Quote from: JerryM on March 16, 2013, 05:56 PMi'm now convinced down to the lack of input that no one really has an answer. i myself don't have a clue and the reason for the post.
Umm... it's hard to give you a definitive answer because no-one really knows what you're trying to achieve. What is best? Who's best? Your best? My best? His best? Atul Kochars best? What I consider to be good might not be what you consider to be good and so it goes on. It's hard to define.
What is interesting though, is that both Malc (Axe) and myself have given two quite different answers to your question because we've interpreted what you were after differently, yet, they both contain the same central theme or core. That's no coincidence because we're both thinking and looking at this from a similar perspective.
I talked about the need for modern BIR's to balance inputs and outputs with profitability, because without profitability, they either won't or wouldn't want to stay in business. BIR restauranteurs are not philanthropists, they won't provide a product or service without making a profit on it. But to enable them to do this they have some compromises to make, they have to streamline their processes to minimise their inputs and maximise their outputs.
Malc talked about the same thing and more specifically how old school BIR's did things quite differently to the way modern BIR's do things and the reasons for why they do them differently is as we've both explained - the need to remain price competitive.
As home cooks trying to replicate what we might consider to be a 'best', we're not constrained by how modern BIR's have to operate to make profits, so why do we adopt and emulate their streamlined processes? To replicate those flavours? Why if they're not the flavours we really want to replicate, which by many accounts (but not all, some are seem happy with modern flavours) many want to recreate the flavours of yesteryear?
This seems to be the point where many people have become stuck and are scratching their heads trying to understand why the dishes we're creating are falling short of what we consider to be 'the best' we can remember having, for many of us, dishes created 20, 30, 40 years ago. This is essentially why, because we're emulating or adopting modern practices to recreate those flavours we remember yet not fully realising that those dishes were simply not made with these practices.
I've found this myself, base sauces and corresponding mix powders dominate whatever dish you try and make with them regardless of how much variation you introduce in the dish construction stage. It doesn't really matter how much twiddling at dish construction stage you do, or how many new spices or ingredients you introduce, the base sauce and mix powder will still dominate the dish.
So to get away from this we have to go back to basics or how the early restaurants prepared these dishes which most certainly was not one base sauce and one mix powder. I've always believed that early restaurants used more than one base sauce and nothing I've read has made me want to change my mind. All dishes made from one single base sauce is simply expediency to maximise profits and cut down on work.
In the old school days you had pretty experienced chefs doing the cooking, now dishes are made and churned out by what is little more than line cooks just following a basic recipe. That in itself should highlight and show you the difference in quality between dishes made now and the dishes made 30-40 years ago.
Sadly, it's back to basics for a lot of us, myself included. Simplification and not complication seems the name of the game.
This is just my take on all this, I'm not saying it's the right one and I'm hoping it will stimulate some useful debate and discussion on what is for me a fascinating subject.
It's the age of it that defines whether it's lamb or mutton but I can't for the life of me remember what the definitions are, up to 6 months and up to 2 years I think.
