine art. The unheralded labor of many goes into the production of our food, from migrant workers who pick the crops to the meat packers who risk life and limb in dangerous plants to the dishwashers sweating unseen in the kitchen. Some of this came to the fore a while back when Rick Bayless had his brief run as Burger King spokesman -- though most were appalled that such a champion of local, organic produce would shill for fast food, a few pointed out that his great affection for all things Mexican wasn't a good fit with an industry that so exploits migrant workers from south of the border -- some of whom were then endeavoring to organize in the tomato fields in Florida, where Burger King got its supplies. Now of course the issue of hidden labor is true whatever the tab for our restaurant meals, but folks like Bayless and Trotter have more power to draw attention to these issues than do the folks who run the neighborhood tacqueria -- and I'd wager that what would keep Orwell away from the smart places of our day would be the vast gulf between the income earned by our celebrity chefs and those toiling in the fields and factories. Does it mean we should never go to such places? I don't know. But should those of us who love food think more about the people that make it possible for us to enjoy it? Probably.

Some really good, deep points brought up by this post, Extramsg, one which will hopefully stimulate some brisk discussion about the culture of dining and the various implications of food, ritual, and art versus craft. I'll start by offering some random thoughts (hmm, a weekly column, anyone out there reading this? The Rabbi's Random Ruminations . . .)

Well, let me start by saying I'm not, and never have been, necessarily opposed to places like Trotter's (or Moto, or ADNY, or French Laundry, or fill in the blank with $100+ per person/chi-chi dining "experience" here). Such places have been around for a long time (though the cuisine has changed quite a bit, going radically in standards over the years from supper club/4 seasons "continental" dishes like Lobster Thermador, Beef Wellington, Duck a L'orange and Baked Alaska to the fusion/small plate/reduction/minimalist/savory dessert and sweet main course world we find today as the height of fine dining) and have usually been countered by the mom-and-pop luncheonette or neighborhood diner, or, for those of us lucky enough to be raised in such environments, the seductive draw of the authentic ethnic eatery (which serves a similar function within the ethnic and immigrant groups of a chosen community, eg, a Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Havana, etc...).
As that famous chef Theodor Adorno pointed out, standards do not exist in a vacuum. One can only claim to be "counterculture", for example, if there is a culture to counter in the first place. Likewise, we can really only appreciate the value and simple goodness of a meal at Hon Kee, Marianao, or LTH if there is a standard (or several levels of standards) which contrast with the expectations and limitations of such humble establishments (indeed, the "Little" in LTH makes this point much more clearly by its usage alone. By the way, Adorno was a great chef, reckoned to make the best chicken chow mein of anyone in the Frankfurt School. He wouldn't butcher the chicken, but rather show it the historical inevitability of its being slaughtered and cooked, and the chicken would invariably accept this thesis and give itself to Adorno's dinner. Unbelievably succulent.) The fact that such restaurants like Trotter's exist is almost an historical inevitability in and of itself. People can (and do) pay $60,000 for a Mercedes or Jaguar while a $15,000 Honda or Ford would more than adequately do the same function; People can (and do) pay upwards of $1500 a month in rent or $250,000 in purchase price for a condo in Lakeview or Lincoln Park (which come with such sturdy porches, too... ahem....) while a residence of equal or larger size with similar amenities would cost them half as much just a couple of miles away; Some people just couldn't imagine flying across the country or to another continent without paying $4000 (as opposed to $500) for a first-class ticket, when, really, every seat is going to the same place and, if you're smart, you're going to have a Xanax or three and a couple of vodka tonics and sleep through the fucking flight anyway.
The point is, market forces, capitalism, disposable incomes, whatever you want to call it (I just call it "money" and move on) have created the perceived desire for restaurants on the highest level possible, which take only the finest, most delicate ingredients and shape them into a presentation of food which aspires to be art, or at least craft at its highest possible level of expression. Really, whether the desire is perceived or not is of little importance - the 4 month waiting list for Trotter's (or however long it is) is concrete proof enough of the desire for such meals. And, really, I have no qualms about indulging periodically in luxury - like Sir Hillary said, "because it's there." I don't have the pockets deep enough to allow me to dine at Tru or Trotter's or Everest or whatever more than a few times a year, and, for that fact, I'm more glad than anything. Just like there's no point in trying to stop a drug addict with access to lots of cash, the rich people in this country who also happen to like fine food (the two seem to go hand in hand) have the world at their fingertips. Maybe the real appreciation of something truly special like a meal at Trotter's (and, for all of my proletarian roots, I do believe that top-end restaurants offer food which is, well, just better, more sensual, and tastier than most kitchens can produce. Of course, I am also not blind to the fact that the $100+ price tag and social cachet of such name establishments subtly leads the mind to believe it is eating the best papyrus-wrapped hot stone roasted squab in a bing cherry, walnut and tobiko sauce with white asparagus tokaj ginger caramel reduction topped with pumpkin, golden raisin and balsamic foamed glaze possible) can only come if one eats humbly and for sustenance and basic good taste (as I think most of us on this board do) most of the time. Just as flying first class once or twice in a lifetime, buying the occasional expensive piece of clothing, indulging in really good drugs or alcohol on holidays or birthdays, and so on are treats which cannot (for monetary reasons) and should not (for the fact that they lose their power through familiarity) be taken in all the time, a fancy meal should be savored, enjoyed, and remembered fondly. Of course, this is not to put down the simple pleasures - that is what they should be - simple, but pleasures nonetheless. They remain pleasures by enjoying the sustenance, warmth, and connection with the earth and with other people that they give us and are simple because they are common and inexpensive. But (and this is what I think Orwell was driving at when he talked about what a home cooked meal can accomplish that a fancy restaurant can never do) it is the care and context of such things, especially food, that are as enjoyable as the items themselves. The piece of shit, 3rd generation station wagon that you lose your virginity in means a whole hell of a lot more than the $65K Porsche you buy when you're trying to recapture your youth. Likewise, the hot bowl of simple noodle soup served up by a friendly face in a quiet Vietnamese cafe on a 20 below night in January has got to be at least as satisfying (if you've got ANY soul, that is) as the 9 course, $150 degustation at Bistro Frou Frou. As long as we know that what we do when we go spend such money on a meal is a once in while indulgence (which, I think, offers a level of food unavailable at home or in any other kind of environment) and not a statement of some sort of lifestyle, we're gonna be OK. Until then, give me line caught reductions, hand harvested glazes, and free range foams, and $2 tacos al pastor and big, heaping portions of beef and chinese broccoli with rice noodles (extra crisp, if you please.) Rebbe over and out.

Well said hungryrabbi.

To me, a meal is a meal. A car is a car and a house is a house. Now if I feel that anyone involved in selling me those meals, cars, or houses is in some way doing 'things' (whatever things might be) that I strongly object to than I won't buy whatever product they are selling. If I object strongly enough I may even try to influence others to also not buy. But the price of the meal/car/house won't be my divining rod as to whether I should or shouldn't consider evaluating their societal and ethical mores. Whether it's Chez Frou specializing in serving near-endangered species or Harry's Hot Dog Hut that also sponsors the weekly meetings of the Aryan Brotherhood - I'm not going to be there. I pass the same judgements on every other line of business I might have need to use, food or otherwise.

And although this started out as a discussion on Trotter's it would seem, at least to me, that Charlie is now tangential to the thread and I wonder if this might be more appropriate for the Not About Food section? It certainly is quickly veering out of the normal realm of Eating Out in Chicagoland.

This discussion is a lot like one a few months ago in the New York Times. There was a restaurant review for Masa, a small Japanese restaurant in the new Time Warner center that charges a prix fixe dinner of $350pp for uniquely created meals determined by the chef, dolled out in miniscule bites, and stretched over 3 hours. There was quite an uproar similar to the points raised here about people spending $350 for dinner when so many people are without food in the world. And the food editor responded with many of the same points raised above, with luxuries such as expensive automobiles, mansions, art, so why not dinner? What is so taboo about food that people should not be able to spend ridiculous amounts of money on dinner?

I tend to agree with the food editor. If people want to spend money on a restaurant rather than on a bigger car, a bigger house, more jewelry, better fashion, I can understand that, and might choose to do the same. If everyone spent their money on eating out in great restaurants, I think that would generally be a good thing, and would the abundance and richness of food for everyone. I don't buy into the theory of a good piece of bread for me means a piece taken out of the hands of someone else who needs it more.

What a stimulating thread -- full of thought and vigor, accented with rabbinical whimsy, largely free of navel gazing and intellectual auto-eroticism and (so far) entirely free of rancor.

To an earlier question/point: I beleive that Trotter's personal commitment to doing well by his staff (providing real skills and training, and internships for disadvantaged young people, not just minimunm wage scut work) has been well documented.

Coming from a family of depression-era, east coast liberal Jewish intellectuals, I have long wrestled with all these questions, trying to maintain the proper allocation of guilt in my moral portfolio. (The classic mix for a middle-aged person who doesn't expect to meet his maker for 30 years is:
* Vague unease about one's own small extravagances - 35%,
* Twinges of moral superiority over others' small extravagances - 15%
* Revulsion at the very existence of Le Bernardin - 5%
* Self-satisfaction at truly enjoying noodles in an ethnic storefront surrounded by people of another culture - 30%
* Secret pleasure in 3-star meals (only to celebrate someone else's good fortune and on the university's or publisher's dime) - 5%
* Shame over the plight of penned veal calves and caged chickens - 9%
* Thoughts that having the capacity for moral choice requires one to become a vegetarian - 1%

As I matured into an increasingly ravenous hound, I became less and less concerned about the moral implications of an expensive bottle of wine or meal at The Dining Room. (Especially as the problem only rears its head about once per decade.) However, I have to be careful when entertaining my mother, because if the place we go to is too swank, or the entree prices cross a certain line - her ability to enjoy will be crippled.

As far as Orwell goes, I simply don't look to a mid-century Brit. for insight into food, period. Politics and economics, yes. But the pleasures of the table, not so much. (Though I assume we could agree on the combination of virtue and pleasure to be had in a nice bowl of ice cream at a Ben & Jerry's.)

Regarding Masa in NY, did anyone see the New Yorker humor piece devoted to a satirical account of a meal there a couple of weeks ago. Pretty funny, I thought.

Ditto the cartoon on pg. 65 of the current issue. Find a copy and chuckle.

mrbarolo wrote:Regarding Masa in NY, did anyone see the New Yorker humor piece devoted to a satirical account of a meal there a couple of weeks ago. Pretty funny, I thought.

The piece is available online here in its entirety.

This is a very important thread. Thank you for Extramsg for starting it.

As those who shared our meal at Moto know, I treasure going to those restaurants in which the chef explicitly treats the food as an art form. Many restaurants produce delicious and satisfying meals, but how many meals have "theory" as associated with them (the criteria that Arthur Danto and Tom Wolfe, among others speak of - pro or con - as being crucial for artistic accomplishment).

I am looking for ideas and memories in the great meals of my life. And it was this that made the dinner at Moto so important for me (both the remarkable dishes and those that didn't work). I still muse about meals from thirty years ago. Taste alone, some ethnic meals would be included in the best meals of my life, but the chefs typically see food as food, rather than as ideas. I imagine in this I differ from some on the list (and it is one reason why I found my first dinner at Arun's so impressive).

What makes a great meal:

1) the sensory qualities of the food (and drink),
2) the impressions of the restaurant setting,
3) my fellow dinnermates (and the community that is created and strengthened through the act of dining),
4) the location of the restaurant within a community (one comes to know and understand the lifeblood of a community by dining at a restaurant and coming to know its community - following advice on LTH has made me better understand this city - I had never been to Little Village before joining this board),
and 5) the ideas that the food provokes and the way that I as a dinner chew on these ideas..

The economic/political issues of the restaurant industry are not trivial and deserve more discussion as well. The restaurant industry is one of the main employers of the developmentally delayed and of the undocumented. And it is one of those industries that are most affected by changes in minimum wage legislation. All these are important issues, which do and should challenge our decisions of where and what to eat.

If there is any interest on the part of members of the list in discussing these issues in a format that permits face-to-face dialogue, either PM me or respond, and if there is enough interest I will try to arrange something.

Two anecdotes to which I will attach excessive importance in devising my entire worldview:

A friend went to Cuba. He ordered a Cuban sandwich, having some idea of what it should be like from having eaten at Cafeteria Marianao, for one. As he put it later, "They took something that was sort of like really, really cheap ham, and something that was sort of like really, really cheap cheese, and fried it between something that was sort of like really, really cheap bread. It tasted like socialism."

At Alain Ducasse in Paris, in 1998, my wife and I were seated next to an older American couple-- I think we were all probably shoved in the Americans room, though that assumes there were French people eating in the other room, which may not be true given the fact that the French apparently now eat like Americans, only Americans eat like the French-- who ate the meal with such ennui, such joylessness, such a sense of duty that when one is in Paris one must eat at Ducasse because that is where people like us eat in Paris, that it sucked much of the fun out of a meal that cost a still-record $700 or so for the two of us at a time when the dollar was strongish, and that was ordering some of the cheaper wine in the place (I remember thinking that they had some really reasonable Bordeaux at 450.00 FF... then I realized that that was 45,000 FF). The punchline was that there was a strike that night in Paris (but I repeat myself) and so when they tried to get a limo to take them back to the Ritz, there were none, that is, it was explained to them but apparently beyond their comprehension for some minutes, madame, monsieur, even if I were to make a limo appear magically out of this brioche, with the strike where could it drive? (We went straight from Ducasse into the Metro, and were home in twenty minutes for three bucks.) Their boredom made me think of Huysmans, the great complainer of French literature, who spent the late 19th century doing nothing but whoring and dining in Paris cafes and coming in to his government job at noon and still found no reason to be the least bit satisfied with the living hell he was forced to endure; their inability to consider anything but the highest level of luxury suitable to their station in life made me think of that French king who died because he was seated too close to the fire and no one answered the bell to come move his chair a foot.

What profound conclusions do I draw from these irreplaceable anecdotes?

1) The macro point: Communism sucks. Only when a society is free enough economically that some people can drive Cadillac El Dorados with gold rims and zebra-leather seats and Quadraphonic sound does the proletariat get something better than a Trabant after eight years on the waiting list. A market for excellence at the top keeps overall quality up.

2) The micro point: Luxury without deprivation is no longer luxury. (As Fidel, one of the world's richest men, knows all too well-- he will never enjoy what you and I can easily experience, the simple taste of a true Cuban cigar after years of embargo.) America, capitalism, industrial society has made it possible for a Connecticut stockbroker and his wife to enjoy the pleasure of kings at Alain Ducasse, but it cannot guarantee that once there, they will actually know that pleasure when it hits them in the tastebuds. Is there any phrase in any legal document more knowing and poignant about the human condition than Jefferson saying that we are guaranteed the pursuit of happiness-- not its capture?

So here's to rare and wondrous pleasures, had rarely enough to be wondrous. They are a good in and of themselves, and justify the lesser sins committed in their creation.

So here's to rare and wondrous pleasures, had rarely enough to be wondrous. They are a good in and of themselves, and justify the lesser sins committed in their creation.[/quote]

Well, yes and no. Sometimes the lesser sins are inexcusable, like the needless slaughter it requires to create fur coats, ivory chess sets, and the like. I never thought I'd fall into the camp that debates such things (not to mention take the side of PETA/animal activists) but, to me, there is a difference between raising food for eating (be it free range ostrich or factory-farmed, swimming in its own shit chicken) and killing animals so a few rich fucks can take delight in material goods which, really, serve no ends other than luxury itself. I refer you to David Cross' hilarious stand-up bit about his outing to Jean-Georges and his mental breakdown of the process and journey required to make the bit of edible gold leaf that adorned the dessert of his $175 meal.

Reb

I've been thinking about this a couple days. With a minor in economics and being a computer programmer, I tend to think economically. It's first a question of opportunity costs for me, I think. You can't just talk about necessities. We could live on vitamins and nasty-tasting protein shakes much cheaper and efficiently than just about anything we actually do and want to eat. But what do we give up and what do we gain? There is something meaningful about the quality of our lives that we gain from art, music, entertainment, and even well-prepared food. This is the beginning of a response to the liberal/progressive guilt about haute cuisine.

But the conservative critique of this position has to temper itself to avoid the broken window fallacy (the idea that just because there is gain or merely a transfer as a result of some activity that that activity must be good or not bad). Add to this the problem of diminishing returns. What you get is that at some point, haute cuisine just becomes excess. The quality and meaning to your life that were added are outweighed by the opportunity costs associated with that dining activity. Trying to find some equilibrium is the tricky part, but once people agree that there needs to be balance, then you can set out arguing about what is truly excess.

This is just my first out-loud hashing of my response, but it contains the gist and gets past the problem of a problematic either/or (either life as an ascetic or life as a hedonist).

Extramsg,

There's nothing wrong with your, or anyone else's, particular guilt stemming from indulging in excess or luxury from time to time. To me, that shows only a sensitivity and thoughtfulness about the world, or, at the very least, about the fact that the very nature of the existence of luxurious, high-ticket items (food, cars, clothes, travel, etc..) necessarily excludes a certain number of the general populace from ever experiencing them. And, being a Jew, I could never truly enjoy something without a touch of guilt anyway (paging Portnoy, paging Mr. Portnoy, please pick up the white courtesy phone. You never call, Mr. Portnoy, what, you can't find 5 minutes to pick up the white courtesy phone...?)

I always like to go to Oscar Wilde in such matters: "Everything in moderation, including moderation." Letting go, being hedonistic, indulging all 5 senses, spending/eating/drinking/snorting/gambling/screwing too much can be wonderful, but, like I've said earlier, is best enjoyed as a once-in-a-while pleasure, not as a lifestyle. Familiarity breeds contempt, and doing such things all the time would quickly become boring (much like Mike G's description of the rich folks at Ducasse, slurping down their $1000 dinners in between yawns.) For the rest of us, it is a gray area, much like life itself. Asceticism, unless you're truly prepared to go all the way and carry a sieve to strain the insects out of your drinking water or move to that charming one room shack in the woods, ain't in the cards for most of us; nor is jet-setting to Aruba, Palm Beach, and Paris and only dining on food with at least one out-of-reach ingredient in it ("by itself, the cheesecake was just average, but the touch of Madagascar vanilla and fresh grated Balinese cardomom made it wonderful..."). So, enjoy it while you can, help others to do the same, and, damn it, keep some perspective. It'll all be OK, I promise.

Reb