Matching wine to vegetarian dishes

[story]

Um, but fish etc are animals - meat.

Yes indeed.

I was saying how meat was frowned upon, but fish and seafood is another matter: in other words, they love the stuff.

 

[fractionMan]

This is the most piss weak spat I've ever read lol

 

[Athos]

Well your statement that the palate of a vegetarian is retarded - are these materially different in content?

Yes. I thought we'd already agreed that there is a difference between the biological sense of taste and the more aesthetic ability of discernment.

Of course they are. Just because a person does not eat meat (or looks at Matisse, or touches silk, or....) does not mean that they are unable to taste its flavour when they do experience it.

I disagree. If your palate has not been exposed to it, you will not be able to appreciate the subtelties and complexities of flavour; that is a skill acquired through exposure. It's similar to the way in which, say, wine tasters train their palates to recognise flavours.

If someone has not been exposed to a Matisse, they are not therefore incapable of discerning a van Gough; if a person has never worn silk, it doesn't make them somehow insensible to the sensation of satin on their skin.

If someone have never been exposed to art, they will be able to see the Matisse, but their appreciation of it may be limited.

It's an absurd premise.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

This last sentence is a very different proposal to the following sentence:

I think they're materially very similar.

There is a world of difference between a well-rounded and developed aesthetic ability (the former sentence), and a inability to discern different flavours (the latter sentence).

I disagree. When it comes to the palate, the ability to discern subtelties of flavour is the same as a well-rounded aesthetic ability.

That's like saying that because someone has not been taught to dance or play a musical instrument, they are incapable of recognising that someone is dancing or playing music.

No. It's like saying that musicians are better able to appreciate the subtelties and complexities of music than those who do not know play an instrument.

Well this is based on you own subjective view. I disagree, but I cannot argue that you are wrong. Such matters are so entirely subjective that it would be impossible even to design a study that might start to answer the question. Like trying to know whether men or women derive the greater pleasure from sex.

Maybe we should just agree to disagree then? I think we're largely just going round in circles (nd have massively derailed this thread - sorry).

 

[Athos]

Maybe so, in the same way that anyone is more likely to be able to shakily identify minor differences in any class of sensory experience they regularly seek out. It's still a fair way to go from that to 'vegetarians have a retarded palate'...

I don't think so.

...and I still see next to no relevance to wine.

You don't see the relevance of the palate to the appreciation of wine?

I'm assuming (rashly, based on my experience of meat-eaters) that you don't regularly eat the range of non-meat foods of many developed world vegetarians, so while you may be able to claim to identify a partridgey tang in the wine, you may be less able to detect a seitan undertone, a hint of nero di toscana or a note of toovar dhal. But that's to be expected.

Your assumption is incorrect.

 

[dessiato]

Maybe we should just agree to disagree then? I think we're largely just going round in circles (nd have massively derailed this thread - sorry).

At last a good point where there can be no argument.

 

[chooch]

I don't think so. You don't see the relevance of the palate to the appreciation of wine?

I don't see the relevance of being able to identify meat flavours to a fruit product.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Green and Blue wine bar/cafe in East Dulwich (http://www.greenandbluewines.com/store/lordship.php) has a wine list which describes the food with which one should eat each wine, and includes vegetarian dishes.

In fact, it spends so much space describing what one should eat with a wine, that it doesn't really describe the wine, so is no use if you only want wine on its own!

I didn't look at the wine list for when you are buying wine from the wine shop which is part of it - I wonder if that does it, too....

 

[Athos]

I don't see the relevance of being able to identify meat flavours to a fruit product.

It's not a matter of "being able to identify meat flavours" but rather of having a well-rounded palate, that's important in wine tasting.

 

[chooch]

what one should eat with a wine, that it doesn't really describe the wine

never been convinced that you should eat so-and-so with such-and-such. Things will taste different is all. You might enjoy them, or might not. It'll depend on what you've become conditioned to, and how bored you are with the familiar.

 

[chooch]

having a well-rounded palate

defined how?

 

[Athos]

defined how?

Fully developed, well-balanced, and broad i.e. accustomed to a wide range of flavours.

 

[Dillinger4]

What a piss poor, weak, circular argument you have going there, Athos.

 

[Athos]

What a piss poor, weak, circular argument you have going there, Athos.

If you say so.

 

[chymaera]

never been convinced that you should eat so-and-so with such-and-such. Things will taste different is all. You might enjoy them, or might not. It'll depend on what you've become conditioned to, and how bored you are with the familiar.

I find Normandy or Breton cider goes with any food.