"Women are gourmandes"

In which we do a number of things, to wit:

• learn to operate our new Kindle
• find a classic old cookery book at Project Gutenberg -- perhaps the classic cookery book
• skim it,
• find something interesting, and
• attempt not to embarrass ourselves in our recollections of high school French.

The theme of the passage: women are (or should be?) natural lovers of good food. From the Physiologie du gout, by Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin (first published, 1825).

He says:

Les Femmes sont gourmandes. Women are gourmandes.

Le penchant du beau sexe pour la gourmandise à quelque chose qui tient
de l'instinct, car la gourmandise est favorable à la beauté.

The fair sex's penchant for la gourmandise is something instinctive, since la gourmandise goes hand in hand with (is favorable to?) beauty.

Une suite d'observations exactes et rigoureuses a démontré qu'un régime
succulent, délicat et soigné ...

The following observations, exact and rigorous, demonstrate that a succulent, delicate, and careful regime [i.e., a good diet]

repousse longtemps et bien loin les apparences extérieures de la vieillesse.

pushes far away, and for good, the exterior appearances of old age.

Il donne aux yeux plus de brillant ...

It gives to the eyes more brilliance,

... à la peau plus de fraîcheur

to the skin, freshness,

... et aux muscles plus de soutien;

and to the muscles, support;

... et comme il est certain, en physiologie,

and it is certain, in physiology,

que c'est la dépression des muscles qui cause les rides,

that it is the depression of the muscles which causes wrinkles,

... ces redoutables ennemis de la beauté...

those redoubtable enemies of beauty;

... il est également vrai de dire que, toutes choses égales,

it is equally true to say that, all things being equal,

... ceux qui savent manger,

those who know how to eat

sont comparativement de dix ans plus jeunes

seem ten years younger in comparison

que ceux à qui cette science est étrangère.

to those to whom this science is a stranger.

When he says "those who know how to eat," I feel sure he means "those who know how to eat and drink" too.

Image from GlobalGallery.com

It doesn't happen very often

But sometimes it does. Occasionally, you will get a bad wine. Not an unluckily bad bottle; a bad wine. Sheer, unadulterated crud. Remember Bohemian Highway? These are like that.



Finca Vieja tempranillo (from Spain) looking and tasting like purple Kool-aid, complete with the sugary afterburn in the throat. Retail, about $5. Big, industrial-farming-practices companies like Barefoot and Beringer and Sutter Home can deliver decent wine at that price point; smaller companies, I daresay, cannot possibly.

And Timberwood merlot (California): a washed-out brick color. Smelled like bad breath. The punishment of tasting seemed unnecessary. Retail, about $10.

Both make the wine drinker grateful that indeed, this level of achievement is unusual. A wholesale representative who comes to the wine aisle all the time says that when people ask him to recommend a good wine, he simply laughs and says, "Pick one." He's right. And well-known wine writers agree with him that now is the best and tastiest of times for the average wine drinker on an average budget. The big companies competing for your business are all, for the most part, turning out lakefuls good, fresh, sound product. Is it all a tad uniform? Perhaps. But for $5 or $7 or $10, yes -- relax, and pick one.

Just please don't pick either of these.

Received wisdom, or: "Explosive flavors of black currant and cassis"

Voruta: a Lithuanian black currant wine, priced well under $10. Of its appellation, I can only transcribe the address on the label, not being fluent in the language:

JSC ANYKSCIU VYNAS
Dariaus ir Gireno str. 8
Anyksciai Lithuania

The label also says, in English, that the currants are harvested from Lithuanian gardens and that the wine is recognized as a part of Europe's Regional Culinary Heritage. My tasting notes follow, as usual for what they are worth:

Vegetal -- greasy -- brambly-briny -- sweet smell
sweet but not horribly so, tart --
no body or "grip" (it vanishes instantly)
No finish. Clear bright garnet color.

How explain "flavors of black currant" in other, red wines -- ?? (This very plain, not lush or "jammy.")

How indeed? Other people's tasting notes for cabernets and merlots abound with comparisons to black currant and cassis. But when was the last time a wine reviewer, especially an American reviewer, tasted or even saw a black currant? My having a chance to sip Voruta was unusual enough, and to me it did not taste explosively of one of Napa's best.

I suspect the comparisons of good red wines to black currants and currant products amount to a piece of received wisdom. And it's a received wisdom sensibly emanating from a Europe which is the home of good red wine and of black currants, too. Perhaps the sensory image seems right upon reception because powerhouse red wines are so black in color, and because "currant," so little known, covers a multitude of safely unexamined taste possibilities.

Consider. To hail from the U.S. is most likely to lack a native European's experience of this little fruit, or other little fruits that go by its name. We must cram with the Oxford Companion to Food (delightful big book, do run get it), and then we'll soon sort the whole thing out.

It would seem currants lead rich inner lives. One type, wouldn't you know it, is a dried black grape grown in Greece and used since antiquity, making an appearance still in that English pudding sadly known as Spotted Dick (see the article "Currants, Raisins, and Sultanas"). The other kind of currant, what we might call a true currant, is a berry, either red, white, or black, which grows on shrubs of a plant genus classified Ribes (see the article "Currants").

Ribes grow in the United States too, but they are put to far more use across the Atlantic. The red variety, Ribes rubrum, has long been made into expensive Bar-le-duc jam, named for its town of origin in northeastern France. Locally grown black currants, R. negrum, are distilled into famed creme de cassis liqueur in Dijon, in Burgundy. Beyond the Companion, in our own previous reading -- in English country house novels, in European or very European-influenced cookbooks -- we might remember encountering "red currant fool," a dessert of crushed currants and whipped cream, or recipes calling for a red currant jelly glaze for meat, poultry, or for fruit tarts. Not a Bar-le-duc jam glaze, to be sure. Far too exalted. The enchanting little book To Marry an English Lord (1989, do run get that, too) recalls the days when even very upper-class Victorian children were warned, when visiting the greatest houses, "'...and don't touch the Bar-le-duc jam!'" It was reserved for royalty. By the by, "'never comment on a likeness'" was the other ironclad rule.

Natural European associations, all of them. The nice man tasting out Voruta for us in the wine aisle a few months ago naturally knew none of them. He got himself into quite a muddle as he poured, explained, and answered customers' questions. What with the confusions of berries, "currants," grapes, and wine - and it's no help that wine grapes are casually referred to, botanically, as the "berries" of their vines -- he eventually faced puzzled people asking him how Voruta's makers "get the currants into the grapes." I was too busy to eavesdrop on his answers. Anyway it was no one's fault. I was as puzzled as he was.

Yet I at least grew up eating peanut butter and red currant jelly sandwiches. No boring grape for me! That jelly is hard to find now, and it seems there's a reason. In his book Food, written at about the time I was still eating those unique PBJs (1980), Waverley Root explains that Ribes shrubs host a parasitic fungus, Cronartium ribicola, during part of the fungus' growth cycle. It does no harm to the currant bush, but when it moves on, apparently inexorably, to nearby eastern white pine trees for the next part of its life, it "girdles and kills" the trees. Since white pines are valuable in America for timber, they have to be kept away from currant bushes, or vice versa. The upshot is, if you live in the United States and you would like to plant a lovely Ribes in your garden, and so go surfing the net to find a supplier, be forewarned that mail-order nurseries offering currant plants for sale probably know your state laws better than you do. They can't ship to a handful of eastern states, from Maine to the Carolinas. Nursery websites don't reference Waverley Root or indeed give any explanations at all, but I can only assume the fungus he mentioned remains the problem.

All this leaves us, if not hip deep in small globular fruits, at least clutching our bottle of European garden-harvested, European Culinary-Heritage-recognized Voruta as our only link to the gospel attestation that this is what cabernet tastes so like, beautifully, "explosively" even. Indeed? Vegetal-greasy, brambly-briny, not horribly sweet, and grip-less? Not to be unkind, but perhaps there is something in the fruit, or in cassis or in Bar-le-duc jam, which is far more resplendent and cabernet-like than Voruta. At any rate I look forward to sampling other decoctions made from other obscure fruits which are also honored as received-wisdom placeholders for indescribable tastes in wine. "Gooseberry" (a Ribes fruit, as it happens) to approximate sauvignon blanc, and the ridiculously parroted "lychee" for chardonnay, are my next favorites.

Oatmeal chocolate caramel bars

It's a mystery to me why a cookbook called Of Tide and Thyme, first published in 1995 by the Junior League of Annapolis, Maryland, should have ended up for sale in a GoodWill resale shop in Munster, Indiana. But there it was.

These bars are easy to make and, be forewarned, very sweet. And everything will go quicker if you start unwrapping your caramels, and melting them in cream, before doing anything else.

"Chocolate Caramel Oat Melts"

• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups oats (either old fashioned or quick)
• 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 (12 ounce) bag semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 (14 ounce) bag caramels

Unwrap the caramels, and begin melting them gently, in the cream, in a small saucepan.

Meanwhile, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter, in small chunks, until the mixture is moist and crumbly. Set aside 2 cups of the mixture, and press the remainder into an ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking dish.

Sprinkle the chocolate morsels over the mixture in the dish. When the cream and caramels are melted and smooth, pour that over the chocolate. Then sprinkle on the remaining 2 cups of cookie mixture.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Let cool and cut into squares.

The recipe further recommends refrigerating these bars for at least 3 hours before serving, and then serving them chilled, but -- although I am sure they might be a bit melt-y on a hot summer day, and the refrigerating of them is a good precaution -- they taste just as good at room temperature.

It's a mystery to me, too, why wine writers always agree that one must never drink a dry Champagne or sparkling wine with a sweet dessert. I think the combination is very sensible and tasty. A freezing cold mocha might be good, too, but it will have no fizz. Unless some bright soul thinks hard, and combines the two.

2008 Lo Duca Mamertino (Italian frizzante chardonnay)

Or, Julius Caesar's favorite wine, by way of New Berlin, Wisconsin.

The back label says -- and I adore Italian wine labels -- "Bottled by S.A.S. GEBO - TENUTA AMALIA -- VILLA VERUCCHIO -- ITALIA -- DA -- BY ICRF 11013 RA -- ITALIA. Imported by LO DUCA BROTHERS, INC. New Berlin, WI. ITALIAN FRIZZANTE CHARDONNAY -- VILLA VERUCCHIO, ITALY."

It was delightful and delicious, with a chardonnay's fresh apple flavors, but without a serious chardonnay's (sometimes tiresome) banana syrup and wood effects. Sweeter than not, but offering the tongue an interesting zip of dryness at the end; the bit of sparkliness (frizzante) was just refreshing enough to complement a warm summer's day and a light meal. Thoroughly enjoyable, and not appalling to the pocketbook -- it was on sale for about $10.

Now about Julius Caesar. That same back label says that Mamertino was first commissioned by Caesar in honor of his being elected Counsel of Rome. I think we want a very scholarly-looking [sic] after that word. He was elected Consul, surely. And did people, even the very greatest people, commission special wines to be custom made for them, many thousands of years ago? Anyway how do we know Caesar's Mamertino was our own modern chardonnay?

Perhaps when enjoying such nectar it's ungracious to cavil at details. But press on. The website ItalianMade.com offers a little more solid information about Caesar's wine: "Mamertino," it seems, has always come from Sicily, from an area of the island named for ancient inhabitants (the Mamertini), who enter the historical record as winemakers as of 289 B.C. ItalianMade goes on to say:

This wine was deemed so good that it was served at the banquet for the celebration of the third anniversary of the consulship of Julius Caesar. Caesar mentions this event in his book De Bello Gallico [The Gallic War]. Strabo, the great Roman geographer, claimed that Mamertino was the best wine of his time, while Pliny the Elder placed it fourth among 195 wines. Elsewhere, Martial wrote: "Give the Mamertino whatever name you want; give it perhaps the name of the best of wines."

No less than four great Roman authorities all agreeing on the worth of ancient Mamertino must signify something impressive. Today, Mamertino di Milazzo D.O.C., in Sicily, is one of those official denominazione di origine controllata which Italian law recognizes as places where particular important wines are made from particular grapes, albeit in this case it seems, not chardonnay; if it were a D.O.C.G., a denominazione di origine controllata e garantita, it would be a place whose wines were further guaranteed to present to the wine drinker particular characteristics, such as a flavor coming from a legally mandated aging process. Although "mere" D.O.C. wines can hold themselves to fine quality standards, too. (So can even "merer" I.G.T. wines. I.G.T. stands for Indicazione Geografica Tipica, and represents a guarantee of sourcing and production less traditionally strict than the D.O.C. levels which promise you that your Chianti, say, is an authentic Chianti. An Italian wine that is only permitted to declare itself "IGT" may nevertheless be, as ItalianMade says, a very fine merlot from "Tuscany." And did we mention that the European Union changed its wine labeling laws as of 2008? The website Wine Education Ireland reveals all, and assures us the consumer won't notice the changes on labels much until possibly 2010 or after. What a relief.) ItalianMade.com carries on, exploring Mamertino proper:

Nowadays, Mamertino di Milazzo D.O.C. is produced in four varieties: white, red, Calabrese (or Nero d’Avola) and Grillo-Ansonica. As further proof of their excellent quality, the first three of these varieties also have a Riserva appellation that calls for 24 months of aging, six of which in wooden barrels.

So, perhaps if Caesar wanted a taste of his special anniversary treat, he could venture to whatever aisle of the local liquor store stocks Sicilian D.O.C. wines. For our part as we go on caviling at details, we might also want to know whether our frizzante chardonnay Mamertino, brought to us courtesy of the Lo Duca brothers of New Berlin, Wisconsin, has any relation at all to Caesar's inventory in that aisle. It seems, as we say in the vernacular, not so much.

The source of our bottle, Villa Verucchio, or do we say simply Verucchio? -- is a town roughly in north-east-central Italy -- such a challenge, to site oneself on a peninsula -- near Rimini, in the Emilia-Romagna region. Quite a distance from Sicily ancient and modern. Tenuta Amalia, the estate whose image graces the front label, has a Rimini address, and claims an interesting history. It was a residence of Carolina Amalia of Brunswick, the unfortunate wife (and cousin) of the prince regent, later King George IV of England. These two royals did not get along, to the extent that he called for a strengthening brandy upon first meeting her, barely endured cohabitation, separated from her as soon as she managed to produce one child, and then exiled her for twenty years. She retaliated by behaving in eyebrow-raising fashion in Europe, among Italians especially. Her trial for adultery before the House of Lords the moment she returned, and her attempt to crash his Majesty's coronation the next summer (1821), were the most delicious scandals of the time. (For more, see Paul Johnson's The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830.) Tenuta Amalia's website is mum about what exactly was going on during Caroline's proprietorship of the place; in the early 20th century an operetta singer and senator's wife named Gea della Garisenda owned it, and "restored it to its original splendor." That seems nicer, and her profile in the photograph is very regal.

I suspect that the connections between our Mamertino and the identically named D.O.C. in Sicily are therefore nil. I suspect that the bright people at Lo Duca Brothers -- the company sells consumer electronics and musical instruments as well as wines and cooking oils -- realized that throwing Caesar's cloak, as it were, over a friendly, sweet wine would catch the American consumer's eye, give him a name and a bit of history to remember, and keep the company out of Italian legal trouble regarding the whole D.O.C.-no wait, it's not a D.O.C.-thing. The wine seems meant to be uniform and approachable from year to year: the 2007 version was made from trebbiano, my version from chardonnay, but both were kept fizzy and fun. Andre Domine's huge book Wine incidentally records that the Emilia-Romagna region is known for its frizzante styles.

All told, this wine and its label provide an object lesson not only in a few kickshaws of European history, but in what European wine production and labeling laws do. They help tell you exactly what you are drinking, but it takes a little experience to decipher the labels and especially to learn to see what isn't there. All the details that more serious and traditional wines carry, details assuring you, once you know the code behind them, of location, permitted grape variety, required vinification methods, necessary aging, and yes, historical background, are missing from this Mamertino. We know it's from Tenuta Amalia, but apart from that, it is permitted to say nothing about itself except that it's a "Product of Italy." The missing details matter more, the more money you want to spend and the more precisely you know what you want.

Interestingly, one of the biggest changes coming to a shelf near you, thanks to the recent changes in EU wine laws, is that European winemakers may now begin to add the name of the grape to their labels. That will be helpful for you and me, but imagine a serious collector, willing to spend money and knowing what he wants, looking (probably appalled) at his Barolo or his Petrus and seeing that each now helpfully says "nebbiolo" and "merlot" about itself.

Just like our Mamertino brightly announces, in bold capitals, "chardonnay." The smart people in New Berlin, Wisconsin may be way ahead of the curve here.

2006 Vobis Tua barbera d'Asti

Also posted at TorreBarolo's blog; note the comment from someone well versed in current trends in barbera making.

Producer, Cantine Volpi s.r.l., Tortona, Italy.

Light bodied, briny piquancy -- tart, underripe raspberries
-- a little tarry or smoky -- needs food

2nd day: mellowed and silkier

And... good news! Barbera d'Asti is both a grape and a place. I had thought to begin hacking away anew at the wonderful confusions of Italian wine by creating a mnemonic: as we learned to associate V with Veneto, Venice, and Valpolicella, so let us learn to associate barbera, and the Barbaresco and Barolo right next to it in my wine-stained notebook, with Piedmont. "Minding our b's and p's," I was going to say. So clever.

But then a glance into the New Wine Lover's Companion taught me not to be sanguine about my ability to clear up Italianate confusions. That smaller case b-barbera is the grape, while capital B-Barbera d'Asti is the place (DOC, denominazione di origine controllata, vineyards producing barbera around the town of Asti), in Piedmont certainly. Carry on -- the very next entry in the Companion's B section, Bardolino, an Italian name you do see on wine labels, is alas, a place. In the Veneto. Near Venice. Where they make Valpolicella. The grapes used for Bardolino are much the same as for Valpolicella -- corvina, molinara, and so on -- so that simplifies that. Except now the b/v mnemonic doesn't quite work.

So we go back to simply sipping barbera of Asti, "in" Barbera d'Asti.

With this we are in the lovely Piedmont region of northwest Italy, spelled in Italian Piemonte. If Italy generally conjures up images of sunshine, rolling hills, Rome, Renaissance art, and pasta, for Piedmont we ought to think instead of mountains (the Alps), rushing rivers (the Po), drifting fogs, of industrial Turin, and oddly enough of rice and corn cultivation. Both are major crops here (think risotto and polenta). For its part, our glass of Barbera d'Asti represents a sort of little brother in a hierarchy of Piedmont's red wines, ranking below the great Barbaresco and the still greater Barolo. Both of these are wines named for their places of origin. Barolo and Barbaresco are towns, like Asti, surrounded by vineyards, but their wines are vinified not from barbera but from the nebbiolo grape -- which in turn is named, it seems, for the drifting fogs of the area (nebbia). Little brother barbera can be either barbera d'Asti, as we have here, or Barbera d'Alba; the latter is considered just slightly more of a heavyweight than the former, which seems to be why Barbera d'Asti is an everyday what's-for-dinner wine in this part of Italy. Barbera d'Alba is also another place, another DOC.

Like so many Italian red wines, except its powerhouse big B big brothers, a barbera has that familiar tart, light, berry-like flavor, and a texture that seems a little grainy and rough, as if a few seeds of a fresh raspberry had found their way into the bottle and added their own little interesting zip there. Wine books always emphasize that Italian wines like this, tending to be thin, fresh, and acidic, are meant to be drunk with a meal and not treated as a free-standing cocktail, which is often how we drink syrupy, barbecued-fruit California cabernets or merlots. Karen MacNeil in The Wine Bible writes rapturously of the Piedmontese food that would go with a barbera, or even better, with Barbaresco and Barolo: heavy meat dishes, thick risottos, eggy fresh-made pastas dressed only with butter and sage leaves or, if you are lucky and are visiting in the fall, with shavings of white truffle from Alba. The truffle's spectacular taste, MacNeil explains in a sidebar, has been studied in science labs, and has been found to derive from some sort of chemical that is also present in the testes of men and bulls. (The thing is actually the flowering part of an underground fungus that webs the roots of oak trees, and reveals itself to the trained eye by rendering bare the ground around the tree.) Experienced people hunt for them at night in secret, with specially trained white dogs. Wasn't there a commercial jingle that used to assure us Italians have more fun?

Indeed they seem to, and another of Italy's most fun wines, moscato d'Asti, is also a product of this same Piedmont that gives us nebbia and mountains and rice fields, along with our very serious Barolos and our zippy barberas. Of moscato, I can provide just one quick tasting note while I cudgel my brain for a new mnemonic to go with b's, p's, and now m's: it's flying off the shelves in grocery stores these days, outperforming even queen chardonnay and princess pinot grigio.

Vobis Tua, we are told, is Latin for "as you like it." We like it. Retail: about $10-$12.

Spring garden macaroni and cheese

There are lots of recipes for vegetable-laden macaroni and cheese. This is mine. Fresh asparagus, and the extravagance of Gruyere cheese, will make it quite the treat.

You'll need:

• 3 cups macaroni (I like Barilla, which stays good and solid and doesn't overcook)
• 3 and 1/2 cups of grated cheese, half Gruyere and half extra sharp cheddar.
• 3-4 Tbsp butter
• 3-4 Tbsp flour
• 3 cups milk
• 1-2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 2-3 more Tbsp butter and/or olive oil, for sauteeing vegetables
• 1 leek, white part only, washed, diced
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• 1 bunch of asparagus, tips removed and reserved for later, stalks chopped

First, boil 3 cups macaroni in a lot of salted water.

Make a white sauce:

Melt 3-4 Tbsp butter, and when it bubbles add 3-4 Tbsp flour to it. Stir to make a paste, and after that bubbles a bit, add the milk slowly. Cook and stir as this thickens.

To the sauce, add about 1 and 1/4 cups grated Gruyere cheese, and 1 and 1/4 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese. Toss in salt and pepper to taste, and then add Dijon mustard (this is a trick taken from the big fat yellow Gourmet cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl and published in 2004). Reserve about 1 cup mixed cheeses for sprinkling later.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a little butter and olive oil, saute the leek, the red pepper, and the asparagus stalks, about 10 minutes in all.

When the macaroni is done and drained, combine it with the sauteed vegetables.

Mix in the finished cheese-white sauce and blend well.

Pour the macaroni, vegetable, and sauce mixture into a lightly greased 13 x 9 glass baking dish. Scatter the reserved asparagus tips and the reserved cup of cheese over the top.

Bake, covered with foil, for 25 minutes.

Almost any wine, I think, would go nicely with this, but on a warm summer day I fancy a light dry rose or something friendly and sparkling would be best of all. Recently I have sampled and thoroughly liked an Italian frizzante chardonnay called Mamertino, the label of which claims it was originally commissioned by Julius Caesar. I have no reason to doubt it.