My announcement nearly a fortnight ago that BWW&FP would be retired due to my poverty met with distress on the part of many of you, my valued readers (much to my delight, I must admit). In order to keep me immersed in the fermented grape pressings that I so adore, I was even offered patronage (fitting for a humanist such as myself), as well as corporate sponsorship from a multinational investment bank (tainted support that I would never accept). But fret not, dear readers, BWW&FP has returned of its own accord, because, well, it was terribly urgent that I have at least few drinks, for various reasons. Have I mentioned that I live with my parents?
With my new budgetary restrictions in mind, I must announce one significant change in this feature. No, I haven’t yet resorted to eating pet food. In an effort to get the most bang for my buck, so to speak, I will be switching to boxed wine. As I’ve noted in the past, the sugary vintages that I prefer may as well come in a (juice) box, and now my financial destitution has driven me to the recollection that they do, in fact. The result of this is that I can purchase the volumetric equivalent of four bottles of wine for roughly the same price by which I would normally acquire two, and the same box will ideally last about a month. Ideally.
Some of you may protest that a recurring wine selection defeats the purpose of this endeavor, which is to find delectable and novel combinations of food and wine. However, allow me to offer two ripostes to that objection:
First, if you have been following this series, it should be clear to you that I am well out of my depth in this field. I am, unfortunately, far from a true sommelier. Thus I feel secure in claiming that the repetition of a certain wine will have no adverse effect on my batting average of hitting upon successful pairings, so to speak. In fact, familiarity with the flavor profile of the wine may even increase my chances of selecting foods that harmonize with it especially deliciously.
Second, as certain fellows – Protagoras and Heraclitus come to mind – have been known to say: All is motion and everything is becoming. Nothing is in and of itself and, they even go so far as to assert, the verb ‘to be’ must be abolished totally. What does this have to do with BWW&FP? Allow me to explain by grounding this theory in terms of sensory perception. According to this strain of thought, one cannot say definitively that an object is anything (for example: small or large, black or white, hard or soft). Rather, an object’s perceptible characteristics come into being through its unique interaction with a subject in a certain moment. Conversely, they pass out of being after that moment and, if the object is perceived again, come into being again, though not necessarily in the same manner. Again, nothing is; instead, all things are what they become through association with one another. Therefore, while I will in one sense be drinking the same wine on consecutive weeks, I will also be drinking a completely different wine every week, if we hold to the postulates just postulated.
You are still with me, dear reader, are you not? Of course you are; you are intelligent, which is demonstrated clearly by the fact that you are reading this blog in the first place. Still, let us simplify this position (or is it the lack of a position?) a degree further. Let us say, for example, that I am guzzling a choice boxed Riesling and gorging myself with frozen pizza. At that moment, the saltiness of the synthetic mozzarella makes the wine taste cloyingly sweet. However, perhaps the next week I pair what is left of my sweet, sweet wine with Gummi bears. Now, the wine no longer tastes sweet and even registers bitterly on my tongue. Hence, how can we say that it is the same wine when it provokes different sensory perceptions on separate occasions? Hopefully you now find this question more complex than it may have appeared to you previously, though it is one more properly tackled in my Strictly Platonic entries, I admit. Nonetheless, before we get to the meat of this week’s BWW&FP, so to speak, allow me to relay an anecdote from the works of the comedic poet, Epicharmus of Kos. In one of his plays, Epicharmus made humorous use of the idea that everything is changing constantly by having a debtor claim he was not liable for a debt, because he was no longer the same person as the one who incurred it – ha! Suck on that Sallie Mae!
I apologize, dear reader. I have drawn you in with the promise of an account of delicious refreshments and I have instead introduced you to highly stimulating pre-Classical Greek philosophy. Well, now that I put it that way, I retract my apology and expect to see many thanks littered on the wall of my Facebook profile. In any case, to the pairing! Finally! No, wait! In honor of our newfound recognition of the interminable fluctuation of all things, let’s have a listen to Chapelier Fou’s Les métamorphoses du vide, from his 2010 album 613. And now, allons-y…
This week we have Black Box Riesling ($19.99 for 3 liters, the equivalent of 4 bottles; a 2009 vintage from the Columbia Valley in Washington state) alongside some roasted potatoes ($3.99 for the entire bag, thank you very much). This is a hearty peasant’s supper well suited to my current fiscal woes. I was aided in the conception of this pairing by an early work of Vincent van Gogh’s, in which he depicts the modest meal of a family of Dutch farmers.
(Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885; oil on canvas; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.)
Examining this painting, I cannot help but ponder whether these creatures are supposed to appear to us as noble or debased. Their lumpy, Neanderthal-like physiognomies suggest animalistic ignorance, yet they share the meager harvest civilly and bear their burdens without complaint. The small votive painting in the upper left corner of the scene indicates their unpretentious adherence to the noblest Christian virtues. Contrastingly, my handsome visage, trim physique, and upright bearing transmit in physical form my admirable intellectual cultivation, but I am depraved, grasping, and I complain unceasingly. Also, my manic contemplation of relativistic ontologies, such as the one discussed briefly above, threatens to lapse into unabashed nihilism at any moment. But perhaps I should not dwell on such things more extensively than I do already.
Again, I must urge myself toward the pairing! Luckily for me, the sparkling citrus notes of the Riesling and the ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ seasoning of the potatoes (parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; as well as garlic and salt, loads of salt) add some metaphorical color to what could easily be a dingy dinner. The vivid hues evoked by the lively combination of the potatoes' saltiness and the wine's sweetness are more akin to Van Gogh’s works from his years in the south of the France, when his palette became significantly lighter and more brilliant.
(Vincent van Gogh, La Chambre à Arles (Bedroom at Arles), 1889; oil on canvas; Paris, Musée d’Orsay.)
Coincidentally, the dimensions of the artist’s bedroom are quite similar to those of my own childhood chambre, in which I now sit, numbing myself with starchy repast and intoxicating libations.
The dimensions of our twin beds are quite similar too, as you can see. Additionally, I feel as if my surroundings have taken on the skewed, unstable perspective of Van Gogh’s scene. This sensation recalls to me the words of Protagoras and Heraclitus: Everything is in motion, which means that it could all go tumbling into the abyss at any moment! The similarities are too much! If I keep on like this, next week’s BWW&FP will consist of absinthe and toxic paint – Van Gogh’s own pairing of choice in the days that he occupied the room you see above – and will include an account of how I chopped off part of my ear and gifted the grisly fragment to a prostitute. So, look forward to that.
(Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889; oil on canvas; London, Courtauld Institute Galleries.)
I have not yet delivered a judgment on the pairing. Well, despite being accompanied by a glimpse into the limitless, constantly fluctuating, unknowable void, I recommend this pairing heartily. Regardless of the abyss, one cannot go wrong with salty potatoes and delightfully sweet white wine. That’s my philosophy.
(Published originally on December 21st, 2011.)
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