Developage.com

“Criticism is easy, art is difficult” – so goes the French saying. A good illustration of this principle comes in a New York Times article about an influential French food critic who for years had attacked the best restaurateurs in his columns. Some say he was the inspiration behind Anton Ego, the much-feared critic in “Ratatouille”.

Well, he decided to cook for a few days in a local pub, and the result was…mixed:

The meal was barely adequate, according to five diners one night. The pumpkin soup, seasoned heavily with ginger, vanilla and black sesame oil, was grainy, undercooked and so dense it stood up in stiff peaks.

“I’m disappointed,” said Julie Demarest, an administrator in a water purification company. “It’s thick — like oatmeal. I don’t like it.”

The spiced chicken with pine nuts and golden raisins filled the dinner plate, but was accompanied only by an underdressed green salad. The zabaglione with sake was frothy and thin rather than creamy; the centers of the macaroons were chewy rather than soft. When the maître d’hôtel offered seconds on the dessert, there were few takers.

“Those macaroons — they’re so hard they could choke a Christian,” said Marc Beekenkamp, a Web designer, using an expression that means the dish is hard to digest.

When criticized, try to remember where it all comes from – and ask yourself if the critic could have done any better.

As a chef said about this particular critic: “Frankly, what he writes or says doesn’t interest me one bit. Life’s too short.”