food

When it doesn’t just “taste like chicken”—making sense of a difficult wine/food-pairing problem

In my fantasy world there wouldn’t be any such thing as wine/food pairing. There wouldn’t be food. We’d all just be awash in booze. But for my friends who enjoy solids now and then, following some loose guidelines can enhance the eating/drinking experience.

  1. Start by considering the dish. Is your meal…
    • mild-tasting or intense?
    • lean or fatty?
    • acidic or creamy?
  1. Eliminate any varietals you dislike. There’s no sense purchasing a wine just to match a meal. While drinking a less-favorite wine with a well-matched meal may reveal the wine’s characteristics and increase your appreciation of it, your distaste for the vino may be insuperable. Buy a wine varietal you like.
  2. Balance the taste sensations by pairing mild with mild, acidic with acidic, and intense with intense.
  3. Choose tannic or acidic wines with high-fat foods; they cleanse the palate.

I’m worried that Hannibal Lecter might not be following these wine/food pairing guidelines. Let’s see whether Hannibal’s on the right track with his Chianti.

Not everybody knows what human meat tastes like. Chances are your local wine consultant doesn’t. Just try asking for a pairing suggestion. You’ll see hesitation in the consultant’s eyes, then fear—the fear that you’ll see through his/her bullshit answer and discern that he/she has no idea what to pair with maple-glazed human.

There’s plenty of specious information on the subject, so you have to be very careful that your wine consultant hasn’t fallen for the description circulated by promoters of the human meat substitute hufu (“contrary to popular belief, people do not taste like pork or chicken”), or that your consultant hasn’t merely sampled placenta, more akin to organ meats such as liver or kidney than, say, a human steak. No, you want an actual cannibal to advise you whether Chianti’s on the money with your human entrée.

Enter Armin Meiwes, a German man who gained fame in 2001 by killing and eating a volunteer he found through a website called the Cannibal Café. Not distinguishing between the Café’s intended satire and his own deviant appetites, Meiwes interviewed many candidates who expressed interest and then backed out, finally settling on Bernd Jürgen Brandes, whose penis he severed so the two could share it fried in garlic and butter. Meiwes gave the fully consenting Brandes a shitload of painkillers and bled him out in the bath, butchered and froze him, then spent the next ten months enjoying reduced grocery bills as he sampled Brandes every which way, even grinding up his bones to make flour.

This is a dude who would certainly know what human tasted like—at least one particular human—and he was happy to describe it in an interview:

“The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good.”

Cabernet Sauvignon—too rich and tannic; overwhelming with human’s delicate and salty flavor. When shopping, ask yourself, “What would go with pork?” and you’ll probably do fine.

So Chianti would go okay with human for supper, especially with a tomato-based sauce, but Hannibal Lecter could do better. Especially with German cuisine featuring sauerkraut and other acidic notes, I’d lean toward a Riesling or a Sauvignon Blanc. If you’re dead set on a red wine, try a nice, light Beaujolais.

It’s really tough to find a great wine consultant. My own wine store has a stellar one, and I still don’t think he’d be up to speed on human dishes. Isn’t it wonderful to have the Internet?

Yummly Jell-O shots

Checking out the inventory this morning, I realized we have a genuine booze emergency in the house. If you haven’t read my lamentations about the liquor cupboard being bare, here’s a list of what we have:

    • Bacardi Big Apple Rum—8 oz or so
    • Malibu—maybe 3 oz
    • Cusano Rojo Mezcal—2 oz, worm definitely dead
    • El Senorio Mezcal—4 oz, never opened, worm still hanging out in there
    • AppletonEstate Rum—2 oz

Needless to say, all are sealed tightly enough to defeat my furry, thumbless paws.

So I’d say that’s a crisis, wouldn’t you? These little remainders have been languishing for years. I’ve just about given up any hope of inspiring my parents to get into these rejected bottles. Just about…

Enter Yummly Nibbles & Bits, a gorgeous foodie website with pics that make even an alcoholic a little hungry. As you know, I don’t go in for solid food; I am all about liquor. But I’ll go as far as gels, and Yummly has a beautiful article on alcoholic Jell-O. They have some good ideas that might dovetail with our dreggish liquor cabinet.

But what is Jell-O exactly? Or more to the point, what is Jell-O made of? Well, hang on tight.

Phew! No bear parts. Unless they're included in "Other"???

Jell-O is gelatin-based, and gelatin is a “protein produced from collagen extracted from the boiled bones, connective tissues, and intestines of animals.” Whoa!

So what kinds of animals are we talking about? Just like you humans, I’m pretty good about compartmentalizing information, meaning I can shoot a Jell-O drink without envisioning the pigs, cows and chickens all jumbled up in its manufacture. But I’d have to draw the line if bears had any unfortunate part in gelatin production, just because I wouldn’t want to be a cannibal.

I googled “bear entrails vs gelatin” and was satisfied that bears are not used to make the stuff; however, gelatin is used to make gummi bears, which is cool. But you may want to avoid Jell-O shots if you’re concerned about them being kosher.

So what can we whip up using Jell-O and our meager booze rations?

From Bionic Bites

I want to make these very badly, but I have a few mods: I’m gonna sub Bacardi Big Apple Rum for the blueberry Stoli and leave out the actual blueberries. We have raspberry Jell-O so I’ll use that. The only hitch is that my mum says the kids will want it, so we have to leave out the rum.

From Bakers Royale

This one’s ingenious, but my mum will have to do all the work because I don’t have opposable thumbs or patience. You have to hollow out a bunch of strawberries…I thought we had some growing outside but it turns out they stop growing before November so we are SOL on that account. We can still make the Jell-O part because we have the right flavor (strawberry) and we have two kinds of Mezcal. I’ll use both and leave out the liqueur that we don’t have. Score!

Except my mum says we have to leave out the Mezcal so the kids can eat it. Oh, man.

from annie's eats

This one will work for sure.

Again, we have to scrap the orange liqueur, but it’s all good because we have Mezcal. We have to make sure the worm doesn’t fall into the lime Jell-O, though, because it might scare people. Now we’re all set.

Oh wait. My mum says we have to leave out the worm and the Mezcal. Sigh…

Why don’t you guys whip up some alcoholic Jell-O and tell me all about it?