1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK

WORDS to the DRINKING WISE No. XXI, on the EXCEL– LENCE of SERVING THE CHEESE BEFORE the DESSERT The French they are a canny race. Knowing that only a sip of red wine can possibly harmonize with cheese, then change our order, and serve it before the sweet-thus enabling a guest to use his final few sips of Burgundy in proper fashion. Otherwise it means an extra wine course like a good port. Try it some time. No one will notice until the thing is done, then they will see the logic. WORDS to the DRINKING WISE No. XXII, on the BEST MO– MENT for SERVING CHAMPAGNE at a MEAL Just note the sequence above. If other wines precede it, always serve the champagne with the first hot meat course, in this case the game. If sparkling wine is served after too many hot courses, gases are re– leased more potently, causing a tendency toward heartburn, for those who tend. A great many tend. A THOUGHT on SERVING ONE WINE THROUGHOUT theMEAL Many gourmets often and connoisseurs who know whereof they speak, claim that all this business of having four or five varieties of wine with a meal is sheer boasting, and that if a wine is sound enough to deserve to serve at all, it is good enough for the whole meal. . . . Usually this means some white wine-Rhine, Moselle, Bordeaux, still Burgundy white, or something similar. A white wine will go with the meat whereas red wine simply doesn't seem to suit caviar, oysters, delicate boiled fishes, and seafood like shrimps and lobsters-and with sweets or dessert a white wine fetches out the flavours better. · . . In fac tl there is one school which calls for a dry champagne of decent vintage now and then for a complete meal, claiming that with fruits and desserts ·of all sorts the harmony is particularly gratifying. Sometime when we elect to serve champagne right thro 1 ugh a meal make the added gesture of serving a dry type with the meal up to the dessert, then changing to a slightly sweeter kind-as dry wine does not march quite so well with sweets, and sweet pastries.

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