American Vintage

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Arts, Food

4.3 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2002

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just a generation ago American wines were dismissed by Europeans as pedestrian and of little consequence. Thirty years later things changed, and the best French wines began falling behind American varietals in international competitions. Our guest Paul Lukacs, author of American Vintage, traces the rise of American wine and tells the story of the famous blind tasting that started the revolution. From teetotalers to bootleggers, Paul introduces an array of interesting characters who contributed to America becoming a formidable leader in the wine industry.

Jane and Michael Stern are in Mobile, Alabama, hometown of Jimmy Buffet and the Dew Drop Inn, the inspiration for Jimmy's song "Cheeseburger in Paradise." John Willoughby wants us to toss a little fruit on the grill along with the chops and gets us started with his recipe for Grilled Double-Thick Pork Chops with Grilled Peaches and Molasses-Rum Barbecue Sauce. Beer-obsessed Steve Beaumont has the word on pairing beer with spicy food, and seafood authority Jon Rowley introduces us to Mediterranean mussels—they've made their way to Seattle's Puget Sound, and they're prime summertime eating.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

June 22, 2001 (originally aired)
June 15, 2002 (rebroadcast)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.
0:08.1	We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.
0:24.4	Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.
0:31.9	It's Lynn Rosetta Casper with The Splendid Table.
0:43.3	Music with the splendid table. 30 years ago, Europeans were laughing at American wines.
0:47.3	Today, they're emulating them.
0:50.3	So what's changed in a generation?
0:53.3	Our guest, Paul Lucas, is author of American Vintage, The Rise of American Wine.
0:58.6	He tells about the single wine tasting that started the revolution.
1:03.4	Jane and Michael Stern are eating cheeseburgers in Paradise in Mobile, Alabama.
1:08.0	Beer Maven Stephen Beaumont dashes some myths of which beers go best with
1:12.8	spicy foods. Food expert John Willoughby's got some ideas for grilling fruit. And then it's the
1:18.3	muscles of summer. And we are not talking lifeguards here. All this and your calls coming up on
1:24.4	the splendid table.
1:28.9	But first this.
1:40.9	It's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, with Kitchen Chronicles, where knowledge is power and cooking is pleasure, a practical guide to nourishing ourselves and the people we care about.
1:46.3	Today, I want to talk about blueberries. They're coming into season, and they're going to be
1:50.9	with us most of the summer. Now, there are two different types of blueberries. I've tasted some good
1:57.6	cultivated blueberries, and that's what we eat almost all the time. But during a vacation
2:03.0	in Maine one summer, I had my first wild blueberry. They're the size of plump buckshot, really
2:11.1	tiny, and they taste sweet, but with this tangy bite, kind of as though you put some black pepper in the sugar bowl.
2:19.9	Our big discovery was that local women baked the wild blueberries into pies and sold them.
	...

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