rant: fine dining

[IMADreamer]

I've eaten Panera bread once. Never again. Expensive, [expletive] food.

[ghostrunner]

My butcher does marinating and prep on steak he sells so you just walk in tell him how many you want go home and cook it. It's the best steak I've ever had. Of course he sells them unprepped as well but why would I when it's barely more expensive.

As for fine dining, well I'm the guy that thinks Kraft singles are a splurge item so as you can imagine I don't do much of that. I stick to places like on that Dinners and Drives show with Guy what's his face. I like mom and pop greasy spoon type stuff.

It wasn't that many years ago that it would have been sort of silly for farm people to go eat fine dining since they got pretty fine meals at home. At this point I think rural people including most farm people eat the same [expletive] food as the rest of the general population.

I'm not sure I'd call those meals fine in my experience. I have a few farmer relatives, as does my wife. The food was sometimes delicious, but I don't know that I'd have called it fine. Basically chicken, potatoes, and green beans. Ham, potatoes, and green beans. Lots of greasy/buttery food for dinner and for dessert lots of cake or pie.

[lukethedrifter]

Historically, I'm talking about. You were probably eating in the transition to [expletive] food era. Classical French cooking is country food.

[jim]

My butcher does marinating and prep on steak he sells so you just walk in tell him how many you want go home and cook it. It's the best steak I've ever had. Of course he sells them unprepped as well but why would I when it's barely more expensive.

As for fine dining, well I'm the guy that thinks Kraft singles are a splurge item so as you can imagine I don't do much of that. I stick to places like on that Dinners and Drives show with Guy what's his face. I like mom and pop greasy spoon type stuff.

It wasn't that many years ago that it would have been sort of silly for farm people to go eat fine dining since they got pretty fine meals at home. At this point I think rural people including most farm people eat the same [expletive] food as the rest of the general population.

I'm not sure I'd call those meals fine in my experience. I have a few farmer relatives, as does my wife. The food was sometimes delicious, but I don't know that I'd have called it fine. Basically chicken, potatoes, and green beans. Ham, potatoes, and green beans. Lots of greasy/buttery food for dinner and for dessert lots of cake or pie.

Mmmm. Pie.

My Dad's aunt (farmers) used to make the worst damn meals and the best damn pies I've ever had. She fried everything in a skillet. I remember suffering through a few bites of cheap cuts of meat fried in a skillet with some creamed corn so that I can have at that Lemon Meringue and/or Cherry pie.

[Freed Roger]

a little satire dinner of the locavore trend - Oakland CA:
http://midlifebatmitzvah.wordpress.com/ ... vorus-rex/

More Local Than You’ll Ever Be

- All ingredients sourced from

within 500 feet of your dining table -

Starters

Down-home mushroom soup

Fresh Oakland tap water flavored with home-grown thyme, rosemary, and organic tinea pedis harvested from the chef’s own fair-trade running shoes.

Escargots

Garden snails marinated in the locally-brewed beer in which they drowned, then sauteed in butter from Flossie, the grass-fed cow whom we stable in the ladies’ room.

Mains

City squab

Using lead-free shot, our maitre d’ will cull your own personalized pigeon from the plaza in front of the BART station. Served on a bed of wilted dandelion greens from our own backyard.

Blackened carp

Raised in the bathtub, just like Bubbie did in the old country. Then blackened Cajun-style over an open fire fueled by patties from Flossie.

Mixed grill

Gerbil, hamster, guinea pig or chihuahua, depending on which of our neighbors are on vacation. Vegetarian option available.

Desserts

Strawberry sundae (seasonal)

Lemon ice cream made from Flossie’s milk and our own Meyer lemons, topped with a fragment of one strawberry. Size of fragment depends on number of patrons ordering this dessert, and whether we have harvested one or two strawberries that day.

Poches de maison (“House pockets”)

What sweets can the chef find in patrons’ pockets? This delightful dessert varies with the day’s harvest – one day it may be a compote of cherry throat lozenges and Tic Tacs, another a napoleon of half-eaten Clif Bar layered with Bazookas and glazed with Robitussin.

Oakland brownies

A cure for whatever ails you, from our in-house medicinal marijuana greenhouse. Note: Brownies contain no flour, sugar or chocolate since we have not yet managed to source these ingredients within our 500-foot foodshed. Physician’s note required

[IMADreamer]

My butcher does marinating and prep on steak he sells so you just walk in tell him how many you want go home and cook it. It's the best steak I've ever had. Of course he sells them unprepped as well but why would I when it's barely more expensive.

As for fine dining, well I'm the guy that thinks Kraft singles are a splurge item so as you can imagine I don't do much of that. I stick to places like on that Dinners and Drives show with Guy what's his face. I like mom and pop greasy spoon type stuff.

It wasn't that many years ago that it would have been sort of silly for farm people to go eat fine dining since they got pretty fine meals at home. At this point I think rural people including most farm people eat the same [expletive] food as the rest of the general population.

I'm not sure I'd call those meals fine in my experience. I have a few farmer relatives, as does my wife. The food was sometimes delicious, but I don't know that I'd have called it fine. Basically chicken, potatoes, and green beans. Ham, potatoes, and green beans. Lots of greasy/buttery food for dinner and for dessert lots of cake or pie.

Mmmm. Pie.

My Dad's aunt (farmers) used to make the worst damn meals and the best damn pies I've ever had. She fried everything in a skillet. I remember suffering through a few bites of cheap cuts of meat fried in a skillet with some creamed corn so that I can have at that Lemon Meringue and/or Cherry pie.

My Grandma wasn't much on pies but she made awesome home made ice cream. She would sometimes make this Cinnamon crusty type pastry thing to go with it. It was so awesome.

Of course we had to have some lessor cuts of meat because when we butchered a hog or cow we didn't waste anything. That just made the good cuts all the better though.

[planet planet]

http://www.stlmag.com/Blogs/Relish/Dece ... mslideshow

[Freed Roger]

Have some farmers in our clan too, as well as the grandparents from German-Irish immigrant farmer backgrounds. They continued the farmer diet as non-farmers and passed it along. Meat and potatoes. Get the calories up for manual labor. Creativity was usually only in desserts. Then as labor diminished, we still ate the same way and became pear-shaped

My wife's family still have cattle farm that goes back generations in NW MO. The steaks and beef ribs are incredibly good-though they don't bust them out often enough. The vegetable garden and fruit trees farmers would maintain in addition to their cash crop are long gone. Though I heard stories of how tired they'd get of eating preserves all the time.

[docellis]

I'd never spend serious money on a steak.

If I am splurging it is on something from the sea. King crab legs, sea bass, tuna, trout, salmon, jumbo scallops,Big Shrimp (hate small shrimp).

I know it isn't "cool" but I love Bristols. I love that (YaYa?) place on Olive in Chesterfield that has an affordable cioppino.

I'd never put $20 or more towards a restaurant steak. There are butchers in the midwest.

Seafood...if only I could live on nothing but.

Agreed, talapia (which I like) is something I would never order at a restaurant.

[JackofDiamonds]

I'd never spend serious money on a steak.

If I am splurging it is on something from the sea. King crab legs, sea bass, tuna, trout, salmon, jumbo scallops,Big Shrimp (hate small shrimp).

I know it isn't "cool" but I love Bristols. I love that (YaYa?) place on Olive in Chesterfield that has an affordable cioppino.

I'd never put $20 or more towards a restaurant steak. There are butchers in the midwest.

Seafood...if only I could live on nothing but.

Agreed, talapia (which I like) is something I would never order at a restaurant.

Come live on the coast and you'll do the reverse. I'll eat fresh seafood all day for under $20, but I'm not paying more than that, even for lobster.