I’d argue your in a minority here. I think a wine sauce is what comes to mind for most people when you say “putting booze in food”, like there are other ways of putting booze in food but that is how most people encounter it (its definitely about 99% of the ways I put booze in food, like I have cooked with beer* or hard liquor on the odd occasion if the recipe calls for it, but not often).
generally I find its pretty much impossible to ruin a sauce with too much wine, as long as you reduce enough, but its very easy to ruin a dish with too much beer.
Thinking about this more, I’m pretty sure that Muslims would have an issue with the non-halal meat before they’d have an issue with an insignificant amount of wine. But again, it’s on them to mention it when I ask about dietary concerns.
I bet she doesn’t, and if she starts doing as a result of this article, I bet she gets some unpleasant surprises. Cooking with wine is incredibly common. It’s in most Chinese stir fries, for instance.
I think you are conflating “food flavored with wine” with “foods that have enough alcohol to matter”. I think it’s a normal expectation that you don’t give kids alcoholic beverages. I think it’s a normal expectation that you don’t give kids anything with enough alcohol in it that they might become tipsy, at least without checking with the parents. I don’t think it’s a normal expectation to avoid any foods that might have some trace amounts of alcohol, like anything fermented, a huge range of sauces, vanilla and other flavorings, and many desserts that restaurants are allowed to sell to underage kids. Heck, “cooking wine” (which has enough salt added that you can’t drink it out of the bottle) is legal to sell to kids in the supermarket – it doesn’t count as “alcoholic beverage” because it’s just going to be used as an ingredient.
Naw, that’s pouring run over your fruitcake. Enough rum that you smell the alcohol rising off it. There are a LOT of boozy desserts, most of which restaurants will sell to kids. Did I mention I’m my husband’s taste-tester because he doesn’t trust many restaurant desserts?
My point is that I don’t think that people very often describe using wine for cooking as putting booze in it. I’ve never heard it, and I’ve been a foodie and culinarian for almost my whole life.
I am saying that using the word “booze” is a loaded word that gives the impression that there are copious quantities of alcohol in the food that has been “boozed up”. The quantities of alcohol are miniscule, and anyone that was expecting booze would be offended by the false advertising.
And I am quite confident that if you told most people that you put booze in something, they would expect there to be enough alcohol to matter. They would think that you are putting hard liquors in it, as that’s what the word “booze” usually refers to.
If I am making crepes, then it would be more accurate to say I am putting booze in them when I add the Grand Marnier. (still cooks off nearly all the alcohol though.)
I think you’re assuming your definition “enough alcohol to matter” (and your reasoning that its the quantity of alcohol that is left after cooking that is the only consideration) is shared by everyone else.
The fact is that lots people would consider a “wine sauce” inappropriate to serve to their children, regardless of how much alcohol is actually in it, and would not have considered that as something that needs to be explicitly pointed out to someone who’s about to feed their child.
I agree with this. To me, “putting booze in food” is putting alcohol such that it still has a strong alcoholic taste and/or effect. Like soaking a cake in rum. Or cherries in almond liquor. Or even those chocolates that have rum or egg cream liquor or whatnot in the center. I wouldn’t call something like carbonnade flammande (which is cooked almost entirely in beer) or coq au vin as “putting booze in food.”
I wouldn’t refer to a meat&tomato sauce that has a little wine in it as “a wine sauce”. Chicken marsala has a wine sauce. Pasta with marinara doesn’t. The short ribs that I make with some wine don’t have a “wine sauce”, either. They just have red wine as one of many ingredients in a savory and nearly alcohol-free sauce.
But other than the amount of alcohol, what IS the issue with a wine sauce for kids? Serious question. Why else WOULD anyone care? You are quite right that I think the amount of alcohol is the only thing that matters. Beyond certain religious things, like halal meat or avoiding shellfish, that I expect the parents to warn me about.
(I understand why my MIL, the recovering alcohol, cared. She didn’t cook with vanilla extract, either. You can smell the alcohol as you put it in the food, and she was afraid that would trigger her. But kids aren’t alcoholics who will be triggered.)
It should be noted that the Redditor didn’t call it a “wine sauce.” The kid asked for pasta with red sauce, so she made a recipe with tomatoes, wine, and Italian sausages. She then used the term “wine sauce” in reference to what her friend called this sauce. As @puzzlegal says, nobody would call this a “wine sauce” on its own. Maybe a sausage meat sauce with red wine, if the latter is a prominent feature or if you want to make it sound “fancy,” but I’d just call it a meat sauce.
What’s it call when you choose your allegories to show your complete lack of empathy for anyone who might have slightly different opinions on how to raise (and feed) their kids?
I get it you with your perfect logical power of reasoning have no problem feeding your kids wine sauce because you have deduced that the alcohol will have boiled off. Therefore everyone must have the same opinion and should assume that you are going to serve their kids wine sauce, made with the actual booze called wine in it. Anyone who objects to you serving their kids that without asking first, is clearly some kind of extremist lunatic.
This was never a discussion about enforcing your own views on others.
It was about when common sense dictates that if you have strict requirements, the burden is on you to just say so, and not get inappropriately mad after the fact if somebody did not guess what you might want.
Not a lunatic. Just someone with unusual preferences who is awfully naive about how other people cook, and has unreasonable expectations that others will successfully read their mind.
If you don’t want me to put any wine in food for your kids, I am more than happy to comply. So long as you let me know.
Two things, firstly the assumption that your opinion of what counts as “a lot” of alcohol is what matters, not the opinion of the kid’s parent. Sure you and I consider the amount of alcohol left over after a wine sauce is reduced to be trivial and not a problem for our kids. But this isn’t our kid its not our decision to make.
Secondly wine, the alcoholic drink (aka booze), is being used as a flavouring, right? We are adding it because we like the flavour of wine in our sauce. We are both fine with that, both for us and our kids, but assuming everyone would be is showing a lack of empathy. Lots of people have deep seated problems with alcohol and alcoholic drinks and do not want their kids exposed to them or their flavor.
I mean we’ve all agreed its not OK to offer their kid an actual beer without getting permission. What about a non-alcoholic beer? If all that matters is the amount of alcohol giving their 8 year old a NA beer should be fine
My empathy is more with the woman who babysat her co-worker’s son and made up a hot meal from scratch for the kid, asking him what he wants, and inquiring as to allergies or dietary restrictions, for dinner. And the kid loved it so much that co-worker asked the woman for the recipe. Then the thanks the woman gets for being such a good host and teammate is for her co-worker to angry at her?
So NOT the thread I woulda expected to blow up today!
I wish I knew how to make a poll, because I’d ask int he polls only thread how many people ever cook with alcohol. I honestly do not know whether the folk here who claim it is a common practice are in the majority, minority, or what.
No one I know would call beer brats or wine in tomato sauce “putting booze in the food”. We wouldn’t even call Chicken Marsala that, even though there’s more wine in there than in tomato sauce.
I think @griffin1977 is really in the minority there.
Rum cake and the like? Sure.
Does adding vanilla to pancakes count? Vanilla has a ton of alcohol, although I only use a couple of teaspoons.
