Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 8682989)

Out of curiosity, how did people do this in centuries past, when people cooked over open fires or used wood-burning stoves?

Originally Posted by Chef (Post 8683033)

The wood burning stove was invented in the late 18th century, prior to that almost all cooking in the west was braises and stews done in cauldrons over open fires, food cooked in primitive ovens or grilled food.

In China they had a three sided brick thing that focused the heat of the open fire and they would put cooking implements on top.

Originally Posted by dimondpark (Post 8683022)

Only people not really familiar with the culinary world and the evolution of fine dining in the US would say such nonsense. Please stop talking.

Originally Posted by Chef (Post 8683055)

Modern American restaurant cooking began with Chez Panisse in Berkeley. A restaurant scene is an ephemeral thing though. It is a product of a web of relationships, ideas and skills that move from one restaurant to another as people move. Generational turnover means that a cities' restaurant ecosystem is born anew every 20 to 30 years. As a result, past performance is not an indicator of current quality. I don't know much about Berkeley's current restaurant scene but I do know that people outside of California don't talk about it like they did in the '80s or '90s.

Originally Posted by floor23 (Post 8682703)

only someone from California would think that Berkeley is significant in the culinary world. Cali has great restaurants throughout the state, but Berkeley isn't anything special.

And if Berkeley was anything important in the culinary world then this wouldn't even be considered. Any place that would consider itself to have "world-class" culinary scene would never consider this. Try passing a law like this in Asia, France, or Southern Europe and heads would roll.

Its very obvious from reading this thread who cooks professionally or at home in a serious manner and who doesn't. Anybody that cooks knows that gas is 100 times better than induction. Turning on a gas stove gets you an instant, constant flame that you can adjust visually.The flames produced by a natural gas stove also cook food more quickly and evenly, because the flames spread themselves along the bottom and sides of the pan. There are a lot of dishes out there that can't be cooked without gas stove. Try making a curry or stir fry on an induction stove (you can't). Watch any food network show and you will never see any chef who takes himself seriously caught dead with an induction stove top.

My guess is restaurants will just use portable butane cookers that are common in Asia. I have a few commercial grade ones at 15,000 BTU and the work great (no gas line in my building).

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 8683043)

So back then, temperature control and sautéing weren't a thing, I guess... only a recent thing?

Originally Posted by jg6544 (Post 8683069)

Berkeley remains one of the best food towns in the country. I think the only reasons it doesn't get talked about as much is that Chez Panisse has been cloned all over the country and there are so many excellent restaurants all over northern CA, Berkeley doesn't stand out the way it once did. Still a great place to find a meal, though.

Originally Posted by Chef (Post 8683073)

Saute cooking in a restaurant setting didn't exist until the second half of the 19th century when gas ranges started to be introduced. The techniques were a product of technological change. Before the invention of the range there were no flat bottomed saute pans or skillets.

The modern restaurant is really the product of the inventions of the gas range and the restaurant ventilation hood (which prevented cooks from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning). Both were invented in the early 19th century and became more common over time. Escoffier's brigade system for organizing the work, which came about in the late 19 century was the third piece. The kitchen of an 18th century inn would be completely different than what a modern chef is used to.

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 8683123)

So the desire for temperature control really is only a fairly recent thing.

Originally Posted by Chef (Post 8683055)

Modern American restaurant cooking began with Chez Panisse in Berkeley. A restaurant scene is an ephemeral thing though. It is a product of a web of relationships, ideas and skills that move from one restaurant to another as people move. Generational turnover means that a cities' restaurant ecosystem is born anew every 20 to 30 years. As a result, past performance is not an indicator of current quality. I don't know much about Berkeley's current restaurant scene but I do know that people outside of California don't talk about it like they did in the '80s or '90s.

Originally Posted by dimondpark (Post 8683152)

Yeah the food is still great but the Berkeley buzz ended in the 1990s, while Oakland has stolen a lot of the foodie thunder from Berkeley, capitulated by Commis, an incredible, 2-Michelin star rated restaurant that validates the tons of activity in Oakland.

Originally Posted by homebucket (Post 8683185)

What outsiders don't realize about the Bay Area is that there's great food across the board in the entire Bay Area, not just limited to SF. As you mentioned, Berkeley and Oakland especially are emerging foodie cities. You've also got many excellent restaurants up and down the Peninsula to San Jose, not to mention the numerous critically acclaimed restaurants in the Napa and Sonoma Valley regions. The great thing is that it's not just limited to high end Michelin dining. Thanks to a high immigration population, there's a plethora of cheap, authentic, ethnic cuisines as well, all over the metro.

Originally Posted by SFBruin (Post 8683258)

Are gas appliances significantly more wasteful than electrical counterparts?

I get that 27 percent of emissions come from gas appliances, but that is not really the metric that is needed imo.

Originally Posted by SFBruin (Post 8683258)

Are gas appliances significantly more wasteful than electrical counterparts?

I get that 27 percent of emissions come from gas appliances, but that is not really the metric that is needed imo.

Originally Posted by chris08876 (Post 8682892)

I'm proposing an experiment:

1) Observation: Folks in Berkeley seem to be triggered easily, at anything.

2) Hypothesis: The degree of triggering could result in death or severe injury in which the degree of triggered nature and subsequent death/injury probability for "X" subject is exponential depending on how large the trigger factor is.

I wonder what would happen if the following scenario occurred at Berkeley;

Parameters of the experiment:

Experimental Group: A pick up truck (F350 Ford), with black diesel exhaust, no muffler, no catalytic converters, rolling coal every 2 minutes... with pro MAGA bumper stickers, assault life stickers on the back, "the south will rise again" slogans on the truck, the truck is raised, playing outlaw country, fume pipe near the cab, the old banned Arkansas flag displayed on small flag poles extending from the sides of the cab on both ends, and a bumper sticker that states "coal is the future", pro-life, pro-marriage, "god will punish those that go against scripture" slogans, and finally... some hay in the cab that hasn't been tied correctly, and is thus, going all over the road.


Now with the truck, same truck, but replicated in the following cities: Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and NYC.


What I'm curious to learn from this experiment are the indicators of "time" , magnitude of injury, trigger factor, how many folks get triggered, and to what means of out-lashing do they resort too; verbal, violence, twitter/S.Media volume influx, and I want to measure in units of m³ the volume of tears, and how many barrels (assuming 50 gallons) the tears could fit from conducting the experiment over the span of 5 hours.

Disclaimer: Some drivers understand that this might be a one-way mission.


I think this experiment could further help us understand anthropological, and the human psychology even further in 2019.

Originally Posted by craigs (Post 8683355)

*Essentially, this thread was started and maintained only to enable right-wing culture warriors an opportunity to "own the libs" outside of the Current Events section, where such trollish garbage is rightly supposed to be quarantined.

Originally Posted by craigs (Post 8683355)

*Essentially, this thread was started and maintained only to enable right-wing culture warriors an opportunity to "own the libs" outside of the Current Events section, where such trollish garbage is rightly supposed to be quarantined.

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 8683404)

That was obvious to me too. The article in the OP is even old news from July of this year, which is why I followed it up with an article from last month that mentions that building owners can apply for exemptions.

Conservatives just want to perpetuate the status quo and are against anything new, even if new means beneficial/better.

I've said this on many other previous threads, but California was the first jurisdiction in the world to require catalytic converters on cars, and they did this in the mid-1970s. Conservatives and the auto industry claimed that it would raise the price of cars and would be an unfair burden to the auto industry (meaning it would eat into their profits)... oh, and it would be a burden to consumers too... but the whole US and other countries eventually followed suit anyway.