Wine&Dine: To Soothe the Frazzled

Nigel Slater, of whom we speak in my house only with due respect, as he is a genius according to two (!) blurbs on his book Appetite, is none too fond of cauliflower. Though he admits one can do more than boil it and serve it with a cheese sauce, he continues by saying: ‘Resist the temptation to undercook. The raison d’être of a cauli is to end its days as a soft and gentle supper to soothe the frazzled and overworked’ (p. 103). He gives no recipe.

Are you frazzled in any way, or a bit overworked? Let me help you out with a soothing and reviving supper. Let’s even resist the temptation to cook the cauli at all.

Dine: cauliflower couscous with fish
Wash and drain the cauliflower, cut it in not too big chunks. Put the chunks into a food processor and chop them till they have the size of couscous (that will take a few seconds only). Put the ‘couscous’ in a bowl (yes, the smell is not pleasant right now, but that will change). Add generous amounts of olive oil and lemon juice and a bit of salt. This is the basis. We need a few more ingredients to turn this into a tasty salad. For example some herbs: chives, parsley, mint, all chopped. A small red (or less sharp green) chilli pepper cut into rings to give it a bit of pungency. Or fennel leaves and a few (black) olives (be careful with the salt in that case). Or…, well you probably got the picture by now. Let the couscous rest for a while so that all flavours blend. In the meantime you can fry or (char)grill the fish (monkfish, sardines or red mullet would be great). It might be a good idea to add some garlic to the fish (the salad has none).

If you’re in desperate need of carbs, do take a break between preparing the couscous and cooking the fish and settle yourself on the couch with a piece of bread and olive oil. If both are of good quality, that’s a real treat.

 
Wine: Verdicchio
Azienda Santa Barbara, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC, 2011, 12,5%vol, by Stefano Antonucci, € 7,25, for sale here.
This Italian white from the Marche region presents itself as going well ‘per cibi poco grassi’, i.e., with low fat courses, and of course with fish. And it paired really well with the couscous. Its mellowed acidity could more than cope with the lemony freshness and the velvety saltiness of the cauliflower couscous with herbs and olives. It did not much for the tilapia I served it with, but I wouldn’t recommend that fish anyway.
Stefano Antonucci has more choice in Verdicchio’s. This one is his cheapest.

Making Moor of History

The relevance of history can hardly be underestimated. Still, in wine education, be it in my SWEN 2 text book or various digital or print media, I often wonder why authors bother at all. They usually come up with sentences like ‘The Romans brought the vine grape to [fill in almost any area in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria]. After the collapse of the Roman empire the church took over. Nothing much changed till in the nineteenth century the Phyloxera blah blah blah blah.’ No real harm is done, but one can do without.

In the case of Spain it’s often even worse. Let me cite my textbook: ‘After the Roman era the Islamic Moors invaded the country. The Moors didn’t forbid winegrowing but they did discourage it. After the last Moors in 1492 had left (…).’ (Michel van Tuil, De wijnwereld, 2011, p. 117 [my translation])

And Wijnbloggers says (in my translation): ‘After the fall of Rome, Spain is occupied by the Moors. Under Moorish rule alcohol is forbidden, but may be used in other products (perfume, cosmetics) and winegrowing comes to a halt, until it starts flourishing again in the Middle Ages with the return of Christian culture in Spain.’

This hurts. After the Roman era/fall of Rome? Islamic? Moors? Left? Forbidden? Halt? Middle Ages? Return of Christian culture?

Let me start by saying that in world history there is only one Moor. His name is Othello and he lived and died in Venice. Furthermore, there are a few centuries between not so much the fall as the crumbling down of the Roman empire and the invasion of the Umayyads in 711. In these seemingly chaotic times (Migration Period) Vandals, Suevi and Visigoths settled in Spain. In time the latter two established kingdoms of which the Visigothic kingdom ruled Spain from 507-711. After 711 all of Spain comes under Umayyad control, except for some smaller kingdoms of indomitable Christians that hold out against the Umayyads. This is more or less the status quo for about 300 years. Then the Berber Almoravids are called in to help the Umayyads against Alfonso VII of Castile. After another hundred years, we’re somewhere around 1170 now, the Almohads, a Berber coalition, take over Andalusia. The Reconquista, the Christian ‘recapture’ of Spain that started in the eleventh century, is said to have come to an end in 1260. Still, Granada remained a flourishing Arabic state until 1492.

So much for ‘After the Roman era the Islamic Moors invaded the country’. Let’s now focus on ‘Islamic’.

The Umayyads were Muslims alright, but above all they were Arabs, more interested in Arabic culture than in Islamic religion. In the famous lush gardens of their palaces, far away from pious Mecca, Arab courtiers (and some Jews as well) assembled, passing time with politics, gossip, poetry contests and, yes indeed, wine parties. The Almoravids, Berbers, not Arabs, were less worldly. They, for example, made Abū Hārūn Mūsā, a Jewish poet at the court of Granada, flee the city to northern Spain (there lamenting the loss of his cultural home). The Berber Almohads, who were quite puristic, instituted religious persecutions once they occupied Andalusia.

So was Muslim rule bad for business? Not so much in Umayyad times, but wine parties were surely out of fashion from the mid-eleventh century onwards.

I could go on correcting the two cited texts, but I’m not sure you can bear with me that long. Let me instead finish with a poem by Abū Hārūn Mūsā, also known as Mozes ibn Ezra, when he was still at Granada’s court. The translation is Raymond P. Scheindlin’s (in his Wine, Women, & Death. Medieval Hebrew Poems of the Good Life. Philadelphia 1986, p. 65).

 

Drink up, my friend, and pour for me, that I

May to the cup surrender all my pain.

And if you see me dying, tell the boy,

‘Revive him! Quick! Take up your lute again.’