Spices, Indian Cuisine, and Restaurant Critique · 11:29am Jun 18th, 2016
Last week we got to mix ponies with Indian food. A combination which can only work well. It’s nice to learn that our little equines’ diet is more varied than apples, oats, cupcakes, and hay fries.
The most important ingredient of Indian cuisine—or its Equestrian equivalent—is spices: cinnamon, coriander, turmeric, black pepper, cumin, ginger, saffron… The list goes on. Such ingredients were easy to come by in the Indian sub-continent, but for most of history, were exotic and highly valued in Europe. Hence the economic motivation for the era of exploitation colonialism, where the English, French and Dutch armies brutally fought one another, and native populations, in the quest for decent food flavouring.
But it is not just ingredients which are different in the East. It seems there is an entirely different philosophy on how to combine them. While traditional Northern European cooking seeks out complementary flavours. Indian dishes combine contrasting flavour—sweet and sour. By western standards, it breaks the rules.
In an interesting attempt to conduct a systematic analysis, a team of researchers from Rajasthan analysed the ingredients list of 2543 recipes on an Indian website, giving a numerical score to assess the overlap of flavour profiles. The ‘positive food pairing hypothesis’ is that “ingredients sharing flavor compounds are more likely to taste well together than ingredients that do not”. At least that’s the theory behind Northern European and American food. Indian cuisine is, however, “characterized with strong negative food pairing”. In other words, according to this rule book, it’s a worse combination than just throwing ingredients together at random.
This article: How Snobbery Helped Take The Spice Out Of European Cooking gives a theory about how this difference evolved. As the price of spices in Europe fell, more and more people could afford to add these exotic flavours to their food. The elite aristocracy in seventeenth century France needed another way to distinguish their superior status, so instead of lacing their meals with spices, they moved to a more ‘aethetic theory of taste’, with a nuanced layering of flavours. Seeking condiments to bring out the existing flavour of meat instead of adding something new.
And that’s how French gastronomy was made. As a theory, it should probably be taken with a pinch of curry powder, as there were many other factors which influenced the evolution of European cooking. The popularity of Indian restaurants in the west suggests that this cultural divide is not due to any fundamental difference between European and Asian taste buds. There is more than one way to make a great meal. And in our modern multicultural society we can enjoy them all.
But when discerning critics come to review restaurants, they inevitably have their own prejudices, fine-tuned by a lifetime of fine dining in a particular niche. With the character of Zesty Gourmand, was Michael Vogel trying to make a point about the Michelin Guide? Whose award of the coveted Three Stars to the meilleures tables, may show a certain favouritism towards French cuisine.
Perhaps there is also a message here for how we treat fanfiction reviews?
Huh. That's an interesting way to look at it, and it fits very well with the theme of the episode.
Its like Peer Reviewed journals when trying to combine otherwise disparate lines of research and reasoning? This is how it is and how it shall be because it is stated so in the good guide?
Except in The Guide 2, Everything is up for grabs.
Except Baked Bads.
¡You can find science in every Episode!
Just a reminder, but it is TauWeek, and as always, TauDay falls on YYYYY-06-28.
I love learning random new things in Pineta Posts.
Ironically, I hadn't considered how much personal tastes might be impacted by culture and thus impact restaurant reviews. It must be pretty dang hard to objectively call any one restaurant the best ever, when the goal posts can vary in position so wildly.
As someone who has had their fics snubbed by a few tastemaker groups and accepted by another, only to see the positions reversed for some of my friends' fics, I can definitely attest to the importance of personal tastes in our various review processes.
Physics as applied to Food by Pineta. I give this review three horseshoes. I loved the see-saw approach they took to this story:
Rarity and Pinkie Pie go to the big city!
All the food sucks
They find a restaurant that serves delicious food!
It's going out of business.
They each go out and do their Friendship thing to bring ponies to the restaurant!
The good food and atmosphere is gone, replaced by the exact bad food and plastic surroundings.
They recognize their mistake and each take a different role!
Success! And theme song.
By coincidence, there's a post in the Writers Group right now that asks, "What makes good comedy?" Right away, it depends on what you mean by 'good,' much as this episode defines the term.
If you're interested in the economics of food.... Quite a lot of interesting history and discussion of why cuisines change over time in style and quality.
Also a blog, for example, avoid lines, favor empty restaurants.
Was anyone else disturbed by Pinkie's manner of eating in this episode? Not necessarily the technique, but how long her face was schlurping the comestibles.
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I was (involuntarily) picturing the way an octopus eats.
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Yeah, I can see that. Seemed a bit too much like the facehugger from Alien to me. After the first few seconds I was like, "OK, get it off. Get it off! GET IT OFF!"
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Don't get me onto the difficulties of publishing cross-disciplinary research papers...
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I'll do something for tau day - promise - assuming I have recovered from the fallout following the European referendum.
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Yeah, reviewers do like to make their opinions sound like an objective assessment, but the reality is there is no agreement on what is good or bad fiction, and it does come down to personal taste.
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"What is good comedy?" may be a complicated question for writers, but for stand-up comedians it's obvious: good comedy is what makes the audience laugh so hard they give themselves stitches.
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That looks interesting, thanks for the recommendation. Concerning empty restaurants. I remember when I was in Italy there were always a few places which never seemed to have any customers, and the advice was don't try to eat there - they're just a front to launder money for the local crime families.
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And Pinkie could just as easily pick up food with her tongue, or hold cutlery or chopsticks in her mane, but this is evidently the way to really savour the flavour.