the top chef coq au vin semantics debate

[goodhealthgourmet]

perhaps a little vindication for casey...

from sherry virbila's review of suzanne tracht's new long beach restaurant in today's l.a. times:

"Coq au vin, though, is a classic that's gone missing on local menus. Here it's the real thing, chicken deeply stained from the red wine braising liquid rich with mushrooms, pearl onions and bacon. Nice."

notice: "the real thing."

prepared with chicken.

i wonder what tom colicchio would have to say about that!

[Caroline1]

You're right! And Tom Calicchio was/is 100% wrong on this count. While it is true that "coq" means rooster in French, it does NOT mean rooster in "coq au vin." I've just checked out a slew of my French cook books looking for a single recipe that calls for a rooster or even a stewing hen. None to be found.

Cook books consulted?
Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook
Everyday French Cooking
The Connoisseur's Cookbook

And possibly the two most venerated English language books on French cooking:
The Concise Encyclopdia of Gastronomy by Andre Simon
LaRousse Gastronomique (1961)

In all recipes, a "chicken" is called for. In most, including the last two cited above, "a young chicken" is called for.

Clearly, Calicchio owes an apology. I suspect what happened is that he was tired. I'm sure he knows better. (God, I HOPE he knows better!) But in the fatigue of the moment, his brain said, "Wait a minute! 'Coq' means 'rooster' in French, and he let his mouth run where his brain hadn't functioned well. It can happen to anyone, but it really messed things up for Casey, and she didn't deserve that. Obviously everyone else was carrying a high fatigue factor, because they all chimed in on Calicchio's side. SHAME!!!

I think Food Network needs to find a way to correct the misinformation. Either that, or Calicchio needs to be forced into that cook-off against Hung, then forced to make coq au vin using a genuine tough old rooster! I don't think six hours in a pressure cooker can tenderize those birds!

[paulj]

Gourmet's Basic French Cookbook, by Louis Diat, French born and trained, and chef at the Ritz-Carlton for years, specifies for coq au Vin 'Cut a 4-pound spring chicken into 8 pieces ...'
p 196
Though the family story that accompanies the recipe also uses the term "poulet au vin a l'etuvee"

[jfood]

The only "old rooster" that I saw was the bald guy clucking like an old hen.

Would he prefer Casey calling her dish what has become common practice on menues today:

"A young member of the poultry family that has been slaughtered and gutted, whose feathers have been delicately removed by sanitized tweezer by six youths earning minimum wage in less than standard conditions, then thrown in a small layer of hot oil to brown the exterior and then..."

Menus have become too verbose and to counter that I think Tommy should shut up a little. But think of it, the editors left in the silliness and this now has its own thread on Chowhound. Nice job

http://jfoodonfood.blogspot.com

[april164]

You know, their big gaffe is using these terms. If Casey had said chicken braised in wine blah blah, and Hung hadn't said Pommed Dauphine, but potatoes with whatever, they couldn't have called them. And confit? Just say thin sliced onions and whatever.

[free sample addict aka Tracy L]

Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent, but I find the comment that it 'is a classic that's gone missing on local menus' really interesting. Last fall I asked a waiter at one of the few French restaurants in my area why Coq au Vin is not on the menu. The chef sent a reply via the waiter that people didn't like the dark meat when the dish was originally introduced on the menu. My first thought was they wouldn't be too happy either to know the real thing is made with an old rooster. I am glad the chef didn't try to recreate the dish using white meat.

[moymoy]

This is what Tom Colicchio says about it:
Taken from Colicchio's blog on Bravotv.com, please see that he clearly says that Casey DID NOT lose the challenge because she used a chicken.

My comments in last week’s episode about Casey’s incorrect labeling of her dish as Coq au Vin seem to have stirred up a lot of sentiment on the Bravo boards. Many of our loyal readers pointed out the countless cookbooks that call for chicken in their Coq au Vin recipes and the scores of fine establishments that prepare the dish with chicken instead of an older rooster. You are 100% correct. Loads of restaurants also serve “Ahi Tuna” which is redundant but sounds good. (Ahi means tuna in Hawaiian, so they’re serving “Tuna Tuna.”) Many restaurants also serve rockfish as “red snapper,” take shortcuts like pre-cooking their meat, and get away with a million other things because most diners don’t know the difference.
But let’s be clear: Casey wasn’t cooking for most diners. She was in a French culinary school, serving a panel of the most esteemed chefs on the planet, and within that group, a couple of the most esteemed French chefs in the world, for whom the term Coq au Vin has a very specific meaning. Even the mere addition of quotes, as in, “Here, ladies and gentlemen, is my take on [add quote fingers here] Coq Au Vin” would have demonstrated to us that she knew the difference between the real dish and the delicious braised chicken that she did serve. (And for the record, no one’s saying a rooster is not a chicken -- what’s at issue is the age. Old birds have tough, connective tissue which, after many hours, yields a collagen-rich sauce with a distinctive flavor that cannot be simulated in a quick braise.)
I am in no way disparaging Casey’s grandmother’s dish, or anyone’s grandmother’s dish. All grandmother’s dishes belong to a special, revered category all their own. But realize, please, that Casey didn’t lose the competition because she called her chicken Coq au Vin. I didn’t feel she lost at all. It’s just that Hung won, because, all things considered, his dish was better. Trust me -- I ate it.

[Megiac]

Ahi Tuna may mean Tuna Tuna literally translated from the Hawaiian, but using Ahi as a modifier specifically references Yellowfin Tuna. Ahi was thought up as a substitute name because Yellowfin didn't sound fancy enough.

[april164]

As an (obnoxious?) aside, have you read the book Moy Moy? I loved that book as a kid.

[Chew on That]

If they would have discounted her for the name, when clearly it was correct by some's circumstances, I would have been so pissed! The food is what matters.

[revsharkie]

I get the feeling the reason why they made such a big deal about the name is that by this stage the quality of the cooking is so high they're really having to look for things to criticize.

[ChowFun_derek]

Casey called it "Coq au Vin Light" if I am not mistaken....and that was semanticly different enough to include a young.. rather than an old chicken, which also by necessity required a braise shorter than that of an old hen..who was that 'old fart' anyway...he should open his ears before he opens his mouth!

[goodhealthgourmet]

don't know if you were only joking with that comment, but in case you were serious...

that 'old fart' was andré soltner....an internationally acclaimed and revered chef, and the former chef-owner of manhattan's four-star restaurant 'lutece.'

[pikawicca]

My mother used to make this with an old stewing hen -- worked just fine. In fact, hers was better than any of the (many) versions I've had in France.

[heathermb]

I also want to add one other thing. After last week's episode I checked in my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Julia's recipe for Coq au Vin is for chicken. so she'd be on Casey's side as well I think and I consider her to be a somewhat respectable authority on French cooking in the 20th century!

[kenito799]

...French cooking in the US. She adapted for products available here...we can call anything by any name we want, but Europeans are extremely particular about food heritage and part of that is names. Changing and adapting is fine, but if you don't change and adapt the names for things, you lose the history that made a classic dish what it is.

Should we call an apple pie with two crusts a tart tatin because some of the ingredients are similar and we don't really know what a tart tatin is and we feel like calling it tart tatin?

[heathermb]

And wasn't the episode filmed here in the US? I still maintain that it was Tom C who had issue with calling the dish not any of the guest chefs.

[DanaB]

I made this point in the other thread -- Julia Child is pretty consistent in her text of identifying what product the French use in a given dish, then offering variations for the American market when a given ingredient was not available here. She didn't make that comment about "Coq au Vin." Maybe 60 or 70 years ago, when more people still lived in a rural environment, "Coq au Vin" was commonly made with rooster, but I highly doubt even in France that that is the case today. I think it's a case of a dish with a name that has a literal translation that no longer reflects the reality of the preparation today.

[Robert Lauriston]

My French cookbooks, including recent editions, all say "coq," no mention of substituting poulet. I don't think you'd be served poulet in place of coq in France, rather you'll see "poulet Grand-mère" or the like on a menu.

Richard Olney, in his French Menu Cookbook" (1970) discusses the appropriate type of rooster in detail, but then says finding such a bird is no easier in Paris than in New York, and tells you how to modify the recipe for a two-month-old hen.

[kenito799]

With the rise of urban farming, perhaps there will soon be lots of old roosters running around backyards from Oakland to Brooklyn, and traditional coq au vin will again be simmering on stoves across the land...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/din...

[pikawicca]

Most cities that allow chickens do NOT allow roosters. If you've ever lived on a farm with one, you'll understand why.

[pikawicca]

Whenever we're in France, I love to visit the local markets. I've marveled at the selection of chickens before, but don't ever recall seeing "coq." Since roosters don't lay eggs, most male chicks are killed at a young age. Not many coqs to go around.

[southernitalian]

I make coq au vin a few times a year and I always use a chicken. Reason? My neighborhood association doesn't allow homeowners to raise chickens in their yards. How can the average American have access to an old rooster? So we just can't call what we're making coq au vin?

[Adrienne]

I think everyone here agrees that in general this isn't a big deal, but when you are serving food to people who SPEAK French as a first language, you need to appreciate that they will take the name literally -- Cock in the Wine. If someone served you a lamb shank but actually used some other meat, that would seem off to you wouldn't it?

Personally I would never complain that anyone referred to chicken as Coq au Vin but in this very specific and unusual situation, I do think Casey should have called it poulet grand-mere or if she wanted "Poulet au vin."

[ChowFun_derek]

She called it "Coq au Vin Light" so she did differentiate it, and by doing this she showed that she was perfectly aware of the difference.

[Adrienne]

I saw someone said that but it didn't sound familiar so it slipped my mind. I might have to watch this episode again to hear exactly how she said it, but I do agree that this nod at correctness should really do it for the judges.

[ML8000]

To add to that -- the French are pretty precise about language. If you call something "x", they'll expect "x". I suppose it's like if someone served a chicken fried steak but used veal. Most people wouldn't care but a few Texans might in a food competition.

[pitu]

exactly!

[Robert Lauriston]

Colicchio would say what he said on the show. Coq is rooster. Coq au vin is made with an old rooster that needs long stewing.

In France, a similar preparation made with chicken is often called poulet Grand-mère.

[goodhealthgourmet]

well, then we have our answer...that's what casey should have called hers. after all, her primary defense was that her grandmother used to make it the same way.

[dalaimama]

He'd complain!

I will say that, given the audience, Casey should have known better. The French are ultra-protective of their cooking terms and do not want them co-opted for nefarious purposes (To wit, the cassoulet cum macaroni and cheese from Hell's Kitchen). Colicchio did have a point that she should have just called it braised chicken. Sara got into trouble for using the term "confit" as well. Tom can be a pretentious twit, but he had some of the best French chefs in the world backing him up on that one.

[heathermb]

I agree that Sara was wrong to use the term confit, but with Casey I don't think the other judges had nearly the fit about it that Tom did.

[Robert Lauriston]

In any case she won, right?

Better to pass off chicken as rooster than to serve it raw.

[goodhealthgourmet]

well said.

[goodhealthgourmet]

actually i think more than one chef throughout the season has misused the term confit. she was just the only one to be called on it.

[pitu]

yes, they are throwing the terms around with abandon
(not unlike plenty of restaurants)
but you better not pull that when you're at the French Culinary Institute where these terms are actually held to their specific meanings.
Casey should have picked up on that - and at least not defended lamely with her grandmama once she was called out.

The LATimes isn't a standard bearer, and Colicchio had to pick up on that criticism by the masters. I thought they were very fair in being specific with the criticism -- it tastes good, but it's not what you are calling it.