The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [27]
I’ve been sampling lots of unsparkling bottled waters recently, and several of them approach the ideal. Fiuggi from Italy is one, and the French brand Volvic is another, though Evian is not—it tastes heavy and unctuous to me. In this, I resemble Farrah Fawcett, who is reported to prefer Volvic to all other still waters. She sets her hair with Evian, which is where we part company. Michelangelo was a great fan of Fiuggi, and I couldn’t agree more.
The Water Centre in Edison, New Jersey, carries more bottled waters than any other place in the country, and I telephoned it the other day at (800) 345-5959 to find out what’s new. The owner, Stanley Siebenberg, was sipping from a bottle of rare Peruvian San Mateo water when I reached him; it comes from a region known as the Land of Longevity. He told me that Lithia Springs is very popular among women who wish to get pregnant; it makes you feel mellow and more receptive to sex. M.G. Voda is rich in free magnesium, which some people say cures headaches and helps them sleep. Stanley himself lost seventeen pounds drinking Hennieze, the best-selling water in Switzerland, which, he said, lifts your energy level. Then, for several weeks, he washed his face in Deliziosa, and the wrinkles on his forehead disappeared. I told Stanley that I had read about a rock formation deep under Louisiana in which water has been trapped, unaltered, for forty million years; so far it is unavailable in bottled form.
The Food and Drug Administration forbids bottled-water companies to make health claims, and unless you drink monumental quantities of the most heavily mineralized waters on the market, you probably eat more of most types of minerals in your food. (A glass of milk has more calcium than a whole liter of the highest-calcium water I could find.) I explained to Stanley that eager as I am to shed both wrinkles and weight, mellow out, and add to my allotted years, I would settle in the meantime for a steady supply of water from an ethereal Alpine spring. He knew just what I meant and the next day delivered thirty-three candidates. Stanley’s forehead was admirably smooth—though, meeting him for the first time, I had no basis for comparison.
When I had tasted half the thirty-three waters and become aware of their dramatically different tastes, I began to wonder why so few cookbooks specify the kind of water you should use in their recipes. I have seen recipes for lobster steamed in seawater and recipes for matzo balls formed with seltzer to make them light and fluffy. I’ve read that very hard water (high in calcium and magnesium) ruins the color and texture of vegetables and the consistency of bread dough, but that bread made with water free of alkaline mineral salts will fail to form a delicious golden crust. The British and the Chinese vary the variety of tea they brew according to the character of the water in their part of the country. I telephoned Paula Wolfert (Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, The Cooking of South-West France, World of Food, all Harper & Row), who opened up the culinary encyclopedia that inhabits her brain and added to my short list. Carbonated water is used by the Yugoslavs to form cevapcici, sausage-shaped hamburgers grilled on a spit and served with onions; by the Serbs in their proja, a corn bread; and by other Mediterranean peoples to lighten their meatballs. The Four Seasons restaurant in New York City insists on San Pellegrino in its chocolate sherbet, and Paula herself includes a recipe for spring vegetables in World of Food that works only with Evian or Volvic.
The one world-famous recipe that depends on the water you use