Discovering Vermouth and discovering Spain

The guidebook said Spaniards drink sangria and fruity red wines. It's true. Or a partial truth, like coke-guzzling Americans and tea-swilling Brits. Come summer, more intriguing tipples fill Spanish glasses. Like tinto de verano, an easy-drinking wine cocktail made with lemon-lime soda and red wine (called vino tinto in Spanish). Or vermouth, drunk straight-up, maybe with a twist of lemon or spear of olives. During my trip to Spain I sipped the latter in small glass and relished its exotic flavor.

You know vermouth but likely as an ingredient, not a drink. Few Americans drink it beyond the splash that goes into their martini or Manhattan. Even in Italy, where red vermouth originated in the 18th century, it’s most frequently tossed into a Negroni or Americano. Spain defines vermouth. On tap or from a bottle, vermouth is the day-drink for when wine is too strong but beer is too dull.

Although ordering vermouth in Spain is straightforward, buying it abroad is baffling. After returning from my trip I went to the grocery store to get a bottle. They had Martini and Lillet and Punt e Mes and Pernod, which I thought was vermouth but is actually pastis. I left with a sparkling water and returned home to research.

Vermouth is a fortified wine with more alcohol than beer and wine, but less than spirits or liqueurs (about 16% ABV). It’s classified as a sweet wine, but no vermouth I’ve had tastes as a cloying as vin santo or cream sherry. Northern Italy dominates vermouth production — just think of Cocchi and Cinzano and Milano da bere — but Spain and France also produce sizeable amounts. While seasoned tasters can discern the difference between Dolin and Noilly Prat — okay, I made that up, anyone could notice the difference between dry and sweet vermouths — the newbie will notice the flavors they share: the fruity sweetness, the herbal bitterness, the slick texture. Each brand’s unique taste comes from the different herbs they use to infuse their wine. These herbs make Italy’s Cocchi tastes like Italy and France’s Lillet tastes like France.

Armed with knowledge, orange peels and ice, I returned to the grocery store to buy a sweet red Spanish vermouth. I left with Portuguese red wine. Despite its popularity within the country, Spanish vermouth remains rare abroad.

Spain produces and drinks more vermouth than their foreign presence suggests. Compared to Italy or France, the Spanish vermouth shelf appears bear: Lacuesta, Yzaguirre and Miró among other. It’s vermut de grifa — tap vermouth — that distinguishes Spain’s vermouth culture. 

Tap vermouth is simple and cheap. It’s slightly bitter but still sweet, as if a bottle of coke had half the sugar and none of the carbonation. When drunk in a skinny glass over ice, preferably with a citrus twist, it tastes of al fresco cocktail hours, kids playing soccer in squares and the relief of resting tired feet. It is simple and elegant and that’s how you feel drinking it. Even within Spain it looks understated compared to goblets of sangria or jugs of tinto. Ordering vermouth means ordering a glass of Spanish summer. 

In lieu of Waitrose, I headed to the bar. But the furrowed brows when I asked for a Cocchi Americano over ice warned me that my Euro affectation was not welcome (not, I admit, a new experience for me). I sought an analogue in Pimm’s and rosé and gin and tonic. The flavors were different, but the ordering was as easy as a sunny Spanish day.

And when I want to taste those Spanish summer? I open my mind and take a sip and find that the taste of vermouth is just as good as I remember. At least, in memory.

The Taste of Repulsion (or a meditation on fermented shark)

Hákarl. Fermented shark. Whatever the language, the Icelandic delicacy inspires distaste among the gastro-tourists. The distaste extends beyond bloggers and Trip Advisor reviews — even Anthony Bourdain, iron-stomach extraordinaire, dubs it ‘unspeakably nasty’. Travelers concur: fermented shark is not worth exporting. 

Iceland's tourist economy provides ample opportunities for those curious to sample the country’s weirdest foods without wasting an expensive meal. Supermarkets sell small tubs of hákarl, packs of dried fish and rúgbrauð, Icelandic rye bread. Only skyr, a strained cheese that resembles Greek yogurt in taste and texture, comes in large containers, speaking to Icelanders’ confidence in the product’s appeal. 

But even supermarkets packages can be too big. That's where restaurants like Cafe Loki step in. The all-day restaurant cooks Icelandic dishes for tourists streaming in from adjacent Hallgrmískirkja, a large modern-gothic church and Reykjavik's most recognizable landmark. Diners pick from open-faced sandwiches on rye bread and platters offering guidebook-marked must-tries. Perhaps the only disgust-inducing dish not available is svið, lamb head served alongside turnip and potato mash.

Fermented shark comes either as a sampler or as part of a platter. Whatever you choose, you receive a smattering of pristine white cubes marked with an Icelandic flag toothpick, a prize for ingesting the offending product.

Image via Audrey, Flickr

When my meal arrived, I started with the shark. It's served cut into sugar-cube sized pieces and only a few shades darker than one. From far away there's no aroma, but a sharp, vinegary bite develops as you bring it toward your mouth. The vinegar flavor intensifies as you chew through the toothy, jelly-like fish. But this soon succumbs to a salty odor that travels up your nose and down your throat, burning like horseradish or vodka. After swallowing it's not the flavor you remember, but rather the total combination of aroma, texture and aftertaste.

I was not disgusted. I quite liked it. I ate two pieces and would have eaten more had my dining companions not also wanted to try. Shoving the innocuous pieces into their mouths, their faces contorted -- disgust. Most people I talked to who tried it recalled the same reaction -- disgust. 

But, why? What about this innocent-looking foodstuff turns the stomach? Was my confessed enjoyment an affectation that went along with my appreciation of aquavit, dark rye bread and salty licorice? Although I'd prefer to think otherwise, I'm involved in a food culture that praises the daring but expects personal preferences to collide with cultural background. In this sense, my enjoyment wasn’t a natural reaction, but rather a culturally-informed response. Knowing the food’s social meaning, I ate it and enjoyed it to identify with contemporary foodies and foreign cultures. I have a taste for these flavors and sensations because I want to identify with the Nordic community. Whether or not food actually identifies me as I wish is irrelevant; ingesting these products allows me the self-identification I desire.

Flickr via Chris Wronski

There might be another, less personal, reason for this universal distaste. Disgust is the pre-determined reaction in front of fermented shark. Diners are conditioned to respond in this way and so they do. I have never read an article where the author doesn’t hate hákarl. Maybe Icelanders want it this way -- they eat this product, we don’t. They play a joke on unsuspecting foreigners; foreigners have a joke played on them. Perhaps together we create an environment that invents the modern meaning of an ancient product. Whether or not Icelanders eat fermented shark on a daily basis is irrelevant as it makes up part of their culture and lore that visitors don’t share. They have a taste. We don't

The conditions under which non-Icelanders eat hákarl reproduce this dynamic. From the small portion sizes to the special consumption locations, the presentation directs us away from enjoyment. We enjoy a large plate of steaming lamb, we sample fermented shark. It’s not a food, it’s a taste. It's the small canapé, the pre-dinner nibble that we want to eat but hold back from knowing that we should save room for the main meal, a meal that will undoubtedly satisfy us in a deeper way than the small pickings presented first. How can we enjoy this product when we aren't given the opportunity to? Tourist accounts of fermented shark don't recount disgust because it's the only response to this product, but because it's the natural response to the presentation.  

I liked fermented shark. Or, I think I did. Although the product has a divisive taste, texture and sensation, the cultural cues that permeate its representation prevent impartiality. If only we could do away with these markings, tasting the fermented food blindfolded in a room with offending products we enjoy (Roquefort? Kimchi? Marmite?). Then maybe we'd be able to appraise hákarl without prejudice. But until then, eating fermented shark means ingesting your place within global food culture and identifying with a pre-conditioned reaction. 

The Invented Tradition of Industrial Italian Food

The pink set sun bounced off the Adriatic, illuminating the golden crust. You’d have heard the shatter of knife piercing through if not for the whistling breeze and breaking waves. We sat meters away at a table nestled in the sand. During my week living with a host family in San Bendetto del Tronto, a seaside resort in Italy’s central Le Marche, I’d grown used to this panorama. I’d also grown used to the food. Forget the platters of squishy spaghetti ai frutti di mare tourists ate at nearby seaside restaurants. My host family and I chowed down on pre-fried, oven-reheated spinacine — spinach and chicken patties — fresh from the plastic freezer packaging.

Some fall for Italian food when served dishes toothy pasta flecked with guanciale or salads glowing with olive oil slick tomatoes. Not I. I reveled in meals that would challenge seasoned food photographers. I discovered Italian cuisine as imagined by Esselunga, Coop and Conad — the country’s main supermarket chains. Meandering through their aisles with my host family and, later, on my own, the diverse palette revolutionized my understanding of food’s affective potential. From mossy green spinacine and wheat-yellow Mulino Bianco biscuits to deep-orange peach Esta Thé and vivid blue Barilla boxes, the exotic personalities of Italy’s industrial food products beguiled me. Although popular American culture lauds an Italian cooking that features local produce, hyper-regional recipes and smiling grandmothers, the reality I encountered demonstrated a different fantasy of Belpaese gastronomy.

That’s not to say this traditional cuisine doesn’t exist but rather that it doesn’t speak to the range of diets present that characterize the Peninsula in the 21st century. Since the 1950s, with the influx of foreign aid from the Marshall Plan, Italians have increasingly eschewed rural life in favor of urban existence as dictated by industry. Daily routines have responded to these changes in institutional structures. ISTAT, Italy’s equivalent of the Census Bureau, shows that the intervening 60 years has led Italians to eat breakfast regularly and to consume lunch at work or school, while dinner remains a daily family ritual, though with less time devoted to preparing it. These years also witnessed an influx of new products from frozen and prepared foodstuffs to international restaurant chains and exotic cuisines. As incomes ballooned, Italian families spent money on the luxury foods previously restricted to fantasies and Christmas. Although Italian cooking based on whole ingredients — the kind lauded travelogues — remains relevant to Italy’s 21st-century consumers, overlooking the country’s burgeoning industrial food sector betrays the complexity of the Belpaese’s culinary history.

I first encountered Italian industrial food at breakfast, coating perfect-crescent shaped brioche with abundant spoonfulls of Nutella. Breakfast highlights the interplay between whole foods and industrial production in creating the contemporary Italian diet. From the plastic wrapped fette biscottate to the apricot crostata with an eerily perfect lattice crust, Italy’s industrial bakeries provide Italians with nostalgia during the hours when it would be most difficult to prepare. In recounting their prima colazione of years past, older Italians mention meals of dried bread dipped in tazze d’orzo or the occasional piece of fresh bread with a veil of jam. Although these breakfasts might seem easy to reproduce within a chaotic modern schedule, the country’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle combined with an emphasis on dieting means that breakfast no longer needs to provide fuel, but a delicious antidote to the work day’s oncoming stress. Whether pausing for a caffè and fluffy brioche at the bar or dunking crumbly biscuits in caffelatte at the kitchen table, the contemporary Italian breakfast is a quick routine that demonstrates the triumph of urban consumption over utilitarian fuel.

But nostalgia remains for the old ways. Mulino Bianco — a subsidy of Barilla pasta — responds by producing biscuits, snacks, American-style loaf bread and cakes for grocery stores that pair the desire for the past with modernity’s convenience. Barilla introduced the brand in 1974 to consolidate their presence in the burgeoning consumer food market. Since then, the company’s astute marketing has propelled them to dominate Italy’s baked good sector with a 6.9% share of the market in 2014. From a life-sized recreation of their namesake ‘white mill’ to an array of games and prizes to entice kids, Mulino Bianco constructs a universe in which the rural dream of cucina povera — literally ‘poor cooking’ — manifests itself in mass culture. 

Following Mulino Bianco’s success, other companies have capitalized upon the Italian desire for bygone foodways through ready meals, food chains and novelty products. These brands suggest that only modern consumption patterns can recapture Italy’s fabled quality comestibles. Grom, an international gourmet gelato chain founded in Turin, describes themselves as ‘il gelato come una volta’ — ice cream as it used to be. If a proliferation of options defines contemporary consumer society, then Grom emphasizes the singularity of their gelato to feign opposition to the market system that enables their existence. But a quick stroll through the grocery stroll reveals Grom doesn’t monopolize bygone quality. There’s Motta’s Antica Gelateria del Corso (roughly translated as ye olde gelato shop on main street), which sells a supermarket frozen desserts. There’s Viva la Mamma box, which offers microwaveable packages of pasta in traditional sauces like a mythical mamma might make. Although the industrial correlation of quality, nostalgia and industry might baffle the foreigner habituated to the idyllic notion of agriturismo, both representations share a belief that modern-life has resituated the role quality and pleasure play in the domestic Italian kitchen.

Even agriturismo dreams are ceding to industrial bounty. Eataly, the international chain of Italian grocery stores aligned with Slow Food (most vocally so in Italy), offers pre-packaged soups, mass produced biscuits and cases of bottled mineral water. In this sense, the regular presence of industrial food in the Italian diet suggests a stronger influence than the occasional agriturismo. This isn’t to say that Italians only eat processed foods or don’t champion traditional products — they have the highest amount of DOP and IGP protected products in the EU. Rather, it suggests the contemporary Italian dietary landscape is more complex and joyfully paradoxical than the foreign tourism imaginary illustrates.

During my years living in Italy I have spent hours in supermarkets analyzing novel pasta shapes, erudite frozen foods and delightful merendine, snack cakes. Each new product presents a new marvel. From the salty crunch of a spinacine — spinach and chicken croquette — to the rough crunch of a Mulino Bianco biscuit — tarallucci, please! — Italian industrial food products speak to my imaginary of Italian food in a way that reality fails to do. Reality is saddled with history. Italian gastronomy’s complex vocabulary and philology marks every menu, both at home and abroad. The burden of ordering becomes the burden of history — don’t get the gnocchi al tartufo in Naples or gnocchi alla romana in Turin. Although internal migration has mitigated the distinctions between regions, each area retains authority over the recipes from their environs. A different history applies to Italian industrial foodstuffs — the history of fantasy. Ripping open the plastic on a Pan di Stelle cake or cracking open a box of trofie al pesto from Viva la Mamma allows you to feign the tradition you want. Close your eyes and you can ramble around Puglia’s gravelly hills or spill sauce on mamma’s yellow tablecloth. Close your eyes and relish your Italian food dream.