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The
spirit of Halloween is about celebrating
the spooky, the creepy, the scary ... an
appropriate time to honor the strange and
unusual of food and wine. These oddities
can invoke as much fright as the spooks
and ghouls that arrive at our doorsteps
for Tricks and Treats. Sweetbreads?
Head cheese!? What the heck is Crljenak
Kaštelanski?!? Eek!!!
As someone who was terrified of many foods
growing up (I famously had a meltdown at a
restaurant at 8 because my calamari came with
tentacles), I can understand the unease of
approaching a new food or taste. And
sometimes when you work up the courage to try
something it still ends up being every bit as
gross to you as it was in your imagination.
Othertimes, you find something that's amazing
and expands your taste horizons. Things
that I never thought I would eat that I now
LOVE include snail, pigeon, and octopus.
Yum!
There is a similar phenomenon with wine
although it is often less a 'fear' than a
prejudice. You don't want to try Riesling
because you're sure it's saccharine
sweet. You associate a wine region
with an outdated stereotype - like avoiding
Greek wine because you hated retsina. Most
commonly, if it's not a grape variety or region
you recognize - forget
it!
So in
honor of looking our 'fears' in the face
for Halloween, here are some spooky food and
wine pairings to try.
Pan-fried
sweetbreads & Gruner
Veltliner
Escargots
bourguignonnes & a dry Riesling (yes, they
exist!)
Boudin noir & Agiorgitiko
Next Article:
Pairing Red Wine with Fish
>back to Wine Blog
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