Good wine match for pesto?

[GregT]

They would John. And they would come up with good recipes, based on what was at hand. It’s why some parts of Europe use butter and others use olive oil and others use lard - they didn’t grow olives in Normandy or Norway.

But the idea that wine and food was somehow “evolving” together doesn’t hold up. We got condiments because people preserved what they could so they would have something to eat.

For some people sauerkraut is a condiment, for others it’s a staple. Either way, they didn’t invent sauerkraut in central Europe to pair with beer, they did it because it kept their cabbage from rotting through the winter. They made beer because they had some grain they could ferment, or vodka because they had some vegetables they could cook down and distill. They probably would have loved to have olives and almonds, but they didn’t.

Just like the folks a bit farther south where they could grow grapes used what they had around and tried to preserve their bounty for the winter, which was a bit milder. So we get these great peasant dishes but those were all born of necessity, not reflection. And most likely if fast food was available, it would have been preferred.

And you know a lot more about Barolo than I do but whether it was Staglieno or Oudart or someone else, they weren’t making it dry until sometime in the 1800s, and probably not everybody then. It may have been like a sweet sforzato, because sugar was always highly prized. But whatever it was, it was probably horrific stuff that wasn’t carefully crafted to go with boar ragu.

I think there are pairings not because they were created for each other, but because they simply work. Correlation, not planning. For example, what wine doesn’t go with roast chicken? White, red, rosé from many countries. And they like venison in England, Scotland, Italy, Germany, Hungary, France and elsewhere, so which wine evolved to pair with it? Or lamb, which is eaten all over Europe and the middle east.

Surely people realized that some things tasted good together, but it was opportunistic and serendipitous, not careful reflection. And we can’t look at the cuisines we associate with various areas today and imagine that they were the same two hundred or more years ago.

[John_Morris]

@GregT

… Either way, they didn’t invent sauerkraut in central Europe to pair with beer, they did it because it kept their cabbage from rotting through the winter. They made beer because they had some grain they could ferment, or vodka because they had some vegetables they could cook down and distill. They probably would have loved to have olives and almonds, but they didn’t.

…

I think there are pairings not because they were created for each other, but because they simply work. Correlation, not planning.

That was my point – the combos worked. I never argued that they were intentionally developed for each other. But your original post suggested that there was no learning and discovery of good combinations.

[Wes_Barton]

@GregT

For some people sauerkraut is a condiment, for others it’s a staple. Either way, they didn’t invent sauerkraut in central Europe to pair with beer, they did it because it kept their cabbage from rotting through the winter.

“They” didn’t invent it. Mongol invaders brought it to Europe.

[Wes_Barton]

Wine grapes moved around, fell out of favor, etc. It’s natural that what’s grown, how it’s grown and how it’s made would evolve and adapt to meet the needs and desires of the consumers. Same with food. Sure, there’s constraints, but there’s still choices. Basic to food-wine pairing is preparation. If the wine is a given, they might find that adding or subtracting an ingredient works better, so a dish would evolve. New ingredients arrive from time to time and get adopted for various reasons. Are tomatoes or eggplants native to Italy? No.