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What is wrong with American food?
What's the scoop here? Why is it that even with lots of money and chefs who clearly know how to produce three-star food, American restaurants still can't measure up to their French counterparts?
The context is the new Michelin guide, and whether four New York restaurants deserved three stars. (BTW, even if you think they were deserving, as I do, count the relative number of stars in NYC vs. Paris; NYC does top San Sebastian, Spain, but not by so much). His commentators make many good points, most of all about differences in ingredient supply networks.
The better pure ingredients in Paris include amazing cheese shops, perfect bread, and fresher strawberries. On the macro scale, this translates into superior haute cuisine.
America, in contrast, excels in multi-dimensionality. Move away from refined Michelin-style cooking, and New York City is usually better than Paris. We have better Indian food, Columbian food, Afghan food, Chinese food, sushi, burger joints, street pretzels, and so on. Yet there is probably no single cuisine where NYC is #1 in the world, precisely because American ingredients are not up to scratch.
It is no accident that France specializes in uni-dimensional food competition, whereas the United States scatters its culinary energies in many directions. By choosing food networks which emphasize speed, reliability, and cheapness over perfection, the U.S. makes possible many more ethnic cuisines, and it also guarantees a better shot at cheap prices. In short, New York offers more choice.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 13, 2005 at 06:13 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink
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Comments
So what do we need to do to increase the quality
of our ingredients?
Posted by: phil at Nov 13, 2005 7:59:56 AM
We are a middle class country.
A friend explained it this way - generally, anything (meals, service, shopping, hookers, whatever) that is very expensive will be better in London than it is in New York.
But anything that is merely expensive will be better in New Yrok than it is in London.
And anything that is moderately priced will be better in Chicago than it is in New York.
Posted by: Jos Bleau at Nov 13, 2005 8:14:39 AM
Easy phil: If you're interested in increasing the quality of haute cuisine, eat haute cuisine more frequently, but spend more time (read as money) at those restaurants you think are the very best.
By doing so (and particularly if you get several thousand people to go along with you), you'll be creating incentives for new haute cuisine restaurants to open up and for the restaurants to improve their quality.
I, however, will be patronizing the current cheap variety, not just because I want even more variety and wouldn't mind more cheap food, but because I actually like it more (in terms of utility I think I get FAR more utility out of 40 $6 buffets spread over eight weeks than a single $240 meal, but to each their own).
Posted by: Jody at Nov 13, 2005 8:20:33 AM
Since demand creates its own supply, what Drum is really lamenting is the fact that we as a market have insufficiently high demand for haute cuisine.
Meanwhile, Drum is exactly the type who, if we did have more and better high-end restaurants, would then immediately turn around and lament that we are a "selfish, hedonistic culture" that should be spending our money on "more important" things like health care (and would probably call for a "haute cuisine tax" to "correct" our behavior).
Posted by: KipEsquire at Nov 13, 2005 9:16:16 AM
Down in orange county, california, I can get really good ethnic food (in the strip malls, as a recent book & review noted). The only slight problem is that the food centers are 5-10 miles apart. I can walk to good burger or mexican or central american, but it's a longer trip to vietnamese or chinese or korean or ...
Out here I'd also sing praises of the simple breakfast burrito, those poor french guys ...
(buffets jody? always go for the cook-on-order. $6 in the strip malls takes you a long ways.)
Posted by: odograph at Nov 13, 2005 9:21:54 AM
Tyler mentions bread as an ingredient. But it's not an ingredient. The ingredients are yeast and flour, which are a lot easier to import than strawberies and cheese. Expensive restaurants shouldn't notice the price of imported dry goods. (Starter might not be legal, but it only has to be smuggled in once.)
But I use cheap yeast and flour, bought at my local grocercy store, to make better bread than most French and Italian restaurants I visit (which aren't that expensive).
Posted by: L at Nov 13, 2005 11:03:55 AM
The best cheap food in the world is in the metropolitan areas of China. They don't have the international diversity we do in the US, but the in-country
diversity is amazing in and of itself. Food in Hunan is very different from that in Henan, which is very different from that in Sichuan, and so on...
They also have very fresh ingredients. You can buy fresh produce of amazing variety literally right on the street.
You can eat a very good, multi-course meal, served by an army of waitresses, for $5. A meal fit for a king can be had for $10-15.
Posted by: Derek Scruggs at Nov 13, 2005 1:02:38 PM
The best place to get the full array of regional Chinese cuisines is in Taiwan.
The top food in Japan is clearly a rival for the top in Paris. The world's most expensive restaurant is in Kyoto.
In any major European capital city there are usually one or two other cuisines besides their own (including their provincial ones) that may be at the top of the world level, beating New York. They are the cuisines of countries that were former colonies of that European nation. Thus, without doubt Tan Dinh in Paris is a better Vietnamese restaurant than any in the US, and certainly any in New York, which is not the tops for Vietnamese cuisine in the US anyway. One can find better Indian restaurants in London than anywhere in the US and better Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam than anywhere in the US, and so forth.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 13, 2005 1:33:17 PM
I would love to hear an economist on the economics of produce: Are tasteless tomatoes welfare-optimal? If not, why do we have them?
I would think that the market tends to concentrate on the characteristics which are easily measurable. So size and colour improve, while taste gets worse. The market for lemons, applied to lemons. Is that fair?
If so, why do the French escape the same forces?
Posted by: TomC at Nov 13, 2005 2:12:22 PM
The only ingredients for which France is superior to the US may be those used to produce French cuisine. What about the quality of Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Jamaican and Japanese food in France? The only cuisine other than French (including regional French) in which France may have an advantege is North African/Arab. That advantage may be due to both market demand and, more importantly, the supply of knowledgeable chefs.
In fact, the main consideration may be this last one. Where is the human capital invested in restaurants in France vs. USA and elsewhere? How do the differences present themselves to the customer? And who would be the best Ph.D. advisor for this topic?
chsw
Posted by: chsw at Nov 13, 2005 2:17:31 PM
Living on the eastern edge of Marin County, California, I am within a half-hour or one-hour drive of organic farming of baby vegetables, fresh oyster harvests, cheese-making, vineyards and wineries, and coastal fisheries of this county and its neighbors: Napa, Sonoma, San Mateo, San Fracisco, etc. Perhaps some part of our large country lack immediate access to premium ingredience, but I think my neighborhood can match France on all matters of fine ingredience and cuisine. While truffles may be an exception, perhaps our wild Pacific Salmon more than makes up for this deficiency.
Posted by: David Sisk at Nov 13, 2005 4:17:23 PM
I strongly disagree with the fact that Paris does not have any other types of cuisines and I am not saying because I am French. I rather say that because I lived in France and in Paris for quite a while. To be sure, one might argue that French cuisine is better quality than American cuisine but this is also not totally true as well. Yes in France, the bread is better, pastries are better, more variety of cheeses but the US meat is way much better than in France. Americans know how to cook a piece of meat. But to come back to the question of variety, that is totally untrue. We do have Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, North African, African, restaurants and plenty of them when compared to Paris. Of course, NYC has much more restaurants but NYC is much bigger city than Paris. But, ultimately, who cares? You do not go to NYC for the restaurants.
Posted by: Alexandre Padilla at Nov 13, 2005 4:42:44 PM
Correction to my previous post. Paris DOES have plenty other types of cuisines.
Posted by: Alexandre Padilla at Nov 13, 2005 4:44:02 PM
Certainly freshness of ingrediants is extremely important, and the Bay area is one of the best in the US for that, one reason several of the top restaurants in the US are in that part of the country. It is also a reason why generally for the same level of cuisine, one will find better food in an restaurant in France, Italy, or Japan, than in the US.
That said, cuisine does matter, even if opinions about it do also. I would say now that globally the competition is between French and Japanese. One can see this by scanning Zagat for many cities, where more often than not these two cuisines are duking it out for the top spot in many cities around the world. In Washington, Makoto, one of the few restaurants in the US to serve the true haute Japanese cuisine, kaiseki, has just displaced long time Number One, the Inn at Little Washington, which is a French-influenced New American place (with ultra-fresh stuff). Of course Makoto is ahead of all the fully French places like Citronelle and Gerard's, not to mention the various Italian joints.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 13, 2005 4:46:21 PM
I've had some wonderful French meals in France, but also one in Queensland (Australia) and one in Hampshire (England).
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 13, 2005 6:16:10 PM
The emphasis in American dining, except at the most _haute_ level, is on quantity, not quality. Chain restaurants thrive by serving belly-busting portions of largely mediocre food. Not that I'm naming any names ...
Posted by: Peter at Nov 13, 2005 7:49:15 PM
I'd like to see a bit more rigor in these determinations before trying to use them as evidence in our cuisine wars. How about a blindfold test in an Iron Chef-style face-off, over many iterations and dishes? And by which set of biases are we supposed to be looking at this? Every expatriate thinks you can't get high-quality, "genuine" cooking outside their home country. Frankly, too, when it comes to ingredients, the native kind isn't always better: the water may taste different simply because it's cleaner, and so might the veggies. Are you marked down simply because the tomato didn't actually have any dust from the cart on it?
I'm obviously just a sushi and beer guy, though, so what do I know.
Posted by: DonD at Nov 13, 2005 10:40:11 PM
One thing that startles me is that the famous American chefs seem unable to make simple food. If you read their cookbooks or watch their cooking shows you see that they include 6 different tastes/influences in every darn dish, and there are a great number of spices as well. I find it tiring. It is always trying to do too many things, and after a while, it loses something. Perhaps even the best restaurant chefs feel the need to mimic the celebrity chefs? Perhaps the food's natural beauty is hidden underneath in the unending quest to produce something new?
Posted by: Allison Coates at Nov 13, 2005 10:53:36 PM
The thing is that all the food in Paris now tastes like burned automobiles.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at Nov 14, 2005 12:07:13 AM
"Yet there is probably no single cuisine where NYC is #1 in the world, precisely because American ingredients are not up to scratch."
I nominate Delicatessen (esp. Kosher variety) as the cuisine in which NYC is #1. From what I know of the history, there was an amalgamation from different origins (from Germany to Russia and south to at least the old Austro-Hungarian empire) to form the standard menu, and all that happened in NYC. You can't find pastrami like that anywhere else in the world.
A case could also be made for pizza. The Neapolitan pizza I had while there was disappointing (unlike the rest of the food there). So I suppose it would be down to NYC vs Chicago, which is apples and oranges.
A case could also be made for steakhouse. I wouldn’t be the best to make the case, but I’m sure it would be somewhere in the US. Yes, the Japanese have the Kobe thing going on, but again, apples and oranges.
Posted by: KevinM at Nov 14, 2005 12:32:25 AM
"I would think that the market tends to concentrate on the characteristics which are easily measurable."
I would argue, rather, that the market concentrates on those things which are in the greatest demand. In France that certainly includes the "fixin's" for haute cuisine...
Posted by: Ted Seay at Nov 14, 2005 6:39:08 AM
That last is for TomC, BTW...
Posted by: Ted Seay at Nov 14, 2005 6:40:35 AM
If I had to posit a partial explanation it would probably include tourism in the mix. Tourists, especially of the international breed, tend to spend much more per meal than locals (by my casual observation). Eating out in a foreign country is an opportunity to lavishly indulge oneself in a foreign lifestyle (not to mention the fact that limited knowledge of local eateries constrains the set of eating possibilities for many to the high end Zagat and Michelin rated restaurants). Additionally, insufficient knowledge of local pricing and the minor difficulty of exchange rates most likely further increases the inelasticity of tourist demand. If I am not mistaken, France is the king of international tourist destinations (at least relative to GDP) so there should be more extravegant spenders per meal there. On the other hand, the United States' tourism industry, while large in magnitude, is less impressive when compared to GDP or put in per capita terms (once again I'm not looking at the numbers as I speak but if I remember correctly the tourism numbers for France are comparable to those of the much larger U.S.) The U.S. market is also quite diffuse with tourists spread accross a large geographic mass with widely varying attractions. Additionally, many of the most popular tourist destinations in the U.S. (read New York, D.C., Orlando) do not have well defined local cuisines (delicatessens are great but not a venue where you are likely to sit down for an expensive night of dining). I don't travel to France to eat Thai, why should I expect the French to travel to New York to eat at Italian, Japanese, or French restaurants. Our immigrant culture has brought us endless variety at the expense of a unique culinary identity. The few truely unique local quisines in the U.S. often present obvious reasons for not showing up in Zagat. Take for instance Southern and Southwestern quisines. Both owe much of their development to poverty and the underclass (African slaves in the South, Latinos and Native Americans in the Southwest) and are still often associated with the less wealthy. Tourists don't often travel so that they can eat like the poor and both of these cuisines have only relatively recently been addressed by high end urban chefs.
Agreed, the tourism explanation doesn't explain the Japanese phenomenon but would could probably expose some likely influences. Maybe our love for the exotic and unique plays a role here. Japan is by far the wealthiest culture that Europeans and Americans might both consider exotic. Maybe Asian and Europen cuisines are just apples an oranges, not easily comparable by those who were brought up in one culture or the other. I don't know. But it is an interesting question and I have gone on far too long about it. I must get back to econometrics. (BUT FOOD IS SO MUCH MORE FUN!)
Posted by: Jason Bullman at Nov 14, 2005 7:47:12 AM
I'm thinking that this is probably for the same reason that we stink at soccer. Geniuses in the US just don't become chefs. This might change, but up to this point, I think a much higher percentage of geniuses in France become Chefs than in the US.
Posted by: joshg at Nov 14, 2005 8:45:11 AM
KevinM,
New York probably is Number One for delis. However, Italy still easily beats anything in New York for pizza.
Jason Bullman,
Many high end cuisines were originally low end. Thus cajun was redneck truckstop food before Jean-Paul Prudhomme made it fashionable and on a par with the creole (who can tell the difference now anyway?). Sushi was originally fed to poor construction workers in front of what is now the imperial palace in Tokyo during the Edo period. The whole business of it being raw was that they did not want to waste the time and effort of cooking the stuff on these lowly workers.
As for French cuisine, it was already admired as the best, in Europe at least, centuries before the age of mass tourism.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 14, 2005 10:55:26 AM
