the time and because we drank very few wines, as it happens -
Apart from the Chardonnay we drank an excellent Tacama Malbec/Tannat (their top wine) which was a touch young, but went well with the food. Another peruvian winery whose wines we drank several times was Tabernero
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We both liked their Cabernet sauvignon, which was a typically hot country C.S. slightly jammy, not too tannic, but very well made. However their Merlot/Malbec Gran Tinto Fina Reserva was excellent by anyone's standards. Big brooding wine, not too tannic, but full of fruit. it went brilliantly with the grilled Alpaca fillet that I was eating at the time.
Welcome back, Ian, and thanks for the impressions. You may recall Tom Reddick (Elpaninaro) returning from Peru probably 5 years ago and being equally effusive about the cuisine. I can only say, having never visited there, that I rank Peruvian restaurants in the US up with Thai, Chinese and Indian for innovative cooking and flavors. I was intrigued to read that they cook alpaca there: AFAIK that may be the only camelid eaten, though I stand to be corrected by those more knowledgable in such matters.
(but first - thanks to Ken Blake as well. This trip was to celebrate our
40th wedding anniversary which will be at the end of this month, and was hugely extravagant! Bespoke trip, with private driver and guide at all stages - one could get used to such luxury!) on Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:00:37 -0500, you said:-
I remember the much regretted Tom Reddick, who knew as much about the wines of burgundy as anyone I've "met" here. However, I don't recall his praise for Peruvian food. But judging by our synoptic view of wines, I'm not surprised at it.
innovative cooking and flavors.
I think that's a very fair assessment. As with those other countries (and the US and France) the wide variations of geography and climate. From the long coastline, along which the (cold, fish rich) Humboldt current flows, to the high plains and terraced hillsides of the Andes where they grow hundreds of different kinds of maize and thousands of potatoes - all perfectly adapted to a particular microclimate, and the jungle of the Amazonian basin, I guess that's as disparate a range as one can imagine. The influence of spain here is perhaps less dominent - certainly in terms of the use of traditional ingredients, than in the other Latin-American countries we've visited, and so Inca and pre-Inca ingredients and cooking seem to be found more widely than elsewhere. Actually - forgive me - their cooking is only "innovative" from the perspective of our western eyes. Apart from the Nuevo Andina food (which is what we had in several of the best places) it's still amazingly traditional, with some dishes being relatively unchanged since pre-incan days.
We did ask about whether the other Peruvian members (Vicuna and llama) of the camelid family were eaten and got very inconclusive answers, but negative ones really. I guess that Vicuna are too rare and small to be eaten on a regular basis (they really only thrive at VERY high altitudes - by the way, when shorn they can yield only 250 gms every two years - hence the price of vicuna woollen articles) and llama may well be coarse flavoured and too useful as beasts of burden.
Alpaca meat - we had it on several occasions and found it delightful - is like a cross between beef and red deer, but arguably a little tighter in texture, very lean, and with a faintly livery undertone to the flavour. Had I not wanted to see what Peru could offer in terms of other meats I'd have had it a lot more. It was very well accompanied by the wines we drank with it. Ica is in northern Peru, and the area - best known for from the ubiquitous pisco brandy - is hot and dry and makes wines typical of hot dry countries. Some of the vineyards there are VERY old (16C) but I guess it's the successes of winemaking in Australia that have acted as inspiration for the bodegas there to improve their methods. So the wines were fairly soft, without being flabby, and mostly without excessive acidity. As you'd expect, loads of fruit.
Read your trip report....( how anoraky can I get!!!)
Iberia - by Ian Hoare
16 December 2007 Customer Trip Rating :
LHR-MAD-LIM then QIO-GYE-MAD-LHR. Dire - not one flight was on time. At no point did it occur to ground staff either to inform us or apologise. Quito seems to be particularly prone to weather problems, but that does not excuse the string of lies that we were fed when we pressed them for information. It came as no surprise that our baggage had been mislaid when we arrived yesterday in the UK nearly 24 hours late. (We're still waiting for it as I write). The different aircraft we used (Airbus) were fine, and seating comfortable generally. Airside, the staff were minimally friendly, though better than ground crew in Latin America, who clearly regarded their clients as being beneath contempt
John T
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Goodness, 40! Congratulations to you both! Sounds like a great trip, and some very interesting wines. Thanks for the report. (Adele and I recently celebrated the 20th, I am embarrassed to say I have not posted the meal notes even now...)
Do you imply that Tom Reddick has passed on? I'd be very sorry to hear that. Certainly he hasn't posted here for some years.
(I did a google search but found only some "drinks" site that plagiarized us all here, giving us random monikers for each 15 afw posts or so. And people wonder why their new sites are greeted with suspicion when advertised here...)
Richard, you are such a sensitive wee thing..... ;-)
In 1960, New Zealand measured *everything* imperially - distance was measured in inches and feet and years and furlongs and miles - yes, and even leagues.
We weighed in ounces and pounds and stones and tons.
Degrees Fahrenheit measured temperature and p.s.i. was pressure.
Even our old hand-me-down currency was pounds, shilling & pence (don't ask!!!)
Liquid volume was pints and gallons (imperial ones - not strange American gallons!)
But, we progressed - NZ (along with Australia, the UK and most other former colonies) adopted metrics - just as Europe, South America etc measured in a manner handed down over 2,000 years from the Romans
We now think and measure in metres and kilometres; grams; and kilograms. Calories are kilojoules; gallons (imp. or US) are litres.
I am no longer 16stone 7pounds (230lbs) - I weigh 105kg.
I am not being at all insulting when I comment that, in this respect, the USA stands alone in *not* going along with the rest of the world.
Dick, by choice, you are virtually alone, in this respect.
So, my friend, when the entire rest of the world, live, breathes, eats, sleeps and dies in metrics, please don't get upset when we think that *you guys* are a little backward.
When I am quoting currency values within this n.g., I always convert to $US - mostly out of respect to the majority of posters who reside in the USA, and because it is some sort of standard. Personally, I think that today, the Euro is more acceptable internationally - again, I am not starting an argument in this respect - this is just a considered opinion of someone taking a more *international* view.
Now, I am not picking a fight, but does even one US correspondent consider that if and when you are talking about gallons, no-one else (other than an American and perhaps Canadian?) has a clue that you are talking about an obscure and totally obsolete measure (3.8 litres).
Merry Christmas Richard (see - downunder, we are not even hung up on the Happy holidays mumbo jumbo crap!).
All we know is that life is too short to sweat the small stuff - and because I reside on this tiny, irreverent spot in the South Pacific who dared tell Uncle Sam that he could jam his nuclear weapons right up his fundamental orifice - I know that everything is small stuff.
Now please Richard - do not take anything I have written here seriously - I have consumed 600 mls out of a 750ml bottle of Aussie Shiraz - and it is way past my bedtime - and I have 8.7 metres to traverse to retire.
Happy Hanukkah to you as well my friend. Most of the people on this group do not realize that you are a proud Jewish Negro from NZ. I am sure you are not alone on that and since you are different than most of the white colored people of your land I would never go so far as to call you backwards for being different.
St H If the US is backward, welcome to turgid swamp of UK metrification.
I get in my car and drive two miles to the petrol (gas) station, I buy my eco diesel at 105p a litre, ( Yes that's right for our US readers. 11 USD per gallon)
I get on the motorway and the signs are all in miles, the flashing radar warnings are in MPH.
I need some DIY stuff from the local shed, my paint is in litres and my wood is in metric, yet can be ordered in feet lengths.
Time for food, lets get 100g of chorizo and a 5lb bag of potatoes, I exaggerate, as everything should be dual priced.
I go to by greengrocer and buy loose mushrooms by the quarter pound.
Needing a drink, its off to the pub..." I'll have a pint of Old Hooky and
125 mls of house red for the missus."
The pub is hot, 72F by the landlords thermometer, turn the thermostat down to 19C.
The only part of my background I have never established is my passion for things "ornithological" and my lifelong search for the Ruby Breasted Bed Wrecker, and the Black Breasted Mattress Thrasher.
A bottle of Champagne to anyone who can point me in the right direction!
st.helier wrote on Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:10:20 +1300:
sh> "Richard Neidich" wrote ....... ??>>
??>> Most of the people on this group do not realize that you ??>> are a proud Jewish Negro from NZ. I am sure you are not ??>> alone on that and since you are different than most of the ??>> white colored people of your land I would never go so far ??>> as to call you backwards for being different. ??>>
sh> (smiley added per your second post ;-)
sh> Richard, you must have been reading my genealogical mail!
sh> The recipe reads something like this.
sh> Take one maternal grandfather (Jewish from England); sh> maternal grandmother (pure Scot - Celtic redhead!)
sh> Paternal ancestry - Norman Irish Grandfather (whose sh> grandfather was domiciled in Jersey - thus the St.Helier!) sh> married to a German immigrant.
sh> I plead guilty to being as cross-bred as a mongrel dog!
sh> And bloody proud of it !!!!!
As a proud mongrel too: all 4 British ancestries, probably Cornish too and possibly others if my grandmothers were being less than truthful, may I express solidarity! My kids do even better and add mostly Jewish Russian, German and French!
James Silverton Potomac, Maryland
E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
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