Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
Easy, I remember watching Winner defend lesbians being treated like shit on the Richard Littlejohn Show, he's got a heart of gold.
Nah it's a joke...
What is middle class cuisine?
- Thread starter northernhord
- Start date
Easy, I remember watching Winner defend lesbians being treated like shit on the Richard Littlejohn Show, he's got a heart of gold.
Nah it's a joke...
Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
I admire the underlying sentiment, but to me it'd be the coming out a few hundred quid short and feeling robbed. I also get the feeling that those types of restaurants are quite snobby with fellow diners on the judge train, enjoying that and being condescending to staff more than the food.
Every now and again we and a few chums have a table at a fave restaurant, you know the type where you become chums with the people working there, have a whole evening in there and for a dozen folk it rarely touches 200 quid. Each to their own maybe...
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
It depends on context, doesn't it? As has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread what's considered posh in the UK might be considered humdrum street food in its culture of origin. If I go to a good trattoria in Toronto and enjoy a well-prepared osso bucco I fully expect to pay more for it than if I were having it at a mom and pop establishment in rural Calabria. "Posh" is relative.
That's extreme. I make a fairly good living and I'd eat mud before sinking that kind of coin into a meal. I could, however, imagine a working-class couple going out for a special occasion and being perfectly able to justify spending half that. And for half that, they would most certainly be able to get a very nice meal in a good room. When I was working in such places, there was certainly no stigma attached to people sharing appetisers or desserts, or ordering the house wine by the half-litre in place of some exorbitant bottle from the wine menu.
Why?
I'd have thought that attitude was one of the working class's stronger attributes.
Where, maybe; but not necessarily what. You seem to have a rather odd opinion of the working class, not all of whom earn the minimum wage or live in housing tracts.
Some of the best home cooks I know are decidedly working class and can produce wonderful dishes with simple ingredients. A lot of the best restaurant food is costly, not so much because of the cost of the ingredients, but because of the expertise required to produce it. That's something anyone can acquire with a decent cookbook and a bit of trial and error.
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
I have to agree, at least in part. After some two decades of cheffing, I got out of the game in the mid-eighties, about the time culinary "decadence" began to be considered a positive attribute and "greed is good" typified the attitude of an increasingly large portion of the clientele.
All I ever wanted to do was to prepare superlative regional fare, using seasonal ingredients, organic whenever possible-- indeed, that's what bistro fare was meant to be. If the bottom-line price was higher than hash-house cookery, it was because the food warranted it, in terms of quality of ingredients, authenticity and skill of preparation.
Suddenly, it all became "nouvelle", where bizarre architectural presentation took precedence over quality, and child's portions, so arranged, were foisted on fat wallets and jaded palates as actual entrées. I figured the next wave of chic would have me preparing endangered species for these knobs.
Geri
wasn't born to follow
I've been to some quite expensive places with my work, and I don't feel very relaxed in them. It's quite daunting to be surrounded by posh people, sometimes the waiters can be quite condescending and I worry that I will make a hideous faux pas that will give away the fact that I'm not one of them.
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
I've never heard of a waiter behaving in a condescending manner within earshot of an owner or dining room manager without receiving a reprimand or being fired. Additionally, complaints about that sort of thing are taken very seriously in most rooms because restaurants rely largely on word-of-mouth for success-- it takes many good comments about a place to cancel out one bad one.
An attitude like that you describe is the hallmark of a bad server, one who's liable to sink a restaurant's reputation; but it's also a self-administered foot-bullet, because it will almost certainly sabotage the size of his gratuity. That alone makes it a rarity.
An attitude like that you describe is the hallmark of a bad server, one who's liable to sink a restaurant's reputation; but it's also a self-administered foot-bullet, because it will almost certainly sabotage the size of his gratuity. That alone makes it a rarity.
Indeed. Brigade chefs are not generally particularly posh. In fact I only knew of one guy in a London brigade who was pretty well-off and Oxbridge educated, and everyone else thought he was mental to do the kinds of hours chefs do when he had the choice to do something else!
King Biscuit Time
Well-Known Member
Doesn't matter what you eat, it's whether you have a cup of tea with it and bread and butter on the table, innit.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
...
Where, maybe; but not necessarily what. You seem to have a rather odd opinion of the working class, not all of whom earn the minimum wage or live in housing tracts.
...
Can't be arsed to make the same points again, but I have already mentioned that working class people in rural areas possibly eat as well as the upper class. They have access to the same resources and, in some circumstances, the person cooking for the upper class family go home and cook the same for their own family.
We obviously have a different idea about what working class is and how much disposable income they have. In my book £50 a head as a special treat (say twice a year) is not a middle class privilege. Middle class folk will possibly do that as often as twice a month.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
What is middle-class cuisine?
If they had it their way, probably a freshly-caught prole that had failed to meet workplace targets or had shown "disrespect" to their superiors.
If they had it their way, probably a freshly-caught prole that had failed to meet workplace targets or had shown "disrespect" to their superiors.
Cid
Proper break this time
That's as misguided a view of the middle class as any of the views of the working class... You might find people like that in the upper middle class. Errr... I'll distinguish a bit more, you might find yuppie types; ad execs, bank managers, stockbrokers, lawyers doing that, but the bulk of the middle classes are made up of low wage white collar workers with little job security. Even higher up the scale in that kind of work you're unlikely to see much decadence; middle-management positions aren't particularly stable. In fact upper working class; skilled labour like chippies, electricians, plumbers, good builders are often in a far better place at the moment (depending on location of course). I know very few people who'd think of spending that much except on special occasions (that's anecdotal, but then so are just about all the opinions on this thread).
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I think thats a gros generalisation. I am rural and do eat well, but I was born and bred from Salfordian parents who can cook (well, my mother can anyway). I don't think an ability to cook your tea using proper ingredients has anything to do with class, intrinsically, which is why I find the lazy working class/ready meals generalisations so objectionable.
It also depends what you mean by eating 'well' - the chap in the big Georgian house on to of the hill (probably not my closest neighbour, but almost certainly one of the wealthier ones) can afford much more expensive ingredients/booze than I can, and probably spends a fair whack on them. However, I reckon I eat just as 'well', if not better from my homegrown (and market bought) veg, eggs and edible vermin that I 'aquire'. My home cookery may not be that 'exotic' (although, for the ammount you see it eaten these days, one could argue that the once mundane rabbit is now somewhat 'exotic'), but its certainly wholesome.
northernhord
Active Member
I see this simmering Neopolitan basil and anya potato ragout is still simmering in the pot
Bin the bastard I say, bin it now
Bin the bastard I say, bin it now
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I see this simmering Neopolitan basil and anya potato ragout is still simmering in the pot
Bin the bastard I say, bin it now
Thats posh tater'ash!
