Table Wine
By Chef Kurt Michael Friese
Wine for the Holiday Table, Part 1 (of 3)
visit the author @ www.EdibleIowa.com
Because of the way I make my living, I get a lot of questions this time of year about where to get great ingredients locally, how to prepare them, and most commonly, what to serve with them. For the next couple weeks in this space, we'll discuss what wines are best for your holiday table.
Thanksgiving is America's best holiday. People often talk about making every day Christmas, but I've always wished for making every day Thanksgiving. It's not about presents, it's about presence. It's not about giving gifts, it's about giving thanks. And my favorite part, it's about the food. Thanksgiving is the one time of year when nearly every household in the nation is obsessed with the family meal. Would that it were always so.
Of course the center of most tables at this feast is the roast turkey, though more and more people are turning to interesting and more elaborate ways to prepare their bird, like smoking or deep-frying. Regardless of how you prepare it, the most important thing is to start with a tasty bird. The commercially available turkey which some of us used to bowl down the aisles of Econofoods at 3 AM back in college is useful for very little else. It is flavorless. It is laden with hormones and antibiotics, leads a tortured, stupid, flightless and sexless existence in a pen somewhere in Arkansas. Real turkeys, contrary to popular belief, are not stupid, they can fly, and they are permitted to live happy turkey lives out in the open. Locally, such turkeys are available from Susan Jutz in Solon (email me and I'll connect you with a grower in your area).
But what's the best wine to serve? You'll find quite a wide range of opinions on that, even in this column. I've found, though, that within certain parameters, it's best to match your Thanksgiving wine to your side dishes rather than the main course, since there is usually a lot more going on there.
Does your family prefer an oyster dressing or cornbread? Something in a dry Alsacian Riesling might be just the thing for the oysters, but for the cornbread stuffing I'd lean toward a California or Oregon Pinot Noir (unless it's spicy, then it's back to the Riesling again.
Now think about the other side dishes – are your potatoes mashed or roasted? Do you make your own cranberry sauce or use the kind that slides out of the can? Their flavors are very different, so consider them when choosing a wine. Roasted potatoes are sweeter because their natural sugars caramelize in the oven. Homemade cranberry sauce might be sweeter or tarter than the store-bought stuff, depending on how much sugar grandma taught you to add – although my grandma's recipe calls for "enough" sugar. Big juicy fruit-bomb Zinfandels go better with the tarter stuff. Choose a red Bordeaux to go next to the sweeter dishes. Oh, and if you are a sweet potato family, you may want to try a Viognier.
With dessert, again it makes a difference what your family tradition is. Pumpkin and pecan pies both call for tawny port, as does anything vanilla. If it's something chocolate, switch to ruby port. And here's a match made in heaven if your family goes for lemon meringue pie - Champagne!
A tradition at my table every year is my mom's wild rice dressing. Winona LaDuke of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the Ojibwe Nation in Minnesota once told me that it's important to remember, when using the hand-parched, truly wild rice, that it cooks much faster than the cultivated "paddy rice." The running joke on the White Earth Reservation goes "How to cook Paddy Rice: Put rice in a pot with a stone and bring to a boil. When the stone is soft, the rice is almost done."
Chef Kurt's Mom's Wild Rice Dressing
1 pound hand parched, real Manoomin wild rice, washed (available at www.nativeharvest.com)
3 cups chicken stock
1 pound "breakfast style" pork sausage
¼ pound butter
2 each portobello mushrooms, diced
½ each onion, minced
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 stalk celery, diced
1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
1 pinch fresh thyme
Rinse rice thoroughly in 3 changes of hot tap water. Put rice and stock in a large pot and bring to a boil. Boil rice in broth for 20 minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed and the grains have "burst".
Meanwhile, brown pork in butter until fully cooked. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer 10 minutes. Mix in the rice. Transfer to a covered casserole. Bake covered at 350°f. for 20 minutes, then uncovered to desired consistency.
Next Week: Your Holiday Table, Part 2 of 3
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Comments: 8
We usually have a turkey dinner at least once a month. Usually, for wine, we will do a red zinfandel, usually from Napa since those zins have so much going on in the flavor department. Anything more robust would be too much! And we never, ever do white, even with fish.
I haven't visited Gather in a long time, but you have always been one of my favorite food writers at this site. Thank you for this wonderful guide, (Part 1 of 3!), to serving wines that will enhance so many traditional Thanksgiving dishes. I look forward to Parts 2 and 3.
Patricia/Jin Wen
http://expatriateskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/10/happy-eat-better-eat-together-month.html
We're featuring some local ingredients on the table this year. I am also contributing my Vanilla-Sweet Potato Pie with Brown-Sugar Pecan crust to the local paper's special section on a 100-mile Thanksgiving, and how to include local ingredients on the holiday table.
I'll post a link to that recipe when the article comes out. In the meantime, thanks for the fantastic post.