En relaci�n a [CrashList] The other side of Rissian life,
el 26 Aug 00, a las 8:43, Mark Jones dijo:
> FT: Food finds: Moscow eateries
> Dining out in a new generation of chic Russian restaurants springs
> more than a few surprises on Andrew Jack
>
>
>
> Russia's President Vladimir Putin might have warned recently that his
> country risked becoming part of the third world, but you wouldn't
> think so from the perspective of Le Duc, one of Moscow's more chic
> restaurants.
Financial Times can be particularly stupid, sometimes. It is
precisely the contrast between luxury consumption and widespread
misery what defines the third world. Since at least the early third
of the 1900s every nodal capital in a semicolony of some size boasts
at least one or two excellent restaurants, sometimes even better than
those that you can find at many important cities in the core
countries. They display gorgeous names in foreign languages,
particularly in French (Le Duc in Moscow, Au Bec Fin or L'Eau Vive in
Buenos Aires, Claude Troisgros or Le Saint Honor� in Rio, Laurent or
Roanne in S�o Paulo... comrades from other cities in the Third World
can contribute their own ones). This is easy to explain: since these
are semicolonial countries, the ruling classes have a strongly
rentistic behaviour, so that what should be invested in productive
capital is wasted in luxury dinners, large appartments overlooking
the sea, and so on.
>
> Beneath the arches and period decor of a fake Loire chateau, the
> tables are all occupied, and guests are indulging in dishes such as
> frogs' legs on a bed of Bayonne ham, and carpaccio of veal with red
> berries and tarragon. The maitre d' is French, as is the chef, who
> prepares his food from 100 per cent French ingredients, right down to
> the salt and pepper. You are unlikely to emerge with a bill for less
> than $100 a head.
And all of this is boringly usual in our own countries too,
particularly the "100 per cent foreign ingredients, right down to the
salt and pepper". In countries such as ours, imported goods are
always more fashionable than local made ones, no matter relative
qualities.
>
> If English, French and German are to be widely heard, that is because,
> as Andrei Dellos, the owner, argues, "the Russians have not yet
> learned to make reservations".
>
> Judging by the black Mercedes 600s and box-like Jeeps parked outside -
> the preferred transport of bosses and their bodyguards respectively -
> it is not because of a lack of local money. "There is no real poverty
> in Russia, and certainly not in Moscow," he says. "It's a 100 per cent
> exaggeration. No one is dying of hunger in this country."
Whoever comes to Buenos Aires, the city of rage and desperation, will
hear similar comments from every fashionable restaurant owner along
the 15-20 mile long stretch of luxurious or well-to-do neighborhoods
that pack the Northern half of the River Plate banks.
>
> That may seem a somewhat narrow view, as we sip on a dessert of pureed
> red fruit which alone costs more than the monthly wage of many
> Russians. But in a city with a population of 15m, and where a
> disproportionate amount of Russian wealth has been concentrated for
> many decades, there are more than enough people to fill Le Duc. And
> tips of up to $2,000 apiece to the coterie of ever-attentive waiters
> are apparently not unknown.
>
> In fact, Dellos stresses that foreign clients are simply an added
> bonus in a restaurant that he designed for Russians.
This is exactly what these guys seek. The similitudes between the
current situation in Russia and that in my own country are amazing, I
stumble upon them again and again!
...
Thank you, Mark. If you ever come to Buenos Aires, be sure I will NOT
take you to such a kind of restaurants, but to a very different kind
of place...
N�stor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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