Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [71]
The two basic kinds of beer—lagers and ales—differ partly because of their finish and partly due to the yeasts that are used. Lagers ferment for a longer period of time at cooler temperatures, producing a lighter-tasting beer, while ales take less time at higher temperatures. Ales tend to be darker and to taste heavier, though they contain about the same number of calories as lagers.
In England and Ireland, where beer drinking is elevated to a social ritual in local pubs where regulars gather, the indigenous yeast produces ales, including stout, bitter, and porter. The quintessential ale is Guinness Stout from Dublin. In Germany and the Czech Republic, the local yeasts produce lagers, with the most famous being Pilsner.
The Czech Republic holds the title for per-capita consumption at over 160 liters per year, followed by Ireland and Germany. The United States, where beer first arrived with the Pilgrims, now produces more than any other country, though it ranks only twelfth in consumption at about eighty-five liters per person.
Most American beers are lagers and are served at 39 degrees F to satisfy American tastes, though the cold tends to diminish the taste somewhat. Ales are not served warm even in England but at about 55 degrees F, or about the same temperature as red wine. Once chilled, beer should not be removed from the refrigerator to be rechilled later, since fluctuating temperatures affect the taste, as does light, which is why beer is canned or bottled in colored glass. The best-quality beer is usually on tap, since the temperature has been properly maintained from the time it was made.
Like wine, there is a special vocabulary to describe the qualities of beer: fruity, dry, hoppy sweet, toasty etc. And like wine, the price is usually an accurate reflection of the quality of the beer. Unlike wine, beer does not improve with age.
THE HEDGES
1954. On this day in East Hampton, Long Island, in an old white house near the entrance to town, Henri Soulé opened The Hedges with table linen and wine from Le Pavillon, his restaurant in New York. The walk to the ocean down a beautiful street of large summer houses made him feel he was in paradise.
The Hedges, no longer in existence, was small and simple but elegant. Two wealthy women who were visiting the area arrived for lunch one day. Soulé, who knew them, came out from the kitchen in an apron, apologizing for his appearance. He seated them and asked what they would like. The restaurant was empty; to the women, things seemed ominously slow. But the meal was memorable. After the lunch and excellent wine, they asked for the check. There was no check. No check? Well, The Hedges was not open for lunch, Soulé gracefully explained.
DISASTER
2002. Dinner party was a complete disaster. Everything, from beginning to end—the food was bad, there were too many people, the presentation was chaotic. We broke two fundamental rules: (1) serving two things we’d never made before and (2) having too much that had to be prepared at the last minute. The carrots in ginger were burned. The gratin of potatoes had too much cream and was undercooked. The elaborate baked meat turned out to be crumbly, more like a shepherd’s pie. On and on …
We sat on the couch together after everyone had gone, reflecting on what had gone wrong rather than facing the piles of dishes and debris. The only good thing was that there had been a lot of drinking. They might not remember clearly.
Everyone called the next day: fabulous party.
TASTING THE FOOD
The most important secret in cooking is to taste the food, in some cases before, but always during and especially after cooking. No recipe, however exact, is to be trusted without tasting, and no previous success guarantees another.
SUGAR
The Peace of Breda, concluded on this day in 1667, settled the three-year war