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As I understand the story, Michelin made tires for cars… and people drive in cars. Maybe if people had a handy guide that told them all the best places to eat, they’d start driving to those places… thus the Michelin Guide was born!
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There is also an interesting video by tasting history about this: https://youtu.be/-Y_TWPbmiRE
IIRC these even used the guide in a world war because of how good the maps in it were.
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I deadass thought the tire company and the restoraunt rating system were two completely different and unrelated things. Wow
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Thats some deep state level stuff. What if restaurants recommended tyres so people could continue to drive to their restaurant without worrying about safety.
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That's no deep state level stuff, what the top comment describes is just what happened. Back in the day (60's), advertising was very different from now. Some advertisements were quite long and explained the product in some depth, more like an infomercial. Others were meant to be useful or entertaining with the product more off to the side, like the michelin stars. Soaps are also a good example of this. Soap companies used to make elaborate household dramas to target their primary customers: Housewives. That is why we call soaps soaps, because the genre was invented/vastly utilized by soap companies.
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Similarly, the Guinness of the beer and the Guinness of the book of records are the same Guinness. Michelin started as a tire company when there were only approximately 4000 cars in all of France, their home country, and started the restaurant guide as a way of increasing demand for travel, and therefore cars, and therefore tires for cars. Guinness the brewery started the list of records as something to keep on hand to settle arguments in pubs
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Also, the snobbery aspect of the Michelin guide is because only rich people could afford cars at the beginning.
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I used to work in a Michelin star restaurant very briefly, and it's mostly just about presentation. The food was definitely good enough high quality but you could also get good high quality food from non-michelin star restaurants, if you paid enough.
Anyway all the kitchen staff used to go to McDonald's for their lunch, which tells you everything you really need to know about Michelin restaurants. You can get sick of fancy food.
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Guinness the brewery started the list of records as something to keep on hand to settle arguments in pubs
That sounds like an awesome cultural thing that probably died with smartphones.
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I remember being jealous of a classmate of mine in the early 00's that got the new book as a gift every year as they always had these really flashy covers with sparkly holograms and stuff.
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They still exist but now they do a website and TV shows
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Technically it’s the tire company telling people to drive hundreds of miles to eat at specific restaurants
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The initial ranking criteria is litteraly how long of a drive is the restaurant worth.
- * High-quality cooking, worth a stop
- ** Excellent cooking, worth a detour
- *** Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey
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Well it was more of a general travel guide thing but also sure why not, foodies never change lmao
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Tyty I wanted to be like akshully capitalism but I'm not succinct like you.
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It was so their tires would wear off faster, forcing them to buy new ones more often!
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Guiness the beer company giving out world records.
Beer companies in general have a stadium/arena named after them, it gets confusing after Saku (town) has a beer company names saku and they have a stadium/arena in Tallinn (hosted Eurovision 2002 btw)
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The world records thing started as a way to settle bets in bars, meaning they stayed in the bars longer and drank more Guinness. So that makes sense. Similarly, the Michelin guide was something to make the idea of driving more attractive by giving tourists dining information.
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My favourite is the Busch Stadium.
Sportsman's Park was renamed Busch Stadium in 1953; then-team owner August Busch Jr. had planned to name it Budweiser Stadium, but at the time league rules prohibited naming a venue after an alcoholic beverage. Busch named the stadium after himself, and the Anheuser-Busch corporation later introduced "Busch Beer".
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I don't know how I never put 2 and 2 together on that. wow
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"Hey, you what will help sell more tires? Rating restaurants!" -some marketing person at Michelin
And the weird thing is it worked.
See also the Guinness Book of World Records, which is just a beer company doing some marketing to settle bar bets.
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Mmmm, tires
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No shit. Learning things is a hell of a thing.
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Read this with Kanye West's voice
I like some of Michelin's tires, What the Fuck does they know about food?
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The award show is funny, because any chef that wins gets to shake hands with the Michelin man.
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We really did let posh wankers have too much sway on food.
I want a guide that lists everything by calories per £. If I'm going out for a meal, I want value!
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I had a professor who used to time his visits to Golden Corral such that he could eat breakfast, then continue sitting through the lunch change over.
It was disgusting even to see, but it worked. I can't imagine you could get better caloric density per dollar than that. The ratio is nearly infinite, if you're willing to put in the work.
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Tire producers, fancy food, and cross-country bicycle races, they go together like...uh...eggs and pizza? Sure that works
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His name is Mr Bibendum btw
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The whole thing is dumb. It's a tire company. But not just that, it's a French tire company. Name your top 3 favorite French dishes. Now name your top three favorite French restaurant. If you're like me, you can't even name one of either and after thinking about it, I can't even remember even seeing a single french restaurant in my life outside of like a wine place or French bakery or something. Despite having possibly one of the least popular cuisines in all of the earth they are the ones choosing where we should all eat.
On top of that the system is super dumb. You can only have a Michelin star if your restaurant is in a place that allows them. Most states in the US are not allowed to have a Michelin star. You could be the best restaurant in all of the world but if your not in Chicago, New York City, LA, Vegas, or San Francisco too bad (and I think Miami now? Texas is about to get some too but only in Houston, Dallas and Austin cause... reasons).
In addition, they only allow a certain number of Michelin stars per location. So if you start an absolute kickass restaurant in a place that happens to allow Michelin stars but already has a few restaurants that have stars, well too bad, there aren't any stars left. Tough shit.
But as dumb as it is... God damn is it phenomenal marketing so I guess... Good job?
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The whole thing is dumb
It's actually pretty sensible. The guide was created in 1900 to help people find Michelin tires when traveling, at a time where finding a garage or a gas station was a major issue for drivers. Then they added other stuff like hotel and restaurant recommandations. It came free with Michelin tires so it quickly became popular.
As for french culinary traditions, you may not know the dishes but it's actually the basis for most of western cuisine... Every chef worth its salt has studied it, and French people take food pretty seriously. So it makes sense that the leading restaurant guide is French.
So if you start an absolute kickass restaurant in a place that happens to allow Michelin stars but already has a few restaurants that have stars, well too bad, there aren't any stars left.
Every years some restaurants are demoted or even removed from the guide, precisely to make place for new, better ones. The Michelin guide is not trip advisor, it's meant to provide a small selection of outstanding restaurants.
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Found the salty american 😁
Okay so for my top 3:
Seafood if thats "a dish", tartiflette, raclette, pot au feu, blanquette de veau, fondue, huitres, hachis parmentier... The list goes on and on.
And, but that's only if it is correctly done (cooking each ingredient a part), you might have heard of it: ratatouille 😋
Food is more than "a dish" in France, it's a tradition, it's an institution.
Sure you can get crappy food like the other guy answering your post, I mean get a wrap up food in a tourist place you'll end up with crappy food for sure, but thats like saying american beer is like piss, I tried a bud once.
🧑🍳🫕
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Despite having possibly one of the least popular cuisines in all of the earth they are the ones choosing where we should all eat.
It's also funny because despite having such an "unpopular" cuisine, you likely use either "Hors d'œuvre" or "entrée" to describe the course before the main course and you probably use the word "dessert" for the sweet stuff that comes after. Or perhaps you use the term "restaurant" to describe a place where you might eat. All French.
There are some pretty well known French dishes that come to mind, fries literally being one. I do like me some coq au vin. Never tried ratatouille despite how well known it is. But I think one main problem is that a lot of French dishes that aren't desserts, are only offered in expensive, pretentious restaurants. I'm probably never going to try foie gras, etc.
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It’s also funny because despite having such an “unpopular” cuisine, you likely use either “Hors d’œuvre” or “entrée” to describe the course before the main course and you probably use the word “dessert” for the sweet stuff that comes after. Or perhaps you use the term “restaurant” to describe a place where you might eat. All French.
90% of the English food vocabulary comes from French. Words like beef, pork, vennison, mutton, veal, sauce, omelet, dinner, apéritif, café, soup, ... all come from French.
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Weirdly and confusingly in the U.S. at least “entree” is used for main course. I don’t know if that’s also the case in the UK or other parts of the English speaking world. “Appetizer” is normally used for the starting course; “hors-d’œuvre” usually only shows up at fancy or pretentious restaurants.
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Despite having possibly one of the least popular cuisines in all of the earth
Are you fucking high? Not that there is anything wrong with being high, but this take is psychedelic levels of weird.
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name your 3 favorite French tires
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- crêpes / galettes
- quiches / tartes
- crème brûlée
These are fairly simple dishes. I think the main reason that "French cuisine" more generally lacks the clear profile of other national cuisines is that its components and techniques have been adopted in such a widespread manner that it has become indistinguishable from a high-end continental cuisine that is no longer uniquely French.
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Man outraged map of Western Seaboard doesn’t contain directions to the moon.
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Coq au vin
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Croissant
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Blancmange
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When I was traveling internationally there was a few countries where packing snacks was required. This was especially true if you were stuck in conventions or meetings for the week.
France was the consistently the absolute worst country for food. Everybody pretends to know what they are doing making complex dishes. Here's a hint, they don't. I had more inedible food served to me in France than any other country I traveled too.
So why the Michelin star system started in France makes perfect sense to me. In a nation of shitty food, these are passibly edible.
As for the marketing side of it: artificially creating a impression of superiority and exclusivity is a core technique to sell luxury items. It's been around for as long as some people have believed they were superior to others. Yes it is dumb, but it works.
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Next time avoid tourist traps and go to places listed on le fooding or, well, the Michelin guide :)
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