What to Drink With What You Eat: The Definitive Guide To Pairing Food With Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea – Even Water – Based on Expert Advice from America’s Best Sommeliers
by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page
Bulfinch Press, 358 pp., $35
Which wine goes best with Oreos? How about with Salt Lick’s rich, sweet barbecue sauce? Crumpets? Hamachi nigiri-sushi? The point is that occasionally milk or beer or tea or sake is the best beverage for a food. Granted, wine goes with 90% of the world’s foods, but there are so many wines to keep track of. What about the other 10%? Enter Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, authors of award-winning books Becoming a Chef and Culinary Artistry. Their concept is that every food needs a beverage, so how do you find that single libation that creates synergy with your food?The answer is through exhaustive interviews with the nation’s top chefs and sommeliers. After a few chapters to set up their rules for pairing and selecting, they launch into the meat of the book, two long chapters devoted to pairing food and beverage. Here’s the best part: The authors recognize the fact that some of us – probably most – decide on a dish, then try to figure what to drink. That’s the first of the main chapters, an exhaustive look, by food, of what beverage works best. Having paella? Then zoom straight to the dry rosés from Spain or Provence. Having a hot dog? Then buy a beer – especially a lager – or a German Riesling Kabinett. The second main chapter is written for the select few who decide what beverage to drink, then build the food around it. It’s Beaujolais season, so I checked the authors’ recommendation, and it was spot on: a roasted chicken or pork chops. Rioja lovers should try a Manchego cheese or braised lamb shanks. Wondering what to do with that bottle of Honjozo sake in the refrigerator? Try fried oysters or vegetables tempura.
The final chapters offer some of the country’s most innovative restaurants’ wine-food pairing menus, followed by a listing of desert-island drinks from some of the chefs and sommeliers. The book is a wonderfully unsnobby research compendium for picking a beverage for a food or vice versa, but its highest calling is as an idea generator, perfectly fit for that little inspirational kick you need for planning your next meal.
This article appears in December 8 • 2006.
