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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)