Spot-On: To Each, His Taste
I was teaching a cooking class and someone had just asked me about using cooking wine from the grocery store. It's a reasonable question, just one that I thought most folks knew the answer to. I had the grace to blush at my reaction, apologized, and explained that the stuff sold in stores is heavily salted, poor quality wine and that you should always use something you'd drink. I suggested he try a swallow of cooking wine sometime and would understand why it was a bad idea.
You can read the complete article at Spot-On.
5 Comments:
Great write up Kevin! I always heard never use cooking wine, but to be honest had no clue why...lucky for me I am enough of a win-o that there is always something from one of our local vinyards (yes we have them in Indiana)around the kitchen. Heavily salted sounds nasty!
-As far as the microwave goes, I sometimes use mine if the butter is to cold..but I usually reheat on the stove or oven...but I'm a a freezer whore...would be lost without it, shame on me.
Shelley,
When (mumble) years ago someone suggested I try a swallow of cooking wine I quickly saw the light.
And I consider a microwave as essential as a Kitchen Aid stand mixer or a Cuisinart food processor. I could live without those appliances, but would prefer not to.
Whenever my parents came to town, my father would insist on going out for seafood. He figured that Washington, D.C. being near the Atlantic Ocean naturally would serve great seafood. It was a mistaken assumption. Washington has never been great for seafood. The fish all comes from New York or overseas. But there was a great Italian restaurant called Vincenzo's that also served the freshest, most thoughtfully prepared (e.g. grilled) seafood in town.
We'd sit down and dad would ask for the wine menu. He'd go into a funk because there weren't any of his favorite American wines on the list. "We're an Italian restuarant," the waiter would explain. "We serve Italian wines." (They also did not serve butter with the bread).
"So why some some Parducci or Gallo," my father would retort. "There are great Italian-American wines in California!"
I don't think the owners of Vincenzo's were trying to be snobs, although many non-Italians took it that way. But there are plenty of places to get American or Italian-American wines. You didn't have to seek them out at Vincenzo's (now closed after a long run.) The point being that Vincenzo's just wanted to be Italian. Same with Mario Batali. I don't think Mario is a snob at all. He started his cooking career in a pizza joint in New Jersey. But he does make a point of teaching people how food is made in Italy.
People made a big deal of the Wegman's grocery chain moving in the D.C. area with their huge arrays of prepapred foods. One of those was the assortment of 50 or so different hummus--you know, the roasted pepper hummus, the avocado hummus, the star-spangled hummus. None of them were really very good, because they didn't know how to make the original hummus.
I don't think the issue is food snobber. I think it's about differentiating, or knowing the difference between what is original compared to the adaptation, what is organic compared to non-organic, what is sustainable compared to non-sustainable, what is just good compared to something that is indisputably lousy. Nobody needs to be embarrassed pointing out the distinctions. In fact, we should be making the distinctions whenever possible.
Alice Waters, from what I know of her, is just a flake. I'd be shocked if there's not a microwave in the kitchen at Chez Panisse. And you're right--leftovers are much better heated in the microwave, and corn on the cob is fabulous steamed in the microwave.
In a time long ago, in a galaxy far away, I too made the error of purchasing bottled cooking wine. *shudder*
Luckily, we move beyond, but its certainly easy to see why so many folks just don't care: they don't have the time, or the money to really look at these things.
But that woman on the view? Pathetic- she has no excuse!
Ed,
"I think it's about differentiating, or knowing the difference between what is original compared to the adaptation"
I'm inclined to think this is the essential issue. It's one of the reasones when I write an article on something like chowder I make the effort to research the topic first.
Today Elise posted a recipe on "pulled pork" that didn't include an eight-hour-plus hardwood smoke. It was pork-shoulder braised in BQ sauce. It may well have been good, but it missed what I consider the essential ingredient in pulled pork -- smoke.
You and I can and sometimes do disagree about the fundamentals, but we are certainly in concurrence on knowing what they are. Hell, A pulled pork sandwich without "bark" is baby food. (Don't tell Elise.)
S'kat,
It's all about priorities. In my Spot-On columns my goal is to get folks to make food a higher priority, something worth thinking about, but without telling them they're idiots (because, as the expression goes, that just makes the pig mad).
Pissing people off makes great copy, and sometimes makes a point well, but I want to persuade mostly, gently, and with feeling.
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