Pairings: Complementing Complements

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg’s excellent compendiums Culinary Artistry, What To Drink with What You Eat and, most recently, the Flavor Bible, are nothing if not smart, savvy and plugged into the American, and to a lesser extent, the international culinary world. Their books reflect a Who’s Who familiarity with the great chefs of America, and the Flavor Bible is a gas to read. It’s designed to jumpstart imaginative menus and creative cookery for anyone ready to build from scratch.

Page and Dornenburg litter their books with great ideas and anecdotes from those great chefs, so just flipping the pages is enough to fire you up to build your own brilliant recipes. If you love to cook, you’re going to love the idea that somebody has taken the collected wisdom of all these chefs and matched specific spices and vegetables, for instance, and taken down cooking tips and preparation guidelines from all these famous folk.

Of course, any food or wine professional will find something to quibble about anytime somebody is brave and forthright enough to put so much guidance in a few volumes. I’d have to admit that I, for one, could complain about their cursory treatment of one of the five primary flavors, Umami.

I find myself bemused that food writers as well-informed as these two still find it necessary to say that umami is supported by “growing evidence”. Look, the Chinese were writing about umami in the world’s first printed cookbook, about three thousand years ago. Can we just get over the fact that the West has been slow to read Asian cookbooks? And anybody who is offering about food and beverage needs to deal head-on with umami, a flavor found in tomatoes, shellfish, seaweed, miso, heck, Worcestershire, which is like liquid umami, and okay, MSG, because umami rich foods can make for pretty grim pairing with tannic, powerful red wines. But I admit I was quibbling. So I’ll stop windging and tackle some of the great flavors that Karen and Andrew are talking about.

Like their appetizer of blue cheese, honey and walnuts. Honey is sweet, but I guess you knew that. Walnuts are bitter, and blue cheese has fat as well as umami, but I wasn’t supposed to bring that up, was I? That trio of flavors is so intense that there are very few wines that can insert themselves between those three bullies. If this were dessert, it would be fairly easy, but since it’s an appetizer, you probably want a wine that is more aperitif than dessert.  So I’d recommend Sherry, not the sweet kind, but the drier than the desert one, Amontillado and in particular, I’ll go with Lustau Amontillado VOS Sherry, which has a sort of lemon meets almond meets sea air meets mushroom note that scoops all the food flavors up and says, like Molly Bloom, yes, I will, yes.

The Brussel Sprouts with their bacon (yum), shallots and garlic are far more forgiving; but like Karen and Andrew talk about in their books, lots of flavor in the food, means you need lots of flavor in the wine. I’m looking for a bottle of powerful Austrian Gruner Veltliner, but my red wine loving friends are glad I brought along some delicious Beaujolais, not the cheap stuff, but the top stuff, a Morgon.

The risotto could handle a multitude of red wines, and I hate to follow the “what grows together goes together” rule (though Karen and Andrew love that one), but still, why fight reality? I’m going to Italy’s Piedmont for a fresh, not yet rough Barbaresco 2006 or 2007 though I could even get away with a Barbera, if I got something young and powerful. It’s the usual rule of make sure neither the wine nor the food overpower each other.

And for dessert, there are sticky wines from all over that like chocolate and vanilla, I mean, the Aussies coined the sticky term for their dessert wines. But I want to finish like we started, with Sherry. This time I’ll go with a rich East India Cream Sherry, following the critical guidance that the dessert wine should be as sweet or sweeter than the dessert. Wow, this is tough work.