MaxH

Greetings Maggie, it's a big subject and I have only a moment here. (I have many of the standard cookbooks from there in German and English, and spent time studying the Viennese cuisine specifically (Wiener Küche) in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and more recently.) Gretel Beer's is the first book usually mentioned on this subject to anglophone readers, it's in English and is not bad (it's popular in Austria too) -- Beer got knighted or something a few years back, I read about it there, for spreading the word about the food culture overseas. Here are links to in-depth public online discussions of cookbooks from there. I don't recall how complete they are (I had to do research more recently, and updated my sources) but they cover most of the well-known books. Note that Michael Pronay is a respected longtime food-wine editor there, formerly with the Vienna gastronomic magazine Falstaff. The links below are exchanges (sometimes light-hearted) among people in US and Europe experienced in this subject. 2004 wine-newsgroup discussion on Viennese cooking with many book references: http://tinyurl.com/dqjrz 2004 Tafelspitz thread, ditto: http://tinyurl.com/72qem No North American reader at all interested in Central, or even Western, European cooking should miss Wechsberg's classic Blue Trout and Black Truffles (mentioned occasionally on eG) which would be on my short list of must-have books for anyone interested in good food. It includes possibly the most famous and entertaining essay ever written about Viennese cooking (and an unusual specialty, (Tafelspitz, related to the Northern Italian Bollito Misto). Excerpts, and more about the book's history I think, in reviews linked above. Wechsberg also edited the central-European volume of the classic US Time-Life series (widely available used), a few decades old and less authoritative than the Austrian authors, but it's not bad, colorfully illustrated and with entertaining non-food sidelights if I recall. Hope this is helpful -- M.

That's just the normal translation into traditional British English. I've seen "avocado pear" often in writing from there. It's less common in the US.

In French cooking, they and relatives often come from the Velouté soup family, derived from Velouté sauce (veal, poultry, or vegetable broth cooked down, thickened, cream added). Lots of these recipes in the Guide Culinaire, the traditional French data base from which Julia Child took selections and adapted them for US readers in her Mastering books. The GC is not a bad reference to have handy if you're ever interested in dishes like this. -- Foundation or Basic sauces -- Espagnole (brown sauce), Velouté, Béchamel, tomato. (A. Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire 4ed., English Tr. Cracknell-Kaufmann.)

Quoting here from a proximate thread (because it concerns old NP): NP 375s keep very well in my experience (that's how I've normally bought it to have on hand). And again, dry French vermouth is handy as an herbed wine in old-fashioned cooking (like, chicken with a wine-cream sauce, pearl onions, mushrooms, serve over rice; or cold chaud-froid sauces). It was often specified in recipes, through about the 1960s. Being old enough to remember the 1960s somewhat, I remember Vermouth was commonly ordered in US restaurants as an apéritif, then and somewhet later, compared to today. General US public also drank cocktails much more than wine then, which gradually shifted. Like cocktails, Vermouth seems to've been reborn.

Some general stuff -- 1. Are you folks interested in "punches" in general, and the cluster of closely related British-derived quantity drink genres, like "cups" ? Is it a wider public interest now or just on eG? (I checked "punch" thread, and searched eG under that term, but am unenlightened.) Pls point me in the right direction because such pre-WW2 British sources as I have are bulging with original recipes and general principles. I've made a couple over the years, they're interesting drinks. One of these drink genres, seemingly wildly popular around 1900 to judge from the number of references to it, has a particular ritual group of ingredients including not tea but a fresh herbal or vegetable component -- cucumber sometimes, but another herb was more traditional. (I haven't looked at this recently.) 2. Fermentation of fresh fruit was the standard commercial and household method in preparing fruit syrups for any use, described as essential because it extracted and intensified the flavors. (From general food formularies early 20th century, I could illustrate.) 3. FYI "do." for ditto was a less common than the double quotation mark " (still used) but IIRC was standard US commercial shorthand (in catalogs, bills of lading, etc.) until maybe 1900 -- that's a recollection from random older writings, I didn't investigate it explicitly. Cheers -- M

Thanks slk -- trenchant summary. Commentary on the mystique and its marketing value aren't new; by the 1960s for instance Grossman's US drinks reference book (mentioned earlier, including here) remarked wryly on absinthe's aura of mystery (and its toxicity -- from the alcohol, not the wormwood). Grossman himself had experience selling absinthe in earlier decades if I recall. "It is supposed to be wicked, to drive the drinker insane, to have killed many." (Useful points in marketing to the middle-class young!) Yes, that's the one discussed upthread. Yellow label with green field and in my sample, some dickering with the bottle-size wording at lower left of the green. It's a wormwood-free pastis, but its name and label allude to absinthe.

Marketing like that, as I mentioned before, pervades absinthe products now, an observation hard to miss from a distance (like a forest and trees). Marketing in turn reflects what sellers think sells, or to whom.Not that it's limited to absinthes of course. Few years ago a regional US party fad started for a cordial labeled Hypnotiq. (Labeling had enough hints at Russian, Cyrillic lettering -- where "Hyp" = Roman "Nur" -- that the name could almost be read Nurotiq - subtle prank?) Frosted bottle, blue liquid, scent from childhood -- "Hawaiian Punch" -- mfr. even says "natural tropical fruit juices" (seven? ;-) Note in an earlier posting mentions related dialect source of word "pastis" (from a standard French food-drink reference book). On my Muse Verte label, vapors are whispy and behind the glass -- stylized away from the Robette art. This label may also have changed over time -- I only have one sample. (This 750 ml label art has a crude correction of a small code at lower left of green field, looks like"70 CL" was X'd out with gold ink used elsewhere in the graphics. Originally intended for an off-size bottle maybe.)

Actually if you look at the old Absinthe Robette poster, you'll see that Muse Verte pastis was just playing off the graphics of the old Absinthe Robette art work. More like copying old Art Nouveau images. Yes of course. The Privat-Livemond poster for Robette is famous (and has even been parodied artistically in some quarters). Its wispy filigree background is solider, somewhat plantlike. The 2001 Muse Verte label art I have is more stylized, like fumes or miasma, with no human figure. I feel sure though that Herbsaint has hit the nail on its intellectual head: The high-minded producers of Muse Verte intended their label of mysterious rising vapors to suggest to most customers an oblique allusion to fine art. Not mystique or opium dens or 21-year-olds getting hiiiiiiiiiiigh, man! No. I stand corrected! :-)

That's useful research -- thanks! Not to belabor the point, but be careful about casually equating perceived sweetness to sugar content, which ignores other dissolved components that increase or decrease perceived sweetness. (Thus orange juice can taste "sweeter" than lemon juice even when the lemon has a higher sugar concentration.) The ultimate objective measure of "sweetness" uses taster data (slk, Spificator, bostonapothecary, and especially Mike S posted informal data above). Also if you literally mean Brix weight (the pragmatic measure estimating sugars via density), it's fairly accurate for sugars when used by winemakers for grape juice near harvest (whose dissolved components consist mainly of sugars, which therefore correlate well with density). I'm skeptical about using Brix measure with wine that's fermented, aged, blended, and fortified. Its dissolved components and density are much more complex. This parallels the problem of fidelity measures in audio and video equipment. Ultimate objective tests require human evaluators running indifference tests under controlled conditions, which can be difficult and expensive. Simple electrical tests (Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Total Harmonic Distortion) correlate partly with perceived quality and are much easier, but can mislead. Consumers have been seduced by the scientific-looking authority of those numbers. Thankfully, nothing like that ever could happen with drinks! :-)

Good to see this diligence, sometimes. When one of R. W. Apple's last NYT articles resurrected famous misinformation from the 1985 Austrian wine scandal, I wrote in. (In 1985, journalists misidentified an adulterant in the scandal as a different chemical, far more toxic and notorious. The error badly damaged Austria's wine industry, most of whose players had nothing to do with wine adulteration anyway. The real adulterant in the scandal was half as toxic as alcohol, by standard data available in any library in the world. This became a famous story of reckless journalism, in wine encyclopedias ever since.) An editor replied with the strange assertion that my statement was inaccurate according to a consultant who checked the standard reference book I'd cited. That was wrong, as the editor could easily have found by checking my source directly. I'd even included further fact-checking references to two of the wine-encyclopedia stories mentioned above.

Thanks Mike for the detailed taste comparison. This kind of first-person report is valuable. Couple detail followups from earlier in the thread, in case anyone's interested: Probably most people reading this know the following but in case anyone doesn't: The word "liqueur" has two parallel meanings in English (and French) writing. (I have many examples.) Often it means a sweet or sugared flavored spirit. In more general writing it's also used in the wider sense of a flavored spirit, not necessarily sweetened. (Some of the related content on Wikipedia, for example, still appears not to know about this.) A generous offer! Again in case any reader was unaware of it: actual sugar content in wines and perceived sweetness correlate only loosely. Common non-sugar components also taste sweet (polyols or sugar alcohols) on top of which, acid in wine skews perceived sweetness so much that blind tests can't distinguish relative sugar levels at all. (The orange vs lemon syndrome.)

What?! Changing Noilly? Why mess with success? (There's too much fiddling around. Urbani goes from selling classic truffles to overhyped cheap products. Baskin-Robbins isn't content to maintain an understated lime-rum ice for generations, they have to reformulate it and color it bright green. Now this. Sometimes these things are traceable to new blood or investors with a mind for the bottom line, and no comprehension of craftsmanship.)

I think that pegs it. It received its fame for something other than really exceptional food and the crowds have just followed Based on all I've seen and heard of Slanted Door, I'm not sure that your assessment or others' sweeping assessments here of this restaurant, however sincere they are, do it justice. I believe the story is more complex. (That's part of what I alluded to as restaurant-reporting challenges.) Though I may have expressed it poorly, there are many nuances and dimensions between "great restaurants of this city" and being known only because of Bill Clinton and crowds.

Whatever else is going on (restaurant changes, different tastes), there seems to be a broader problem when public praise of a restaurant builds image, without always realistically positioning the restaurant in readers' impressions. Preconception then colors their experience. An example I know well is Chez Panisse, where already 25 years ago out-of-towners were showing a now-classic syndrome. (Is THIS what the hype was about? And I can't even get a cocktail! Harrumph.) You can find updated examples. One blogger made it to French Laundry, to be dismayed at various things, including none of those "extra courses" described by online FL fans. (Though she cited none of the factors I associate with "special" meals at high-end restaurants: advance agreement with the restaurant, history of dining there and building rapport, etc.) She couldn't get a cocktail either. If I recall, Carolyn, Slanted Door became known because Bill Clinton ate there. As an almost-local, I know many people who've eaten there and had good experiences, though none described it as "great" (not to read too much into your word). I don't know if there's a solution to the larger image-expectations issue though. It may be another basic restaurant-reporting challenge.

Ah: Two separate factors, my original posting combined them. (A) Herbs. Certainly I agree the literature shows many mainstream 19th-c. absinthes using a core group of herbs. Same literature also attributes a much wider range of herbs, which I quoted recently, both to pioneering absinthes (by Ordinaire, by Pernod Fils founder Henri-Louis Pernod) and to absinthes commercially important enough in 1889 for their ingredients to be investigated. (First part of this situation seems to've made a stronger impression than the second.) (B) Alcohols. Other factors being equal, brandy or other wine-distillate base is nearer to reported Pernod Fils pre-ban practice than grain-neutral alcohol is. That's not seriously in dispute, and doesn't speak to flavor of course. Dec. 29 I first generalized point (A) as "the most traditional original absinthes;" then the alcohol connection (B), together with the Henri-Louis recipe, underlay my final statement meaning St George's ingredients list was not out of line with historical recipes as reported. (That part may clash with some people's notions, but not with the literature. Herbs like basil and oregano also should be no more surprising than mint -- same family.) Re-reading, I could well have been clearer; I seem to imply most Pernod Fils products shared both alcohol base and herb variety with St. George, which is wrong by the sources I have, is careless, and my responsibility. Here's the context of my characterization of it so. Most of the current hobby interest is five years old or even less. For the 15 years before that time, Conrad's was almost the only US popular book on the subject (derived of course partly from a French antecedent), and was very familiar to people interested then. Some, such as Ted Breaux, who came to the subject before most hobbyists, are on record citing it as their introduction. Elsewhere I mentioned that my Google searches on "absinthe" 2000-2001 returned around ten hits. That was all before most current hobbyists knew anything about absinthe, before I saw anyone mention an "absinthe-drinking community," and years before wormwoodsociety.org (2004). How accurately people describe the history of absinthe information before they themselves saw it measures their perceptions, not the history. Please. I assumed no such thing, Bill, and I apologize for any such impression. Note 2 above was general, addressing a quirk of some recent hobbyist absinthe writing. If acclaimed authorities on herbal chemistry, other science, language, food, and drinks all clearly understand plain "wormwood" to mean A. absinthium in general writing, why don't recent tutorials do so too? I wasn't referring there to the St.-George label. I'd guess it means A. absinthium like almost all related general writing, but I agree it might depart from that to embrace also the usual colorant "wormwood" and if it were earlier in the day I'd just call the distiller in Alameda and ask. You could also do so, enlightening me and others too.

If you wish to argue seriously from sources, please don't filter them rhetorically but take them entire (as good handlers of factual data do). Mention that Conrad, also, earlier in his book, attributes ingredients to early absinthe maker Dr. Ordinaire including dittany, sweet flag, and/or coriander, veronica, camomile, parsley, "and even spinach." And later in the book, reports an 1889 medical study of ingredients used in absinthes: hyssop, wormwood [sic], fennel, anise, angelica, oregano, Melissa, and mint. Baggott 1997 (cited earlier today) quotes from Simon and Schulter's Guide to Herbs and Spices an Henri-Louis Pernod recipe with "aniseed, fennel, hyssop, and lemonbalm along with lesser amounts of angelica, star anise, dittany, juniper, nutmeg, and veronica" and that other makers sometimes included "nutmeg and calamus." All that informed my December-29 point: absinthe makers mixed herbs to taste, drawing sometimes from a wide palette. (If anyone took this to assert that mint, star anise etc. were always included, I apologize: that wasn't my intent.) I don't dispute your opinion about that (or anyone's tasting notes -- the more the better!). For what it's worth, in my anecdotal contact with tasting appraisals, St.-George vs. widely available modern absinthes (in broad food-drink fora and in person), many people, like FG above, enjoyed the St.-George, whether or not it conforms to a current standard absinthe profile. My specific point, about its ingredients being unexotic in full historical context, stands. Note 1: As with ingredient details, such offhand appraisal would gain weight were it less selective and rhetorical, mentioning also the vast accurate and valuable content present in Conrad's book. Note 2: Not to belabor it, but: Dozens of different plants have common names containing "wormwood," an ancient folk term. Many in genus Artemisia, including so-called petit or Roman wormwood, A. pontica, also called green ginger. Some "wormwoods" are even outside the large parent family Asteraceae (formerly Compositae). I find "Roman wormwood" applied informally to some far-removed species, and you can too if you read up on it. Yet, overwhelmingly among respected modern sources in English, "wormwood" is understood clearly to mean Artemisia absinthium. Upthread I mentioned 16 examples of standard modern references on food, drinks, chemistry, pharmacy, language, and absinthe itself, that acknowledge this convention. Knowing most of those, and many other mentions of "wormwood," before the numbers of absinthe hobbyists swelled hugely a few years ago, I'm surprised to see some of them raise an issue now, as if "wormwood" were ambiguous in general writing, which it is not, and I urge wider reading, to anyone who has not yet picked that up. It's true that in some special absinthe-discussion contexts, multiple wormwoods can cause confusion and there the language is critical, and universally clarified via the Latin names.

Welcome to the world of Slightly Older Books! Acid paper, and wood pulp instead of rag base, are 20th-century "innovations" (cost-cuttings) by which it's not unusual for a 20-year-old book to appear "older" than a 100-year-old book even halfway well kept. I have some good examples. (More about this surfaced in past eG food-book threads.) A little more on "formula books" too in a footnote Upthread. Welcome, Bill, to eG and this now seven-year-old discussion (and to the world of absinthes!). Your response answers points I did not make. Please note carefully that I wrote above about ingredients of early vs. modern absinthes, not flavor; and in reply to a comment contrasting absinthes to beverages "made from brandy, star anise, wormwood, mint, lemon balm, tarragon." That ingredients contrast becomes ironic in view of published 19th-c. recipes showing similar mixes of herbs, and Pernod Fils in the 1800s pointedly distinguishing its ingredients from those of later imitators by emphasizing its Cognac or related eau-de-vie base. That's from standard pre-2000 sources especially Conrad; you'll have seen those ingredients references yourself if you have read those sources seriously, so please dispute the sources directly if you differ about ingredients they cite.I was not writing about taste comparison; I welcome any tasting notes ("final outcome").

Congrats by the way, Lisa, for scoring what sounds like an original "formula book," a genre popular in 19th and early 20th centuries. Though not always practical, their recipes can be interesting reading. (Here also you see the old spelling split, "receipt" vs "recipe" -- one word originally, in English -- "receipt" still common through early 20th c.) Lead Acetate, "sugar of lead" as it often was called then, surfaced in many 19th-c. recipes I've seen, from pigments to fireworks. This chemical, still common in laboratories, has colorful historical associations because it forms when pewter cups carry wine, allegedly imparting a slightly sweet flavor (I haven't tasted it myself, no thanks); party-going Romans were said to enjoy this effect, linking the acetate to (1) Roman orgies and (2) epidemic lead toxicity-- good history or bad, it reads well. But it's not hard to remove lead or other heavy metals from solution (tea, in a pinch, does a good job, binding up heavy metals to insoluble tannates) so, not having seen this recipe, it may or may not leave residual lead. But many toxic absinthe adulterants appeared in those days, there's no shortage of sources for ill effects. Brief excerpt from Baggott's 1997 absinthe technical tutorial, online a dozen years now: ... manufacturers sometimes added other ingredients to produce the drink's emerald green color [otherwise due naturally to] chlorophyll from the plants. [For stronger color,] absinthe makers were known to add things like copper sulfate, cupric acetate indigo, turmeric, and aniline green. Antimony trichloride was also used to help the drink become cloudy when added to water (Arnold 1989, 1988). Undoubtedly, some of the toxic effects attributed to absinthe were due to these adulterants.

TT, thanks for the detailed follow-up. That's interesting. I have to say as a local native, oysters in this region never had the prominence they do elsewhere. I've probably eaten more of them around New Orleans for instance (where they're offered everywhere, in restaurants from lavish to illegal) despite spending far less time there. They are enjoyed and served in the Bay Area too, but crab and (formerly, but then even more so) abalone overshadowed them, or that's my impression. (When the subject has come up in discussion, one or two local friends admitted being underground fresh-oyster addicts, driving at dawn for first crack at catches of particular species in Marin County, the region of this thread. But it doesn't seem to be as common as in some other coasts.)

Marteau? Obsello?Good one! I assume Brooks was making fun (not online-arguing in the style of no there aren't any Chinese restaurants there, because there are Indian ones too). But in case the link goes down later, three of eight offerings are called Sirène Verte, Clandestine, and Taboo, with artwork to match. Of course this may be pure coincidence, not mystique marketing. There may be no such trend in absinthe and absinthe-like products this decade, pervading them like a miasma. Literally, for the paper overwrap label on a bottle (ca. 2001) of Muse Verte ("Le Pastis d'Autrefois" in case the point was not already hammered home) showing strange mists and vapors around an absinthe glass with slotted spoon and flat sugar cube; this may be artistic license only. The paper circular attached to the Dr. Roux Elixir bottle stressing so clearly that the herbal liquor is not an aphrodesiac though several components have the reputation; not psychoactive despite reports about some of its herbs, etc., may be purely to dispel misconceptions. As with the recent absinthe tutorials and popular articles I've read that play up assumptions from long-obsolete mystique, even while they purport to be enlightening the public beyond such things. Probably just pure chance!

Yes, and I'm reflecting from having it in California, years ago. Wonder where it originated? Apropos "bistro," per later postings: If you're familiar with its origin, this word labeled what you could call France's original "fast" food restaurants (according to books from France 50-plus years ago; I don't know what online or current pop-culture sources say) but came to be used more widely there and in Europe, sometimes for high-end places. Like many other food words (corn, entrée, Porterhouse steak, beignet), "bistro" may have evolved distinct or even conflicting usage in the US.

FG, thanks for the tasting notes and excellent picture. For comparison, I'll reiterate that the most traditional original absinthes used, besides wormwood, a mix of flavoring herbs to the maker's taste, including lemon balm, star anise, mint; sometimes oregano and others; and started with brandy or wine-grape eau-de-vie as a base. When absinthe caught on in France mid-1800s, and new brands rushed to the market, a criticism (and occasional safety problem) was their reliance on cheap "alcool d'industrie" as the starting liquor. (More in the standard US absinthe book by Barnaby Conrad, 1988). Thus St.-George's ingredients are nearer the originals like Pernod Fils than with other modern absinthes I've seen (the Kübler and Lucid I've tried listed a plain alcohol base, as mentioned earlier). (Note that in France, when mass-produced food products begin to elbow out the artisanal ones that created the interest, they routinely are criticized as "industrial." That's happened recently and prominently with cheeses, among other things.) Brooks's posting arrived while I was writing this. Note the meta-news from brand names that the products listed use: The forbidden, or dangerous, aura clearly carries perceived marketing value.

Tasting note upthread from earlier in year, after the respected artisanal distiller St. George Spirits, located in my region, released its "first US-made legal absinthe" sold under that name since the ban. (Trivia note: 1500-bottle first batch precipitated a run on the stuff, with throngs waiting around the block -- that particular link in the earlier note seems unavailable now, by the way -- and people phoning area retailers from across the country. I got some bottles just by promptly calling a couple quality spirits vendors with whom I have a steady customer relationship; as expected, they'd gotten allocations and were doling them out first-come, first-served. The firm has certainly made more batches since, and the product should be much more available.) The St. George was a subtle, herbal liquor made with obvious focus on flavor and notably, based on brandy like the original absinthes, rather than the clear neutral spirits claimed by the Kübler and Lucid products sold in retailers at the same time. No harm in resurrecting the topic, also: It's a chronic US interest ever since the 1912 ban, and publicly on the Internet too since the 1980s, even though it moved into the mainstream media just a few years ago.

That was Noilly Dry, by the way. (When I refer to Vermouth it's normally dry Vermouth as I rarely use the sweet.)

No, but I usually buy it in tenths (375 ml) for that reason. I should explain that I just occasionally use Vermouth for drinks, opening a fresh bottle if possible. But for decades I've normally kept screw-cap-closed bottles of it on hand in the refrigerator (along with various other fortified wines) because it is useful in cooking. (Just used some to soak the saffron for a Risotto Milanese in fact.) I find that it loses a little sublety, but doesn't show gross oxidation even with months of storage.I should explain I deal with table wines regularly in large variety, frequent blind tastings, etc. After many years of experimenting with storing leftover wines, trying various gimmicks and ultimately rejecting them as more trouble than they're worth, the usual practice for partial wine bottles is to seal them up tightly and refrigerate. That last factor is more important than anything else (slkinsey and others acquainted with thermodynamics will recall all the "kT" factors governing reaction-rate exponents) because a little reduction in temperature generally means a big reduction in chemical reaction rates of all kinds, including spoilage mechanisms. (A popular topic online among wine geeks who are also professional chemists.) For tables wines, usually the leftovers are used within days -- allowed to come up in temp. a bit before serving, of course, for aroma and flavor -- and how much this alters their flavor depends very much on the wine. After hundreds of trials I've found flavor and subtleties often remarkably intact, and rarely is there any serious flaw after a few days. Fortified wines are a different story, lasting much longer, in fact some (like Sherry and Madeira) are, so to say, pre-spoiled as a deliberate part of their production and flavor. ("Madeirized" is standard wine-taster speak for oxidation in table wines.) A well-sealed, refrigerated 375 ml Vermouth can be fine for cooking after months. It might disappoint a Vermouth connoisseur in a drink, but I'll confess to making well-received Martinis (real Martinis, with good gin) from it occasionally.