Talk:Nouvelle cuisine

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First paragraph notes that "Nouvelle Cuisine has been largely abandoned" which is a tenable statement. Second paragraph, however, seems to be written by someone who took offense at the aforementioned statement and attempts to defend their belief that Nouvelle Cuisine is not "dead" per se. And that defense is not from a neutral point of view; nor, for that matter, well written.
- User:CurdledMeowMix 21:03 EST

Nouvelle Cuisine is not as prominent as it once was and therefore could be seen as abandoned. I feel this topic has been justified on both accounts, with boith a negative and a positive making this neutral --Eldowardo 20:06, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article is ridiculous. If Nouvelle Cuisine is not as prominent as it once was, it is because the style has largely been assimilated into the mainstream of cooking. Some aspects of it, such as the overreliance on using butter to thicken sauces, have diminished as people become more health conscious, but the basic tenets laid the groundwork for almost all subsequent culinary explorations, including "California cuisine" and the postmodern cuisine of Adrià. –Joke 17:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, one of Nouvelle Cuisine's more important aspects was lighter sauces, not more heavy ones. This was part of the Nouvelle Cuisine revolution. It started in France, not in the USA as someone wrote, and it started in the 70s. At least this is when the term was coined. It is said that the father of the style was Fernand Point, but his students where instrumental. --Qwerty qwerty 22:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it emphasized the use of lighter, simpler and thinner sauces. But in, for example, James Peterson's Sauces:
Of the technical innovations of the 1960s and 1970s, none were more profound or long-lasting than those in the area of sauce making. Chefs began to eliminate flour from their sauces (used in one way or another since the Middle Ages) and to thicken their sauces with cream, butter and egg yolks. Sauces were served in smaller quantitites and were usually lighter textured. (p. 16)
The point that I was trying to make is that the sauces were lighter in texture, but no less rich (in fact, substituting any of those ingredients for flour as a thickener tends to make a richer sauce). –Joke 00:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Did anybody actually use the term nouvelle cuisine with a straight face? I am only familiar with it being used in a derogatory sense. What did cooks call this style? -Ashley Pomeroy 14:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, they called it nouvelle cuisine and their faces were perfectly straight. –Joke 15:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Wikipedia at its worst is when a no doubt well intentioned editor completely reverses the meaning of something, particularly without consulting the talk page. Nouvelle cuisine rejected flour as a thickener, not egg yolks, butter and cream. See the quote above. Also, they rejected overcooked vegetables – and they percieved that many of the vegetables in cuisine classique were overcooked – not slow cooked vegetables. –Joke 00:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I question the basic premise that nouvelle cuisine was about "lighter" sauces. It gained popularity in part because of this perception, but in fact it introduced much richer sauces than were ever present in classical french cuisine. Moving away from flour (as in roux) as a thickener meant the increased reliance on reduced cream and butter. The texture was often a bit lighter; the richness and caloric content were anything but.

Many of these innovations came about as economizing measures. A traditional roux-thickened demiglace was made with copious amounts of meat, and had to to be simmered and skimmed for a whole day. Nouvelle cuisine replaced this preparation with glace de viande, a thicker, gelatinous reduction made entirely from stock made from bones. Bones are cheaper than meat, and the lack of roux eliminates hours and hours of skimming. The resulting sauces would have a sticky, gelatinous texture if they were not cut with cream and/or butter.

Another actual innovation of nouvelle cuisine was the opening up of classically trained chefs to some of the traditions of regional french cooking (previously seen as the domain of housewives). Beurre Blanc sauce, now thought of as classic, is an example of both of the phenomena that I mention: it's all about butter, and it originated in the home kitchens of north eastern france, not in the rigid centralized systems of careme and escoffier. --Paul R

Everyone herre seems to fall over the lightness of the sauces, which is remarkable. Nouvelle cuisine was a true (r)evolution, changing much more than only the food. Conceptualizing, it both transformed culinary place AND space. Since the main arguments pointed forward here are about place-related processes, I'll stick to those. Considering the change in institutional logic and identity roles, deriving from Rao, Monin and Durand (2003), the discussion about the lightness of sauces quickly vanishes. I would suggest to read the article. Moreover, why using Mennell as most cited author for the article. His approach is clearly not suitable to research the changes that Nouvelle Cuisine brought. The developmentalists/structuralist point of view does raise some interesting points, but is not acceptable in the explanatory parts to my opinion. Although it is a nice book to read, it has to a large degree the same flaws as the neo-classical approaches for the explanation of spatial processes. I'd suggest any interesting in Nouvelle Cuisine should read the following article to have a little insight on the backgrounds of cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s:

Rao, H, P Monin & R Durand (2003): Institutional Change in Toque Ville: Nouvelle Cuisine as an Identity Movement in French Gastronomy. American journal of sociology, Vol 108 Iss 4. p795-744

It is a very understandable article, if you do not want to read it as a whole, I suggest that at least you take a look at the figures on pages 801 and 807. That explains a lot. Hopefully, the mentioned aspects will be included in this wikipedia article as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.83.11.74 (talk) 14:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


A Rose by Any Other Name[edit]

I must say that the nit-picking of sauce "lightness", as misleading as the term may be, serves only to confuse an already jumbled mess of information.

Yes, they did use "heavier" ingredients, but to any chef worth his salt, cream and egg thickening is MUCH more natural and "light" than the elaborate process of the roux. The cooking is GREATLY simplified and the flavours much more delicate in the final dish. It is a palate lightness that we are talking about here, not necessarily a "lightness" that would please the fat-phobic Public.

And as for the first line of the article saying "'Nouvelle cuisine,' like the earlier 'Cuisine Classique' are both forms of Haute Cuisine", I must say, while I can understand the lines of tradition there (very clearly, like a birthmark from grandfather to grandson), they are three DISTINCT Cuisines. I do believe that if Carême, Escoffier, or Point were ever to hear such things, they would scream and throw a fit {This of course applies to the students they tutored, especially in the case of Point}. The Flavours and Ideals behind Cuisine Classique and Nouvelle Cuisine are markedly distinct from that of Haute Cuisine. They may share a common heritage and some underlying ideals, but at their core they are either reduxes of Haute Cuisine (Cuisine Classique), OR an Attempt to Revolt Against It (Nouvelle Cuisine). In whatever capacity these cuisines orient themsleves BY Haute Cuisine, they should not be kept under its name. These are separate cuisines in and of themselves that happen to develop into their OWN legitimate style. Though there may be some blurring in their similarities, I don't feel as though that takes the validity OUT of the differences they very openly have--Just because a Won Ton and a Ravioli are similar, does this mean one is under the name of the other?

Did Gayot popularize / coin the modern usage of the term?[edit]

I've restored a less definitive, and better cited, version of the claim the article makes that André Gayot coined (or at least was involved in coining or promoting) the modern usage of this term.[1] The sources are reliable but fairly slight, and there is some question about whether this is really true. The prior citation is a primary source published on gayot.com where Gayot himself discusses the matter. Very interesting, informative, and relevant, but it is self-promotion not adequate verification that the claim is true (i.e. reliably sourced). A couple added concerns. First, the entire Gayot site is now on Wikipedia's spam blacklist for reasons having to do with Gayot self-promotion on Wikipedia through operating sock accounts. Second, the origin of food terms, trends, recipes, etc., is notoriously full of myths and dubious self-promotion claims. It's quite possible that the minor reliable sources that do confirm the claim are simply repeating it without fact checking. With that in mind, I've changed the sentence to say that the term is "variously attributed" to Gayot among other authors, not an authoritative statement that he invented it. Any thoughts? Any better sources? - Wikidemon (talk) 03:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some sources. I don't find any of these authoritative or definitive. Some are blogs or otherwise not reliable, I haven't analyzed that yet. And there is a chance that they may themselves have been influenced by Gayot's claims or this article. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Link to gayot[edit]

A couple editors have followed a controversial bot flag regarding removing a link to gayot.com. The entire site is on the black list as a defensive move against a COI sockpuppet editor, but the link in question predates the site's being on the black list and was not added by the sockpuppet. It is generally reliable source, and highly relevant to the article and is not spam. I do not wish to participate in the whitelist process here just to deal with somebody's attempt to deal with a sockpuppet, and there is no policy reason why I should. Could somebody please give a substantive argument why this particular link is unacceptable as spam? If not I will add it back. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 08:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do not undo again. You have already been involved in an edit war over this on other articles. The site is listed on the blacklist. See WP:BLACKLIST for instructions on how to remove it. Failure to follow proper resolution channels is not the way to do it. Saying you don't want to follow proper channels is not the answer. I cannot stand people who say it is only a "Guideline" or "Policy" and I don't have to follow it. You follow it UNLESS there is consensus otherwise, especially where other editors are trying to follow it.
You have two choices. You participate in the whitelist process or you stop reverting people's edits which are following procedure. Bgwhite (talk) 08:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, those are not the choices. You made a more-or-less identical post on your talk page, to which I have responded. You have not provided any substantive argument that this link is spam, nor has anyone else. Before poking your head in here, you should be aware that this follows a mass tagging effort by a controversial bot. It is not one-by-one article editing, which is what the whitelist process is for. I'm not going to repeat the entire argument here, you have to trust a content editor who is trying to maintain an article. It is better to preserve links that are not spam rather than to engage in a bureaucratic process rendered meaningless by an ill-conceived bot. Sorry,it's best to pay attention to article content rather than being a hound for process games. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ever got the brilliant idea of looking for alternative sources instead of the Gayot ones you push so dearly? The Banner talk 10:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That comment is sarcastic and rhetorical, so not particularly helpful. To the extent there is a question in there and not just an accusation I might turn it right back around at you: before removing citation links so as to leave article content unverified, why not look for sourcing if it exists? Presumably, more reliable sources exist in some cases, and in other cases the article on gayot.com is the best source for the cited proposition. - Wikidemon (talk) 10:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikidemon The Banner. I'm not going to write about this at my talk page anymore as more than two people are involved.
  • Both of your comments are sarcastic and rhetorical. However, Banner does have a very valid question... Look for an alternative source.
  • From my talk page, I think we are talking about two different things. Sorry, my fault. I was using the less common term... to remove from a blacklist, is whitelisting. I was suggesting to have gayot.com removed from the blacklist. However, I looked in the blacklist page archives and gayot.com got on the blacklist because gayot.com was doing the spamming. So, adding gayot.com to the blacklist was the proper thing to do and it isn't going to be removed.
  • Ok, lets look at this from Wikidemon's point of view. I read the entire ref and looked at how it was used in nouvelle cuisine's article. You are using the ref to source "The modern usage is variously attributed to authors Henri Gault, Christian Millau, and André Gayot". So, we have an article written by André Gayot on Gayot's own website saying Gayot and Gault wrote an article with Gault coining the phrase "nouvelle cuisine". Really? Sorry Wikidemon, but that ref should never have been added in the first place. There is nothing "independent" or "reliable" about that.
  • Also, Wikidemon, you should not be adding gayot.com to restaurant or chef articles. There is no wikipedia page for Gayot and there is no French page for it either. I can't find any reliable, independent refs about gayot.com. Does gayot get paid for reviewing a place? What are its editorial policies? They do take reviews from anybody. As of right now, I don't see how this can be viewed as a source for reliable refs for any article. Bgwhite (talk) 21:21, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You fundamentally misunderstand and misrepresent: (1) the nature of the disagreement and the edits in question, (2) my role as an editor (3) the context, and (4) Gayot as a WP:RS. I'm a solid content editor going about my business in good faith, dealing with a sudden spate of faulty edits from a bot, and a scolding, insulting process hound sabotaging my efforts at dealing with the bot. Gayot is clearly a respected authority as a food writer. Whether or not he coined or popularized the term "Nouvelle cuisine" is an open question and indeed deserves better sourcing. Indeed, I opened up a strangely-silent discussion topic immediately above this one. That's the way content matters are supposed to be handled. Gayot himself is indeed a reliable source, he's an expert in the field. I'm not clear on the editorial policies of the site / publication, but even if it were an WP:SPS it is citeable as the opinion of an authority and this very matter is covered in WP:SELFPUB. On the other hand, a self-serving claim does not particularly verify that it is true. The article previously claimed that Gayot was a co-inventor or inventor of the phrase. The change proposed by Banner simply removed the claim and the source – unlikely as content matter given their wholesale removal of mention of Gayot links, references, and mentions from the encyclopedia following the bot's tag, but more likely as a process decision that gayot=spam and should be replaced by fact tags. There is a secondary issue that being named a top-40 restaurant on Gayot is indeed a well-known award. A top food award (e.g. Michelin stars or a James Beard award) is certainly something that can be mentioned in an article and sourced to the site in question; in fact, it confers notability. Obviously there are a bunch of minor awards such as a good review in a local paper or winning a bartending contest, that are of no weight at all. Third party reliable sources can and do write about restaurants and other things being mentioned in Gayot, as they might occasionally about Zagat or the New York Times. Against this backdrop, the origin of culinary terms and accolades placed on restaurants and chefs are notoriously murky and full of self-promotion. This is a nuanced question that is, again, best discussed rationally on the talk page, and not hammered out by bludgeoning other editors with accusations and insults. Incidentally, if you believe Gayot is not a reliable source for any purpose RS/N is that way. TL;DR version: if we can find independent third party sourcing that Gayot coined or popularized the term in the course of his career as a food writer, then surely what Gayot himself has to say about the subject is relevant and encyclopedic. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You keep talking about things that have no merit. This is not about you, please stop thinking it is. Please don't get defensive. When one of the first things you said to Banner and to me was how long you have been here, how many edits you've made and you know what you are doing. Well, Banner has made more edits than you and I've been around longer and made a few more edit too. But that doesn't mean anything. All three of us will disagree on points. Disagreeing doesn't mean I'm attacking.
  • goyot.com should not have been used as a ref in this article. period. Anything about blacklists or it being a reliable site are not part of the equation. Somebody saying they coined a phrase is not a reliable, *independent* ref no matter who said it. Now the person can be used as a ref on how they ended up coining the phrase, but not that they were the first to utter it. I can understand why Banner removed the claim and I can understand why you want it there, even without a ref. But in the end, just get a good ref and everything else becomes moot about this article.
  • No, it is not obvious or Gayot or gayot.com are notable or reliable. Don't assume throwing out a name means it is obvious for everybody. Again, I cannot find anything that makes gayot.com notable or reliable. There is nothing written in reliable refs that I can find (doesn't mean they are out there). They publish unsolicited reviews by anybody, including people paid by restaurants. This is what make Wikipedia, forums and blogs unreliable. This is different from paying third-party sources for information and still retaining editorial control that the New York Times does. If Times doesn't retain editorial control, it's called an op-ed or editorial. I can't see a gayot.com award is important. Michelin stars or a James Beard award are notable because they have the refs to back them up. Gayot is notable because of what is listed in his article... he has reliable, independent refs about him. Is Gayot reliable for ref? I don't know, but I would say yes without looking any deeper.
  • TL;DR version: Can't use a ref by Gayot to say anything about why/where/how he coined the term unless an independent ref says he did. Yes, can use Gayot about other aspects of the article because of his career. Bgwhite (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK everything I've said has merit, I wouldn't say it otherwise. I'll leave it to your imagination why being an experienced content editor in good standing is relevant to exercising discretion over links on the blacklist — if you look at the latest gayot.com whitelisting request, the denial addresses this explicitly. If you and Banner wish to address any bona fide content agreements as such, that would be welcome. You and I agree I think that if the claim is reliably sourced Gayot's article on the subject is allowable; if not, the claim is not verified. As far as I can tell Banner's position is that all gayot links should be either removed or whitelisted, a process matter I dispute. There are reliable sources but I don't think they're strong enough, something I'm discussing above. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:23, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, my friend, what I have said that when you want the links in the article, it is you who should try to get them from the blacklist. Not editor A, C, E or F, but editor Wikidemon should put in the effort. The Banner talk 00:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"You and I agree I think that if the claim is reliably sourced Gayot's article on the subject is allowable" Yes, I agree, except for any claims Gayot is making about himself. Just a note, I use "Gayot" meaning the person and "gayot.com" as the website. Gets confusing with the same name in both. I agree that a gayot.com links could be used, but it has to be in the right context. The article referenced in Nouvelle cuisine is a very good example of one that could be used. I currently don't see how a review or an award ref can be used in any article... Not because of whitelist/blacklist, but because of reliability/notability. Bgwhite (talk) 00:35, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reviews in publications that have editorial oversight, e.g. New York Times or most any newspaper, are often reliable to the extent they make factual claims as opposed to voicing opinion. There's a convention across many parts of the encyclopedia — art, music, restaurants, film, etc. — that a link to an official award site is reliable for the proposition that the award was in fact granted. What it doesn't establish is the relevance and weight of winning the award, that it should be included at all. That's not at issue here, but it's an open question whether being on Gayot's top 40 list is presumptively worth noting (as it might be for a James Beard award), worth noting only if the award can be sourced to a third party publication, or generally not worth noting (as it might be for getting a high Zagat rating). - Wikidemon (talk) 01:32, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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