Anne - Smoke doesn't add that piquant edge just to coffee. When California has one of their biweekly raging fires, if the grapes on the vine are out there and growing strongly, they inhale deeply of the smoky haze. I well recall when our favorite winery, Navarro, saw the bulk of their grapes smoke fortified for free. They actually went ahead and bottled it, gave it a different label and made very sure to alert customers of the situation. Strangely, some people barely noticed and others were knocked on their ass by the smoke flavor. I fell into the latter category. My assessment was that it would likely work well as long as the meal was a heavy duty BBQ. Not a half-assed kind but the kind with thick smoke roiling from the smoker chimneys during the hours long smoke. In that case I speculated that the wine would pair nicely. I must admit, though, that after that first sip I consecrated the rest of the bottle as an offering to the gods.
I think "piquant" is charitable :-). Cigarette smoke as it wafts through the air is one smell but the smell it coats everything with is so much worse. As a former smoker I can still get almost nostalgic when someone near me lights up and I catch that first whiff. But I've never met an ashtray that was not completely rank :-)
I can't begin to imagine what the combination of wood smoke, plastic smoke, rubber smoke, asphalt smoke etc must be like in the wildfire zones. There are probably so many astonishing chemicals in that smoke I'm almost surprised a winery could sell the tainted wine. But I totally believe you! I'm curious - was it smoky like hickory or smoky like tire fire?
Oh, I doubt there was much in the smoke beyond "tree". That area of CA is very heavily wooded. The best I can describe it is that it tasted like you'd guess a hunk of hickory might taste after it's been burnt. Very charcoaly. And I've never quite understood why pipe tobacco smells so good, both before and after burning whereas burning cigarette smoke smells SO bad. Or why cigars smell fine to the smoker during the smoking but the aftersmell is, as you say - yuch!
Your cookies are gorgeous! I would think a tightly closed tin would keep out the smoke, but as I’ve never done a study, I take your word for it. It does infuse everything else—maybe so much of our food here in California, including the wine, as Crowden points out—that we think of it as normal flavoring.
Thank you! The trouble was that the frosting and the cookies were adulterated throughout their entire existence. From dough to completed frosting they were exposed to not only whatever smoke was hanging in the house in perpetuity but she also smoked while she made them. And then they sat out on plates for days getting even smokier so that by the time they hit the tin it sealed everything in rather than out :-)
Anne - Smoke doesn't add that piquant edge just to coffee. When California has one of their biweekly raging fires, if the grapes on the vine are out there and growing strongly, they inhale deeply of the smoky haze. I well recall when our favorite winery, Navarro, saw the bulk of their grapes smoke fortified for free. They actually went ahead and bottled it, gave it a different label and made very sure to alert customers of the situation. Strangely, some people barely noticed and others were knocked on their ass by the smoke flavor. I fell into the latter category. My assessment was that it would likely work well as long as the meal was a heavy duty BBQ. Not a half-assed kind but the kind with thick smoke roiling from the smoker chimneys during the hours long smoke. In that case I speculated that the wine would pair nicely. I must admit, though, that after that first sip I consecrated the rest of the bottle as an offering to the gods.
I think "piquant" is charitable :-). Cigarette smoke as it wafts through the air is one smell but the smell it coats everything with is so much worse. As a former smoker I can still get almost nostalgic when someone near me lights up and I catch that first whiff. But I've never met an ashtray that was not completely rank :-)
I can't begin to imagine what the combination of wood smoke, plastic smoke, rubber smoke, asphalt smoke etc must be like in the wildfire zones. There are probably so many astonishing chemicals in that smoke I'm almost surprised a winery could sell the tainted wine. But I totally believe you! I'm curious - was it smoky like hickory or smoky like tire fire?
Oh, I doubt there was much in the smoke beyond "tree". That area of CA is very heavily wooded. The best I can describe it is that it tasted like you'd guess a hunk of hickory might taste after it's been burnt. Very charcoaly. And I've never quite understood why pipe tobacco smells so good, both before and after burning whereas burning cigarette smoke smells SO bad. Or why cigars smell fine to the smoker during the smoking but the aftersmell is, as you say - yuch!
Your cookies are gorgeous! I would think a tightly closed tin would keep out the smoke, but as I’ve never done a study, I take your word for it. It does infuse everything else—maybe so much of our food here in California, including the wine, as Crowden points out—that we think of it as normal flavoring.
Thank you! The trouble was that the frosting and the cookies were adulterated throughout their entire existence. From dough to completed frosting they were exposed to not only whatever smoke was hanging in the house in perpetuity but she also smoked while she made them. And then they sat out on plates for days getting even smokier so that by the time they hit the tin it sealed everything in rather than out :-)