Book Review and Interview: What to Drink with What You Eat
Note: I don't usually involve OWF in these PR things, but I liked Culinary Artistry, an earlier book by the authors, and decided to agree to be a stop on their "virtual book tour."
Review
I'm wary of books that promise to teach the reader how to pair wine with food. I work off the belief that a few simple rules give everyone the tools they need, and that anything more intimidates and confuses.
But Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's new book What to Drink With What You Eat offers an interesting middle ground. Less a book-length primer—though the first chapters offer general advice—and more a catalog of proven pairings, the bulk of the book lists foods or cuisines and the drinks that go with them, or drinks and their complementary foods. A batch of ripe figs called your name at the market? Open a bottle of Vin Santo to accompany the dessert. Someone gave you a bottle of Madiran and you don't know what to eat with it? Try duck confit. Fans of Culinary Artistry will find the book's layout familiar: simple lists under easy-to-find subheadings, with bold entries indicating well-worn pairing classics. I couldn't find any pairings I disagreed with, when I knew enough to assess the idea myself.
Casual wine drinkers will probably get the most from the book, as the listings make connections between wines that might not be obvious. Muscadet has similarities to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, for instance, but that kinship is only obvious when you've tasted each, not when you're staring at an unfamiliar bottle in the wine store. Each drink's subheading gives a quick primer: "Dolcetto (Italian light-to-medium-bodied red wine from the Piedmont region)." But even obsessive wine enthusiasts with our own opinions about pairings will enjoy the ideas for food to serve with tea, sake, beer, and more—even water. Wine dominates the book, but these other listings offer some interesting tidbits. I wouldn't think to pair root beer with foie gras, for example.
I do wish that the authors had been able to print the rationale behind individual pairings. I don't know how they would have fit that into the format, but without a thought process from one of their experts, it feels like a missed educational opportunity.
Overall, though, this is a useful tool for someone looking to fill glasses with as much care as they turn to their plates. I've already recommended it to friends and acquaintances. Dornenburg & Page have provided an extensive list of pairing suggestions that will inspire rut-bound pairers and comfort casual drinkers.
This book was sent to me as a review copy.
Q & A
As part of their virtual book tour, the authors agreed to answer some of my questions, and I've reproduced that e-mail interview here.
What prompted you to do this book?
We wanted everyone to be able to experience and enjoy the same peak pairings of food and drink that have blown our minds while dining out or even eating at home. We also wanted to create a book that you didn't have to be a master sommelier to get something out of—one that allowed even an inexperienced wine drinker to glean some ideas by simply looking up various ingredients, dishes, or cuisines, with the same ease with which they might look up a word in the dictionary or a thesaurus.
Our book Culinary Artistry, which is the first known reference on culinary composition and flavor compatibility, used this format to effectively communicate compatible flavors, although its emphasis is primarily on food as opposed to beverages. (We were pleased to hear that Gourmet magazine's #1 restaurant of the year Alinea's chef Grant Achatz cited Culinary Artistry as his #1 most-used culinary book in Chicago magazine.) What to Drink with What You Eat is essentially "Culinary Artistry for food and beverages."
And since eating and drinking is something that most of us already do three times a day, we thought, "What could bring the average person more pleasure than being able to turn every meal — breakfast, lunch and dinner — into a peak experience?"
Isn't a good wine and food pairing largely a subjective experience?
Absolutely—just like everything from art to sex. Who's to say that what one person finds appealing will be found appealing by another? Yet there are classic paintings, and even classic sexual positions. We've gathered pairing recommendations that include many classic "Holy Grail" pairings we think every self-respecting foodie might want to try at least once in their lifetime.
But not even the experts always enjoy a classic pairing. For example, cheese guru Steven Jenkins of NYC's Fairway Market—who brought Epoisses to the United States—doesn't like the combination of foie gras and Sauternes. He prefers Calvados (which is less sweet, for any readers who aren't familiar with this dry apple brandy). But in deference to the popular classic match, he'll have sweet wine on hand to serve to guests who might not share his taste.
How did you choose your experts?
Based on our previous books and our dining experiences, we knew which professionals were responsible for some of our peak pairings in a restaurant setting. We interviewed many of them first, then asked each of them who they thought were some of the best pairers they knew. When some of the same names started being mentioned over and over again (e.g. Joe Catterson of Chicago's Alinea), we sought them out for interviews. We ended up interviewing arguably the largest group of sommeliers (60+) and master sommeliers (10) that has ever been interviewed for a wine book. Most wine books reflect a single expert's opinion (whose personal taste you may or may not share); ours features a synthesis of more than 70 experts' opinions, so you're far more likely to find recommendations that are in line with your own.
What were your biggest surprises pairing-wise?
We've both earned sommelier certificates (Andrew through the Sommelier Society of America, and Karen through the Court of Master Sommeliers), and consider ourselves to be wine lovers first and foremost. But while researching this book, we developed tremendous respect for the pairing potential of other beverages—including beer, sake, cocktails, and non-alcoholic beverages, all of which are covered in What to Drink with What You Eat.
After interviewing Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewing Company, we ordered in enchiladas mole from our neighborhood Mexican restaurant and paired the $10 with a $2 bottle of Porter that we bought at the deli on the corner. The Porter and the mole were absolutely magical together! We'd like to see it become commonplace for people to take two minutes to think about what they should drink with their meal to create this kind of magic three times a day.
What's your advice to someone who's trying to pair a wine with a dish that has a number of elements—protein, side, etc.?
In the past, the general rule was "Red wine with meat, and white wine with fish." That worked in the days when foods were served simply and unadorned.
But in this day and age, it's even more important to look to the dominant flavors of a dish—whether they're in the form of the protein, the sauce and/or a side dish. It's typically the sauce, or the herbs or spices or other flavorings that accent it. For example, if there are habanero peppers in a dish, we'd imagine that counterbalancing that kind of heat is going to be a lot more important than virtually anything else!
One problem with wine-pairing books is they often encourage people to fall into dogmatic ruts. This goes with that, and that's all there is to it. How do you work towards giving readers creativity and courage to try their own pairings?
We designed the book to be as useful to a novice as to an expert in serving as an idea generator for pairing options to consider. Roget's Thesaurus is an extraordinarily useful reference book, but its usefulness is largely determined by the writing talent a novice or expert brings to it. The same is true of What to Drink with What You Eat. Novices without much depth of experience will probably tend to use the book literally, relying on the most popular pairing recommendations (which are indicated in bold and/or CAPS and/or with an asterisk). Experts with greater food and drink memory can use the book more intuitively, reinterpreting recommended pairings ("Oh, these are all fruity reds listed...I think I'll try this with the fruity Merlot I picked up around the corner last week....").
What do you think of the trend towards higher-alcohol wines, with regard to their ability to pair with food. And the kinds of food they can pair with.
In general, we think this is a disappointing trend. It's especially sad to see it happen with delicate wines such as Pinot Noir, which lose the essence of what makes them great when they're pumped up with too high of alcohol levels.
In general, we suggest that readers avoid pairing high-alcohol wines with either very subtle (e.g. delicate) dishes, which are overwhelmed by them—or with very salty or spicy dishes, which clash with them.
In issue 64 of The Art of Eating, Ed Behr wrote this in response to a letter from David Schildknecht that commented on Ed's earlier statement "most wines don't go particularly well with food." He intended it to be provocative, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts:
"Not that there is a better drink with food than wine, but the two don't complement each other nearly as much as we are almost everywhere led to believe. Yes, some foods go extremely well with wine: a roast chicken goes with almost any wine. But perfect matches are extremely rare. If, at a meal, you take a bite of food and pay close attention to its flavor, and if you pause to clear your palate and then take a sip of the wine in your glass and carefully note its flavor, and then if you taste the two together, you'll find that each usually diminishes the other."
Hey, Derrick, remember those "Magic Eye" pictures that were all the rage in the early 1990s? You'd stare into them a certain way, and some people could see an almost "magical" 3-D image. Other people could stare and stare and never see anything more than the colors and shapes on the surface of the paper. We ourselves make no value judgments for or against people who can or can't see the 3-D image. But others who can't see the image might argue that it doesn't exist.
Our personal gastronomic experiences are most in line with those of the late Italian wine critic Luigi "Gino" Veronelli, whose words open What to Drink with What You Eat: "The flavor of a food almost always reveals the quality of a wine and exalts it. In turn, the quality of a wine complements the pleasure of a food and spiritualizes it."
We hope that What to Drink with What You Eat helps to open the door for everyone to experience more pleasure than they might have previously thought possible through pairing food and drink. For those who'd like an educational and entertaining first-hand tasting experience, we invite them to join us on October 30th at Draeger's - San Mateo; November 6th at Dahlia Lounge - Seattle; and/or November 9th at Cru - Vancouver for a taste of some extraordinary food and beverage pairings that just might make a believer out of anyone!
And, by the way, Derrick, many thanks for hosting us today on our "Virtual Book Tour." We're grateful that you extended the courtesy as a gesture of your appreciation for Culinary Artistry. Thanks for making it such a pleasure!
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