Invisible Inflation continues

[justin]

CFB - interesting show it sounds like! I think the "gourmet" nature of food and drink is 90% hype and image and 10% better quality food/drink (materials or preparation). Just because something costs more doesn't mean it is better. I personally like the quality and consistency of machine-made food products.

Please don't tell the French about this show. It may inflame their sense of national gustatory pride to the extent that they declare war on our inferior country. And the last thing the US needs is the French military on our front porches. Drinking our wine, insulting our food, and seducing our women with their fancy accents and berets.

[ladelfina]

Quote:

seducing our women with their fancy accents and berets

Sounds like someone is jealous?*

Just to take this thread even further off topic, I remember reading year or two back something in the New Yorker to the effect that a number of wine "experts" could be easily fooled in blind taste testings--really blind, in that they were also blindfolded. Not only could they not distinguish the vintage, or even the types of grapes used, they could not, in some cases, distinguish red wine from white.

Now don't even get me started on bread, because Tuscany has the worst bread ever. No salt. No taste. Wonder Bread has a more enticing aroma. Another expatriate compared* Tuscan bread to toilet paper with added latex. I don't care if it's made by a machine or an artisan, it's baaad. In Rome the bread is revelatory: you've died and gone to bread heaven!

What I spend on bread (trying to get the 'non-Tuscan' kind), I more than make up for in savings on wine. About $1.65 for 750ml of a delicious Sangiovese at the local supermarket. I could get it for less if I wanted to visit the local wine cooperative, buy it in huge damigiane and bottle it myself.

Quote:

I personally like the quality and consistency of machine-made food products.

I used to love them Space Food Sticks!

My hats off to P&T, but what CFB kind of glanced over is that to a large degree their premise is based on the potential embarrassment of the victim. Who knows what they really thought about what they were served..! P.S. Bruschetta is indeed usually made with stale bread, so no points there... It's a very humble dish that is "exalted" only in the US...like many of the other humble foods born of necessity and poverty that have been recently elevated to 'gourmet' status.

There really are foods that are better than others; buying them in a fancy store or restaurant doesn't guarantee the quality, only the price.

[Martha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladelfina . . a number of wine "experts" could be easily fooled in blind taste testings--really blind, in that they were also blindfolded. Not only could they not distinguish the vintage, or even the types of grapes used, they could not, in some cases, distinguish red wine from white.

So JG, it is fine to drink white wine with your steak no matter what the CFB says.

[HFWR]

Most of us, especially JG, could give a rat's a$$ what anyone else "approves" of...

Sorry for ending that sentence with a preposition!

Added data point: bought my second and last bottle of Dom Perignon yesterday for St. Valentine's Day. Don't really like champagne anywho, especially not for $175 a pop...........

[Martha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Have Funds, Will Retire M Added data point: bought my second and last bottle of Dom Perignon yesterday for St. Valentine's Day. Don't really like champagne anywho, especially not for $175 a pop...........

So does this mean the date didn't go well?

[HFWR]

Au contraire!! 8)

[ronin]

A pleasant California sparkler, like Hans Kornell, will set you back less than a fourth of that French swill. And a spectacular harvest of high quality grapes this year bodes well for prices in the near future.

[MRGALT2U]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martha So JG, it is fine to drink white wine with your steak no matter what the CFB says.*

Thanks. I can not drink red wine for medical reasons. I have consumed my share over the years and don't really miss it much.

JG

[ladelfina]

New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020819fa_fact

[justin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladelfina What I spend on bread (trying to get the 'non-Tuscan' kind), I more than make up for in savings on wine. About $1.65 for 750ml of a delicious Sangiovese at the local supermarket. I could get it for less if I wanted to visit the local wine cooperative, buy it in huge damigiane and bottle it myself.

damigiane - isn't that Italian for "box"? Cause the wine I buy at Superwalmart comes in a big box, and its real cheap.

[free4now]

The "Davis Wine Test" that Trillan referred to in the New Yorker is apparently an urban myth according to:

http://www.wineloverspage.com/randys...02.phtml#DAVIS

and

http://itotd.com/articles/412/

Which notes:

Volunteers on the staff of Wine Spectator fared much better in their own version of the test, correctly guessing color 40 out of 42 times.

[free4now]

A relative is an entrepreneur/businessman who used to work at a cosmetics company. He firmly believes that all shampoos work the same and differ only in the fragrances, foaming agents, thickeners, and colors used to deceive the buyer that there are differences. He believes the same line of reasoning for most personal care products, and many foods as well. He makes shopping decisions pretty much strictly based on cost per ounce.

Personally I have sensitive combination skin and fine hair that doesn't respond well to normal hair care products, so I am very attuned to which products work for me and which don't. I generally find myself buying products that are at the top end of the grocery store selection, or at the bottom end of the salon warehouse selection. I often will do "side by side" tests alternating using two different products to see which works better.

When I was travelling through SE Asia, I was somewhat surprised to find that basically nobody used high quality personal care products... the highest end of what is generally available there is about at the level of Suave or low end grocery store products here in the USA.

Yet most everyone looked just as well groomed as in the USA, with shiny strong hair and blemish free skin. My guess is that because they don't eat as rich foods as us westerners and because they get more exercise in daily life, they don't have as many issues with problem skin and sensitivity that we have over here.

I recently decided to see if I could save some money by shaving with an old fashioned single blade GEM razor. Single blades seem to be more of a commodity, costing about 10-15 cents each. The razor I used was an old one found in the basement probably from the 1950's or 1960's. In it's heyday it was probably considered the state of the art in shaving.

But using it today, I find the weight and single blade design caused significantly more nicks and irritation than a cheap double blade disposable razor. I'm used to a more comfortable shave and I decided the irritation just wasn't worth it, so I'm back to shaving with double blade razors that cost about 60 cents each.

To get back to the subject of this thread, my point is that hedonic adjustments are not just about getting more songs on your ipod or cheaper DVD players. It's also about the little personal care things like having two blades on your shaver rather than one that can make real differences. So some of these things are real improvements that many of us actually benefit from.

Of course I'm not saying that I need or would buy the new 5 blade razor... I'll leave that for the Starbucks-drinking, Department-store cosmetics-wearing, Hummer-driving crowd.

[HFWR]

I usually start out buying the cheapest foods/toiletries/cleaning products, etc., then gradually move up the chain until I find one I like.

Why pay extra for pinto beans? Cache?

On the other hand, store-brand "Cheerios" get soggy the instant milk hits them, and store-brand "Wheeties" taste like cardboard...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well, you might think the foodies were thinking the stuff stunk while putting on a brave face, but they were raving about it. The guy stuffing his face with frozen dinner pot roast aka kobe beef was telling his date how much he enjoyed the 'intense beefiness' and how the canned gravy aka reduction sauce 'really made the meal'. On the flip side, the 22 year old girl out on a date with a guy old enough to perhaps be her grandpa, was raving about the food and wine, as was her date. One guy seemed a little 'eh...' about the food, from his expression, but he kept eating it and didnt complain or try to send anything back.

Experts indeed are frequently confounded by cheap bottles. I think it was two-buck-chuck Charles Shaw Shiraz that made it into the top 25 or top 50 in a broad taste testing, IIRC from a large group of NY tasting judges. I posted it, so its around here somewhere. The judges were incredibly embarrassed by their voting once the labels were revealed.

Champagne...? Dom is ok but its middle of the pack as far as i'm concerned. For a spendy bottle, try the Piper Heidsiek...should be 25-35 bucks. Probably the best I've tried, but perhaps not the best for every taste. For a decent price bottle, go with Piper Sonoma, the california winery analog to the french Piper that makes the Heidsiek. Usually $11-14 a bottle.

I'm sorry about not being able to let go of Johnny's wine pairing. His original comment came in response to his "possum living" where he said "nothing but filet mignon and chardonnay for me". I dont think that had much to do with medical conditions or poor taste, but rather it was the two most expensive sounding things he could think of at the time...which led to an entire discussion on the Hangtown Fry IIRC...

[ladelfina]

fireme, thanks for the link to the "Interesting Thing of the Day" site.. looks.. interesting.

I'm still pretty amazed that even 5% of random people working at the Wine Spectator, and thus presumably pretty knowledgeable/interested in the subject, still couldn't tell red wine from white, though! So it's not totally a myth.

a damigiana is the name for a huge flask, in older English texts I have seen it referred to as a "demijohn"; the name comes from a Persian city that was once big in glass-making.

Wine is def. one of the things I have a hard time shelling out much money for; there's just too much decent cheap wine out there.. (no offense to the connoisseurs on the board)!*

[Eagle43]

There's even Two Buck Chuck. My rule is to pay $10 or less for a bottle. I even like Gallo Hearty Burgundy. Got the big bottle at WalMart for less than 6 bucks. I drink wine every day. "A little wine, for the stomach's sake," of course.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Thats the conclusion Cut-Throat and I came to when we had a long thread on cheap wine over a year ago...cheap wine has gotten a lot better over the last 10-15 years.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Looks like Johnny might be in some good kingly company...

http://www.newscientist.com/article....ine-news_rss20

[HFWR]

I'm no snob expert on wine; prefer red to white, but usually buy what's on sale... I believe I could taste the diff in a blind test, but maybe not...

Same with coffee. Drink Folger's or MH french roast, whichever's on sale when I run out. I do grind my own beans on the weekend, but buy Hill's Bros. beans.

Now, at work, the coffee tastes like they swept it off the floor, so I spring for the $1.40 cup 'o' Starbucks, rather than the $0.75 swill...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Have Funds, Will Retire I do grind my own beans on the weekend

What part of "...stuff that doesnt belong on a public forum" didnt you get?



(sarcasm)
(kidding)