Pranav Gopal #11 The Power of Food
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| Rowan Smith // Unsplash |
If you know food, you probably know Gordon Ramsay, a chef world-renowned for his skills and entertaining insults on-screen. You might be wondering why I'd mention this celebrity chef, but it interested me to learn that the legend himself has actually lost over half of his Michelin stars. Thinking about this conception really got me thinking about this identification of quality and luxury, as I had heard about Michelin stars and their prestige, but never really understood the qualifications necessary to earn them. Thinking along the lines of food as an art, it really intrigued me as to what the concrete and objective standards were for the highest quality food money can earn.
The Michelin star system of rating has a lot to do with the development of the automobile industry, with the first Michelin Guide being developed in 1900 by the founders of the popular tire company Micheline. Founding brothers of Michelin Tire, Andre Micheline and Edouard Michelin, needed a campaign to increase the popularity of cars, and thus create demand for their tires. These Michelin Guides were essentially tourist or city guides, including maps featuring various places of interest throughout the area. These places of interest included restaurants, gas stations, popular routes, and other random places people may enjoy visiting. This guide was distributed free of charge, throughout Europe and eventually reaching the Northern parts of Africa, in hopes of generating demand and profits for the tire business.
The start of World War I stopped the guide in its tracks, before it eventually began production in 1920. With this new series of the Michelin guide came an increase in the quality of it, as well as the introduction of an actual price to accompany it. Along with this new series came the first Michelin star ratings, where in 1926, French restaurants were granted stars based on whether or not they were a fine dining experience. This rating system would, in 1931, soon develop into the 3 star rating system that has persisted to the modern day. The Escoffier School of Culinary Arts indicates that a one star rating is a very good restaurant in its category, while 2 stars represent excellent cooking worth taking time off a route, and 3 stars represents exceptional dining worth a specific and intentional journey for the food.
The start of World War II caused another hiatus in the guide, which resumed during the war because maps and knowledge of terrain were necessary during the time. As a result of food shortages and other factors like economic downturn, the 3 Michelin star system was reduced to 2, accompanied by a downturn on restaurant quality. However, in 1955, Michelin developed a system that acknowledged the quality of food and more sustainable and economical prices, and are reflective of impressive quality at affordable prices based on region and cost of living.
The 3 Michelin star system persisted into the modern day, with restaurants around the world priding themselves on becoming prestigious locations of the highest quality of cuisine. To be determined worthy of a Michelin star, restaurants are inspected by anonymous reviewss, who visit the restaurant and compile an extremely detail-oriented and intensive report about every facet of the culinary presentation, ranging from the quality to presentation of the dishes. Restaurants are judged on the quality of ingredients, skill of flavor and technique, the reflection of the chef's own vision in the dish, the value of the food for the money spent, and the consistency of the restaurant. After multiple inspectors have reviewed and thoroughly examined the restaurant, all reviewers of the restaurant will come together and meet to discuss an overall rating, determining which restaurants will them be awarded a number of Michelin stars.
In famed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's case, his restaurant was apparently not consistent enough between visits, leading to his decline of Michelin stars. Though restaurants can be awarded Michelin stars, their quality is regularly checked and these stars can be removed should quality dwindle beneath a certain threshold. This, however, is likely due to the amount of eateries Ramsay owns, as well as his inability to be present and continue quality checks at all of them. In any case, Ramsay related the loss of these stars to the loss of a girlfriend, saying that "It's like losing a girlfriend. You want her back," and seems on the path to attempting to re-earning these stars.
Hello Pranav, I think the history of the Michelin star system is really interesting, especially because Michelin is not even a restaurant company. I wonder if Michelin really intended for this system to become as big as it did become, especially because of how much chefs define their entire life around it. I heard about a chef that killed himself because he lost a Michelin star.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav! The moment you mentioned the term, “Michelle stars” the first thing that came to my mind is exactly what you have said in your opening statement about the quality, expense and luxury it’s name holds. All these days, every time our family went to a restaurant with many Michelle stars, I used to think that they required many qualifications to be met when inspected to earn such a rating; however, after thoroughly reading your blog post I understood the objective standards that this food is created on. Factors such as having “exceptional dining” or “exemplary services” play a role in the overall score a restaurant receives, but the culinary presentation of the food itself plays a much larger role than the actual quality of the food. Considering that many restaurants can be similar to Gordon Ramasay’s situation where his score declined due to the lack of visitors, it makes sense that we cannot judge the quality of a restaurant solely based on the number of stars it received. Thank you for your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav! I have a very vague memory of my mom discussing Michelin stars with her friend and me being very confused since I thought Michelin referred to tires. I didn't know until today that the Michelin stars were actually from the same company as the tires, and I never thought tires could be related to food, but it actually makes a lot of sense after reading your blog. I think last year, when I went to San Francisco with our dear classmate Carolin, our parents ordered food from this Michelin restaurant, but we ate it at picnic tables in some random park and by the time our parents came back with the food, it was kind of soggy and cold so I didn't really have a good impression of it.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav! I remember hearing an anecdote a while back about how Michelin stars were just a marketing campaign employed by Michelin tires to get people to drive more. From what I heard, apparently a higher amount of stars always just meant that a certain restaurant was worth stopping at, thus leading people to drive more to different. Honestly, the most surprising aspect of the Michelin star system is its popularity. It seems strange that a tire company of all things can create one of the most well-known criteria for rating food or restaurants. Although, I suppose it does make sense that making a profit off selling more tires was the overarching purpose.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav, this is such an interesting topic to talk about when discussing language and power. I remember learning about how Michelin stars actually came from the tire company, and I was surprised as to how a tire company correlates with food. Now, I know that it was simply a marketing technique to get people to pay more attention to the company. I think the Michelin star system perfectly shows the power of how one word attached to something can make that thing so much more reputable. There are so many great restaurants around the world, but as soon as you add the label "Michelin star" to the restaurant, it's viewed as one of the best restaurants. Thank you for this post; I enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav, I found your blog to be really interesting, as I personally had not heard much about the Michelin star rating system before. I was really surprised to learn that a tire company trying to promote their own saled, ended up creating one of the most prestigious restaurant rating system that is still used today. I feel like the Michelin star rating system is kind of overrated, since a lot of the rating is focused on the “fine dining experience” and not the food itself. The power this rating has can be damaging to smaller restaurants who might even have better food, but not as much popularity or resources to present their food in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Overall, I feel like placing too much emphasis on such ratings isn’t ideal, but I think it is also worth trying a few Michelin star restaurants for the experience.
ReplyDeleteA Michelin star is only given to the best: the greatest restaurants. A one star is meant to be a nice stop, two worth taking time out of your day to go, and three a solid destination for a trip. However, a Michelin-starred restaurant is not only the extremely fancy restaurants with fine dining menus that provide portion sizes meant for kids at prices one would expect at an auction. There are even street food vendors that have recieved Michelin stars, most famously a soy-sauce chicken vendor in Hong Kong, the cheapest Michelin starred restaurant to exist. There are many ideas attached to the Michelin star, but like all things, it must adapt with time.
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