how come italians always cook with wine and vodka?

Question

does it make the food taste better?
i'd really like to know

Answer 1

YES IT DOES... I USE RED WINE IN MY SAUCE, IN MY MEATBALLS, WHITE WINE IN CHICKEN FRENCH, MARSALA WINE IN CHICKEN MARSALA.....
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Answer 2

Italians always cook with wine and vodka because those are the liquids that are most indiginous to their area a long time ago and since back in the day you couldnt exactly go on ebay and order something else, the italians used the items easiest to get. Also, way back when, water was not really used for cooking or drinking so alcohol was more of an everyday thing. Yes it does taste better. Wine and vodka can really enhance the flavor of food if you cook the alcohol with the right stuff

Answer 3

Cooking with Wine:

What's the purpose of cooking with wine if all the alcohol burns off?

You want wine, which produces different nuances in taste, for flavor more than alcohol. But keep in mind -- all the alcohol does not burn off; anywhere from 5 to 40 percent of the alcohol can remain in the food. Think of all the flavors of wine and their differences: Zinfandels can have a raisin-like quality; a lighter-style white wine can be apple-like and citrus-flavored. These flavors contribute to the flavors of a sauce. If you change the wine, you could have a sauce that tastes different.

Alcohol also brings out different qualities and flavors in things too. Take chocolate truffles. If you make them with dark rum, a different range of flavors come out than if raspberry liquor were added. There are some general rules to cooking with wine, such as red wine with meat and white wine with fish, but they are always broken. Try experimenting with different kinds of wine and see what kind of flavors you get. For example, if you're making Coq Au Vin, try a Riesling if you've always used pinot noir. For those who are sensitive to alcohol, water or an acidic substitute called verjus can be used.

General rules for cooking with wine are:

Use an alcohol you'd drink. That doesn't mean going all-out on a fancy bottle to braise with; all it means is that you should use something both drinkable and intended for drinking.

If you don't drink wine, buy half-bottles; they'll keep in the fridge for up to a week, which gives you time to choose another wine-using recipe.

There's a saying that "what grows together, goes together" — choose wine from the region your recipe comes from for a guaranteed flavor pairing.

When you reduce wine, you amplify all the flavors. That means that if you want a sweeter sauce, choose a sweet wine; if you want a jammier-tasting sauce, choose a fuller-bodied wine.

Cook wine for at least a minute or two after adding it to a dish — without that, the wine can overpower the other flavors in your food.

hope this helps. good luck and enjoy.

Answer 4

They don't. They may drink a lot of wine with food but not cook all the time with it any more than tomato sauce is always used in Italian cooking. . and vodka is seldom if ever used in Italian cooking. Vodka is actually a Russian mispronunciation of the Polish word for "aqua vitae", a liquor exported to Russia in the early midlle ages (about the time of Ivan the Terrible) by Polish traders. It's origins are Polish, not Russian

Answer 5

They don't . . . any more than Americans always cook with oleomargarine and Spam.

A number of Italian (and French and Spanish and etc.etc.etc.) dishes call for wine (always good quality wine). Wine is added to dishes during cooking to add complexity to their flavor, thereby making "the food taste better," as you put it (by the way, the alcohol cooks off, so it is a non-factor). Cheap, mediocre wine merely adds acidity (sourness).

I can't think offhand of any Italian dish that calls for vodka, and I don't know why one would add it to a dish because, again, the alcohol would cook off and vodkas don't typically have complex, distinctive flavor elements like wine that would add to a dish.

Answer 6

Being Italian, I always cook with wine. Don't know where you got the vodka idea though. The only vodka I've heard or know of is in the vodka sauce, not for general cooking.

Answer 7

Wine is plentiful in Italy and therefore used in foods for the longest time.

every country which produced wine was used to use it as an ingredient for cooking. Wine was frequently used for diluting sauces and as a liquid for the cooking of foods, the choice of wine instead of water seems to be more appropriate for simple organoleptic reasons.

Ask for Vodka , other than Penne alla Vodka, it is not used by Italians much.. Try Russia!

Answer 8

Because they know what they're doing. It makes food taste delicious and can help tenderize meat. The best part is the multitude if choices each adding it own unique flavor to a recipe; I've used sweet and dry white and red wine, sherry, marsala wine, vermouth, bourbon, tequila, vodka, beer and hard cider to cook with, but the list of possibilities goes on.

Answer 9

I don't know for sure, but it is probably traditional in Italy to cook with wine and vodka. And it probably makes the food taste more gourmet, too.

Answer 10

It adds a different dimension of flavor to the food, though I prefer to drink it rather than cook with it.