"Uranium Committee" in
om...
> Mike Tommasi > wrote in message
>. ..
>
> > Traditional regioanl italian dishes developed out
> > of hunger and the easiest solution to filling your stomach.
>
> You obviously have a very narrow understanding of
> Italian regional cooking. . . .
>
> > And wines from over 30 years
> > ago do not resemble in any way the wines
> > available today.
>
> Some do, some don't.
>
> > So most so-called traditional wine pairings are totally
> > accidental. Sometimes they work, mainly because the
> > matches have become culturally acceptable and the palates
> > have evolved to like them, but most regional matches are
> > not easy.
>
> Not all dishes are regional. . . .


A friend who is a professional restaurant critic observed lately, and I
think penetratingly, that small-time writing about food defines and
expresses itself often via negativity. (We were talking about the syndrome
of certain writers who freelance for local newspapers, and the concrete
damage that they have done in recent years. But the discussion might be
germane here too.) He mentioned writers who had expressed themselves
regularly as too sophisticated for this restaurant, or intolerant of the
imperfections of that one. (He also cited a local food newsgroup where a
similar style can be found today.) I have noticed such trademark
negativity also on some food forums today, including HTML sites.

Right now I cannot offer suggestions about food-wine pairing other than to
endorse the practice. But here are some light quotations, to make amends
(and by way of recommending the full text, in the second case).

-- Max H.


--
"No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney." -- Rube Goldberg, as
quoted by Lee Roth in > (about 15 years ago here on
the Usenet). Goldberg was an engineer (Berkeley, 1904) best known for the
mechanical contrivances in his cartoons.


--
Tatyana Tolstaya's 1993 review of a new English edition of a traditional
Russian national cookbook (Molokhovets) was entertaining throughout for food
fanatics, but especially when it degenerated in the last quarter into tirade
and meditation on vodka. Here's a sample. (I omit her jab at people who
drink Coca-Cola with food.)

"The American manner of drinking Vodka -- on an empty stomach and either
warm, or diluted by being "on the rocks" -- is as destructive for humans as
it is for the product. It's rather like drinking yesterday's Champagne from
a tea cup. The whole point of vodka lies in the fact that a small jigger is
swallowed quickly in one breath (it's poured from a bottle kept in the
freezer), as if one were gulping fire, and that in the same instant one
takes a bit of something very hot or spicy -- mushrooms, pickles, marinated
pepper, salted fish, scalding borshch, hot sausages in tomato sauce -- it
doesn't matter. Virtuosos don't eat, but sniff black bread (only black!) or
the sleeve of an old jacket -- but it's hard to recommend this method in a
country with a well-developed system of dry cleaners; it won't produce the
same effect. . . .

"Vodka and _zakuski_ (appetizers) are theoretically indivisible. The word
_zakuska_ denotes specifically food that is eaten with vodka, in order to
temper its effect on the body. It's ridiculous to drink vodka without
_zakuski._ You'll get drunk immediately, especially if you're hungry, and
you won't be able to appreciate the dinner to come. . . . In combination,
vodka and _zakuski_ stimulate the appetite, cheer the soul, warm you up, and
prepare you for a feast."

[_New York Review of Books_ 21 Oct 1993 pp. 24-26. Not from online.]