Tasty Recipes from Recipe Wizards

For centuries, rabbis have taught that the kitchen table is an altar.

By this they mean that drawing food from the Earth, preparing it for the table, and eating it is part of a covenant with God – an understanding that we must not defile the Earth or ourselves.

But a growing number of Jews are questioning whether the traditional Jewish dietary laws go far enough and are spawning a national, distinctly Jewish, food movement, with roots in Philadelphia, known as ecokosher.

“The kosher laws actually have nothing to do with sustainable agriculture, treating workers fairly, protecting the air and the water – any of that,” says Robin Rifkin, a member of Kol Ami Congregation in Elkins Park, Pa. “And that’s what we’re concerned about.”

A small but increasing number of Jews across the usual denominational lines of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform are feeling an obligation to confront these ethical issues in a variety of ways.

And, in a revolutionary effort, like-minded Jews nationwide are launching a new uber-kosher symbol that could appear on food products as early as next year – a symbol of ethical responsibility demonstrating a manufacturer’s commitment to treating workers, animals, and the Earth with care.

“The emphasis now is on what it really means for a particular food to be fit to eat,” says Mark Kaplan, a Reform Jew who does not keep kosher but who helped Rifkin start a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program with weekly produce deliveries from local farms to their synagogue in Elkins Park.

Main Line Reform Temple in Wynnewood, Pa., hopes to form a CSA with its neighbor Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and Rabbi David Straus recently told his congregants that they face a moral and spiritual responsibility to be proper stewards of the environment – an idea he calls eco-theology.

As the Jewish community recently marked the new year 5770 with a 24-hour fast that began at sunset, the People of the Book are sounding more like the People of the Land.

ROOTED IN THE ‘70S

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi coined the term ecokosher – building on the significance of Jewish dietary laws – in the 1970s. A quirky rabbi who started his career as an ultra-Orthodox, he had become versed in Jewish mysticism, the American Indian Shundahai Network, and Chinese feng shui by the time he retired to Boulder, Colo.

All that only served to make him more respected, and now Rabbi Arthur Waskow carries on at the Shalom Center in Philadelphia’s Mount Airy neighborhood, bringing spiritual-based ecological teachings to the masses.

The message has resonated much more widely in recent years as it has played off the secular fresh-food movement heralded by Michael Pollan (”The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food”).

Estimating the size of the Jewish food movement is nearly impossible, Waskow says. But it is likely to expand on or after Oct. 24, which is designated worldwide as Climate-Healing Sabbath, a day of prayer and education devoted to ecological issues on the day the Torah portion concerns Noah and the flood.

That event, too, is Philadelphia-centric, as the idea sprang from the Germantown Jewish Center on Lincoln Drive.

In recent years, ecokosher thinking has sprouted at least a half-dozen national programs, among them the Jewish Farm School in West Philadelphia, which has classes for adults and Philadelphia schools on organic gardening and sustainability.

Some people in the movement are members of synagogues and some are not, Waskow says. But all seem to agree that the adage “you are what you eat” has never been more accurate, more essential, or more in need of a faith-based perspective.

Shamu Fenyvesi Sadeh, director of Adamah, a three-month Jewish farming fellowship in Connecticut for college grads, says food and agriculture are entry points, “a gateway to Jewish values.”

That’s the driving force, too, behind Hazon, which hosts an annual Jewish food conference and a blog called “The Jew and the Carrot” (jcarrot.org), and supports CSA programs.

John Edgar belongs to the Hazon-affiliated CSA at Temple Kol Ami, which is in its third year. (CSAs – in which members prepay for the growing season and get weekly baskets of fruits and vegetables from a local farm – help ensure survival for small farms.)

Every Thursday evening, Edgar, with his 2-year-old son, William, in tow, collects his share. One week, his baskets are filled with corn, tomatoes, and spaghetti squash; another week, carrots, beets, red peppers, and lettuce.

While this CSA sees itself as part of the Jewish food movement, it does not necessarily promote keeping kosher. And Edgar, who is pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Elkins Park, is proof that one need not be Jewish to join.

Founded by Kol Ami members Kaplan, Rifkin, and Shelley Chamberlain, this CSA distributes recipes in weekly newsletters, holds cooking demonstrations on the use of unusual vegetables, and hosts free education sessions.

“These (ecokosher) issues are relevant to us as Jews because so much of our heritage is based on the fact that Jews were originally farmers and shepherds,” Rifkin says. “So many of our holidays are based on the agricultural season.”

‘SHIELD OF JUSTICE’

The most tangible and perhaps controversial element to come out of the Jewish food movement was revealed Sept. 9. It is a seal of ethical responsibility – a Magen Tzedek, which translates as “Shield of Justice” – for kosher products that meet additional standards of workplace and environmental responsibility.

Project developer Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minn., says he was motivated by the May 2008 raid on the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, in Postville, Iowa, where federal officials found that untrained illegal immigrants made up almost half the workforce.

Technically, kosher certification refers to how meat is slaughtered and prepared and has nothing to do with workplace practices. Still, Postville was an embarrassment.

Shira Dicker, a spokeswoman for the Magen Tzedek project, calls it “the God-Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” The symbol is a stylized Star of David, designed “not to look too Jewishy.”

Thousands of non-Jews buy kosher products. Some do so because they are Muslims, Buddhists, or vegetarians; have food allergies; or, in an era of E. coli and salmonella outbreaks, have come to trust a kosher symbol on a product more than, perhaps, FDA or USDA approval. Others buy unintentionally, because, in the $225 billion kosher-food business, even Coke and Oreos are kosher-certified.

The Magen Tzedek project is in its infancy; guidelines were released Sept. 9, and it is unclear how many companies will apply for approval.

Still, Nati Passow, founder of the Jewish Farm School, says this effort and others are necessary:

“We need to raise the level of awareness in the Jewish community and beyond to issues of food justice.”

Lobster is a year-round treat, but if you ask me, the high season is right now, not the dog days of summer, as so many people on vacation assume.

The reason? Longer nights and often cooler weather make us hungry for richer, fuller flavors like lobster, whether it’s served plain with drawn butter, cold with mayonnaise in a hot dog roll or gussied up into those French classics, lobsters thermidor and Americaine.

Lobster prices have fallen sharply, along with the economy. The wholesale or boat price of lobsters has plummeted from a peak price of about $10 a pound in the winter of 2006 to $2.25 a pound this summer, Fortune magazine reported.

Another reason lobster is so right now is that the creature is done with molting, the process in which the crustacean sheds its old shell and grows a newer, larger one. While these new shells are relatively easy for eager eaters to remove, the flesh can seem watery and lack the firm texture and complex flavor so many people love.

And love does play a factor in why the female lobster loses its shell. Just ask Trevor Corson, aka “The Lobster Sex Guy.” The New York-based author of “The Secret Life of Lobsters” tells funny stories about lobsters to teach marine science and conservation without the usual “doom and gloom.”

“In lobster mating, the male always keeps his clothes on, while the female always gets completely undressed,” Corson said. “What the female is actually doing is shedding her old shell when she mates. The male, by contrast, must keep his shell on during mating.”

Here are some more of Corson’s lobster love facts:

Male lobsters beat up one another to impress females. They beat the female lobsters as well.

Lobsters do not mate for life. The female moves into the male’s nest, but the relationship lasts only about two weeks before she moves out.

During the courtship, a female squirts a sex pheromone at the alpha male. Corson said the pheromone “drugs him into submission.”

The act of lobster lovemaking takes about eight seconds and “occurs more or less in the missionary position,” Corson said, “but with the complication of there being 16 legs and, in the case of the male, not one, but two genitalia.”

After making love, the male is hungry. Corson said the lobster eats the female’s old shell.

HOW TO BUY A LOBSTER

Lobster is available frozen and canned, but the best lobster is a live lobster.

Buy the liveliest lobster you can find in the tank. Feistiness equals freshness.

Refrigerate the lobster in whatever bag you used to bring it home. Plan to cook it that day; lobsters don’t hold well overnight.

Take care in handling a lobster between the bag and the pot. You want to make sure the rubber bands or wooden pegs used to keep the large claws closed remain in place so you don’t get nipped.

HOW TO BOIL A LOBSTER

These instructions for cooking lobster come from the Maine Lobster Council.

Choose a pot large enough to hold all the lobsters comfortably; do not crowd them. A 4- to 5-gallon pot can handle 6 to 8 pounds of lobster. Fill with water, allowing 3 quarts of water per 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of lobster. Add a quarter-cup of sea salt for each gallon of water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Add the live lobsters one at a time, and start timing immediately (boil them about 7-8 minutes per pound). Do not cover. Stir the lobsters halfway through cooking. Let the lobsters rest for five minutes or so after cooking to allow the meat to absorb some of the moisture in the shell.

HOW TO EAT A LOBSTER

Here are steps for getting to the meat of the lobster, from the Maine Lobster Council:

1. Twist off the claws.

2. Crack each claw and knuckle with a lobster or nutcracker. Remove the meat.

3. Separate the tail from the body and break off the tail flippers. Extract the meat from each flipper.

4. Insert a fork and push the tail meat out in one piece. Remove and discard the black vein that runs the entire length of the tail meat.

5. Separate the shell of the body from the underside by pulling them apart; discard the green substance called the tomalley.

6. Open the underside of the body by cracking it apart in the middle, with the small walking legs on either side. Extract the meat from the leg joints and the legs themselves by biting down on the leg and squeezing the meat out with your teeth.

More lobster cooking methods

STEAMING

PARBOILING/BLANCHING

GRILLING

BROILING

Here are more ways to cook a lobster. These instructions come from the Maine Lobster Council.

Choose a pot large enough to hold all the lobsters comfortably; do not crowd them. A 4- to 5-gallon pot can handle 6 to 8 pounds of lobster. Put 2 inches of seawater or salted water in the bottom of a large kettle. Set a steaming rack inside the pot and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Add the live lobsters one at a time, cover the pot and start timing. Halfway through, lift the lid (careful – the steam is hot), and shift the lobsters around so they cook evenly.

Follow directions for boiling lobsters. Cook 2 minutes or as long as the recipe indicates. It’s easiest to remove the meat while the lobsters are still warm. If you will be cooking them further in the shell, plunge the partially cooked lobsters into ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and refrigerate until ready to use.

Parboiling helps here. It’s easier to halve a dead lobster than a live one, and the meat cuts more cleanly. Parboiled chilled lobsters will keep longer than live ones, and you can cut them and grill them as needed. Remove the coral (red eggs, if present) and tomalley before grilling. Crack the claws. Slather the cut surface with flavored butter or olive oil. Place meat side down on the grill to char, about 5 minutes, then turn cut side up to finish cooking.

Halve lobsters as for grilling (parboiling first if desired). You may remove the coral (if present) and tomalley before broiling, or leave in place. Crack the claws. Slather meat generously with flavored butter and broil meat side up the whole time, basting frequently. The challenge with broiling is to keep the meat from drying out on the surface before it cooks through. Especially with large lobsters, you may want to start the lobster cut side up in a heavy skillet on the stove before transferring to the broiler.

LOBSTER WITH MIMOSA AND NORI FLAKES

Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 20 minutes Makes: 4 servings

A recipe adapted from “Tempanyaki Barbecue: Japanese Cooking on a Hotplate,” by Hideo Dekura. Sliced nori can be purchased at Japanese groceries.

4 lobster tails, fresh or frozen, about 3/4 pound each, shelled

2 tablespoons each: sake, butter, soy sauce, mirin

Juice of 2 lemons

1 egg, hard-cooked, finely chopped

1/4 sheet nori, sliced thinly in strips

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Split lobster tails in half lengthwise with a chef’s knife or kitchen shears. Rinse under running water. Place lobster tails on a tray; sprinkle with sake. Dot the tails with butter.

2. Heat a large, heavy oven-safe skillet over medium heat; transfer the tails to skillet. Cook 4 minutes on each side. Transfer skillet to oven. Bake until cooked through, about 12 minutes. Transfer to platter. Sprinkle lobster tails with soy sauce, mirin and lemon juice. Garnish with egg and sliced nori.

NUTRITION INFORMATION

Per serving: 517 calories, 21 percent of calories from fat, 12 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 291 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 82 g protein, 1354 mg sodium, 0 g fiber

LOBSTER TAIL WITH HORSERADISH POTATOES AND HARICOTS VERTS

Prep: 40 minutes Cook: 35 minutes Makes: 4 servings

A recipe adapted from “Home Cooking With Charlie Trotter.” If you can’t find fresh horseradish, substitute prepared horseradish but decrease the quantity by half. You can serve the tail whole or in five slices.

Potatoes:

2 pounds potatoes, peeled, quartered

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter

2/3 cup grated fresh horseradish

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Lobster:

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup grated fresh horseradish

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

4 lobster tails, boiled, shelled

2 cups haricots verts, boiled 2 minutes, cut on the diagonal

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. For potatoes, place them in a large pot of salted water; heat to a boil. Cook until tender, 20-25 minutes. Drain. Add the milk and butter to the potatoes in the pot; heat to a full boil over high heat. Remove from the heat; add horseradish. Whip the potatoes with an electric mixer or hand masher until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover; keep warm.

2. For the lobster, heat the butter, horseradish and chives in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the lobster; cook, turning, until hot, 5 minutes. Spoon some of the potatoes in the center of each plate. Arrange the haricots verts around the potatoes; top with a lobster tail. Spoon the butter mixture over the plate. Sprinkle with lemon zest.

NUTRITION INFORMATION

Per serving: 960 calories, 34 percent of calories from fat, 36 g fat, 20 g saturated fat, 357 mg cholesterol, 67 g carbohydrates, 90 g protein, 889 mg sodium, 6 g fiber

LOBSTER THERMIDOR

Prep: 1 hour Cook: 1 hour

Makes: 6 servings

This is one of the most famous lobster dishes ever created. This version, from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” by Julia Child, seems complicated at first, but everything in it may be prepared in advance and heated just before serving.

3 cups dry white wine or 2 cups dry white vermouth

2 cups water

1 each, thinly sliced: large onion, carrot, celery rib

6 sprigs parsley

1 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon thyme

6 peppercorns

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon

3 live lobsters, 2 pounds each

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms

12 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon dry mustard

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup plus 5 tablespoons whipping cream

Pinch ground red pepper

1/3 cup Cognac

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1. Combine wine, water, vegetables, herbs and seasonings in a Dutch oven; heat to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer 15 minutes. Raise heat to high; heat to a rolling boil. Add the live lobsters. Cover; boil until lobsters are bright red and the long head-feelers can be pulled from the sockets fairly easily, about 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, combine mushrooms, 1 tablespoon of the butter, lemon juice and salt in a saucepan; cook over medium-low heat until soft, 10 minutes.

3. Remove lobsters from the Dutch oven. Pour just the mushroom cooking juices into the lobster steaming juices in pan; cook over high heat until reduced to about 2 1/4 cups. Strain into the saucepan; heat to a simmer.

4. Melt 5 tablespoons of the butter in another saucepan over medium heat; stir in flour slowly. Cook 2 minutes without browning. Remove from heat; stir in the simmering lobster liquid. Heat to a boil; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Gently add 1 tablespoon of the cream to coat top of sauce. Set aside.

5. Split the lobsters in half lengthwise, keeping the shell halves intact. Discard sand sacks in the head and the intestinal tubes. Rub lobster coral and green matter through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl; add the mustard, egg yolks, 1/2 cup of the cream and red pepper. Slowly beat the sauce into this mixture by driblets. Return the sauce to the saucepan; heat, stirring, to a boil. Boil slowly 2 minutes. Add 4 tablespoons of the cream. Sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon fairly heavily. Taste for seasoning. Add 1 tablespoon of the cream to coat top; set aside.

6. Remove the meat from the lobster tails and claws; cut into 3/8-inch cubes. Heat a skillet with 4 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat until foam subsides; stir in the lobster. Cook, stirring slowly, until the meat turns a rosy color, about 5 minutes. Add Cognac; heat to a boil. Boil shaking the skillet, until the liquid is reduced by half, 1-2 minutes.

7. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Fold the cooked mushrooms and two-thirds of the sauce into the skillet with the lobster meat. Arrange the lobster shells in a roasting pan. Heap the lobster mixture into the shells; cover with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with cheese; dot with 2 tablespoons of the butter. (Note: May be prepared ahead up to this point and refrigerated.) Place in upper third of the oven; bake until lobster is bubbling and the top of the sauce is nicely browned, 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.

NUTRITION INFORMATION

Per serving: 532 calories, 69 percent of calories from fat, 41 g fat, 25 g saturated fat, 269 mg cholesterol, 11 g carbohydrates, 30 g protein, 663 mg sodium, 1 g fiber

Back in June, we visited tomato supergrowers as they planted their harvest. We’re back to see how they (and their tomatoes) handled one of the wackiest summers on the books.

The cool temperatures and gray days conspired against Kevin Koziatek’s tomatoes, delaying his harvest again and again.

And when the tomatoes finally did begin to turn red on the vine, they lacked the sun-kissed sweetness of summers past.

“There’s nothing there,” Koziatek says of the flavor. “I tasted one, and it tasted terrible.”

Similar laments have echoed through large portions of the Midwest and Northeast this summer, where cool weather and heavy rain have made for less-than-ideal growing conditions. But the pain is magnified for tomato supergrowers like Koziatek, enthusiasts who cram the maximum number of plants into ordinary backyards, porches and patios – and then add a few more for good measure.

Koziatek, who cares for 56 tomato plants with his girlfriend, Vickie Happel, can get 100 tomatoes a week from an area about the size of your average living room.

This year’s potential yield is similar, but red tomatoes have been few and far between.

“It’s been a crazy year,” says Koziatek, 42, of Wheaton. Ill. “If we have an early frost, I’ll cry.”

Also seeing green is Ken Benson, a horticulture instructor at Triton College in River Grove. He had picked four red tomatoes from his Elmhurst yard by the second week in September – a time when normally he would have already picked 50.

“Whatever made it through (the weather), as soon as it got to any size, the deer just ate it,” Benson says. “They went right for the tomatoes.”

Still, if our supergrowers were bowed by the summer of 2009, they were by no means broken.

Having discovered a weather-related flavor-impairment problem on her 300-square-foot patio area, where she normally picks hundreds of tomatoes a season, Barbara Peterson went to work with a simple food dryer. The drying intensifies tomatoes’ flavor, she says. “I throw them on salads and I just snack on them. To me, they’re almost like candy,” says Peterson, 56, of Hoffman Estates. “They’re really chewy and have really rich tomato flavor.”

Peterson also recommends making tomato juice and a homemade bloody mary mix. (See related story for recipe.)

Benson, with his many green tomatoes, is thinking strategically. First, he cuts off the tops of his plants above the point where there are green tomatoes, to conserve resources.

“Any growth then goes into the tomatoes on the vine,” he says.

As the weather gets colder, one option is to cover the plant with cheesecloth, which should allow it go through a light frost, he says. And don’t give up on those tomatoes that simply won’t have enough time to turn red on the vine. Slice them, saute them in olive oil, season them with salt, pepper and paprika and – voila! – you’ve got fried green tomatoes.

Koziatek is still hoping the season sorts itself out.

He talks about cutting back on the number of plants he grows after the disappointments of 2009, but visions of next year’s seed catalog, brimming with options like 14-ounce White Beefsteaks, are already dancing in his head.

“You can’t grow the whole catalog,” he says matter-of-factly. “We’ve tried.”

OVEN-DRIED TOMATOES

Heat the oven to 175 degrees. Remove stems from tomatoes, then halve or quarter them; place cut side up in a single layer on a baking pan. Brush lightly with olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Bake until the tomatoes have shrunken and dried, 8 to 10 hours (but check regularly after 6 hours – drying time will vary, depending on the size of the tomato). Let cool, then store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

LESSONS LEARNED

Yes, you can grow full-size plants on patios and porches. Barbara Peterson swears by Smart Pots (smartpots.com), sturdy tubs made of rigid fabric.

Looking for a new heirloom? Even in this summer of discontent, Peterson loved the ‘Rose’ variety for its rich flavor with sweet undertones.

Drainage counts. Kevin Koziatek says that without his raised beds, his tomatoes probably would have been destroyed this year.

Deer can be very loyal to their feeding grounds. Ken Benson is considering protecting next year’s tomatoes with a fence – a rather high fence. Deer can jump 8 feet high from a standing position, he says.

TOMATOES, WITH SPIRIT

Barbara Peterson loves this recipe, adapted from “The Heirloom Tomato Cookbook” (Chronicle, 2006), by Mimi Luebbermann:

Roasted tomato bloody mary mix: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Quarter two large tomatoes, coarsely chop half an onion and half a jalapeno; spread these in a roasting pan in a single layer. Roast until lightly browned, about 25 minutes. Add 1/4 cup each vodka and water; roast 15 minutes more. Transfer roasted vegetables with the liquid and 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro to a blender; puree until smooth. Season with salt, pepper and freshly squeezed lemon juice to taste. Refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours, and up to 2 days. Makes about 2 cups.

To make 1 bloody mary: In a cocktail shaker with ice, combine 3 ounces of the mix, 11/2 ounces vodka, 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 drops Tabasco sauce and lemon juice to taste. Shake and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass; sprinkle with celery salt, if desired.

10 items = 7 suppers

“Better Homes and Gardens Supermarket Shortcuts” (Wiley, $19.95) offers tricks, tips and recipes for fast meals. The following advice caught our eye: “If you have these groceries in your fridge, freezer and cupboard, you’ll always have something good ready to go in minutes.” Just add a few other pantry items (salt, pepper, cheese, milk, etc.), and you can come up with a week’s worth of dinners.

1. Frozen meatballs

2. Jars of pasta sauce

3. Boxes of dried pasta

4. A stash of frozen vegetables in bags

5. Bottles of salad dressing, including one vinaigrette style

6. Bags of mixed salad greens

7. A sack of russet potatoes

8. Frozen fish fillets

9. Chicken breast halves

10. Pork chops

The full-page advertisement on the back cover of the August issue of Sommelier Journal is strikingly simple. A glass of golden white wine sits against a white background above a piece of fish roe-coated California inside-out sushi roll.

“Taste Culture,” the ad reads in large letters. “Austrian Wine.”

“Young gruner veltliners are vivacious aperitifs, and a can’t-put-down food match with tempura, dim sum, pakora and sushi,” says Ch’ng Poh Tiong, founder of the International Congress of Chinese Cuisine and Wine, in the ad.

For the wine professionals who subscribe to this magazine, the message is as brilliantly clear as the gruner itself: Make Austrian wine the go-to choice for Asian food pairings at your restaurant.

The crisp stylings of Austrian wines do make them useful for the growing roster of fiery Asian foods we enjoy. They also pair well with the chili-kissed dishes of Mexico and the imaginative fusion fare of California. Even the old dishes of San Francisco, the sand dabs and the petrale sole, the dungeness crab and the shrimp Louis, always seem to taste better with Austrian gruner than California chardonnay.

“Grape names like gruner veltliner may not roll off the tongue as easily as chardonnay, but in the glass the wines can be just as rewarding, or more so,” said Tyler Colman, the New York-based author of “A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip With Each Season.”

“Be the first on your block to toss around such exotic grape names as zierfandler and zweigelt,” quipped Colman.

The Austrian wine campaign aims to get that word about food compatibility out to wine lovers, also making the case in a 12-page pamphlet offering detailed matches between Austrian wines and some of the most popular Asian dishes.

“Austria has about 120,000 acres of vineyards, Australia over 400,000,” explained Willi Klinger, the director of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, in an e-mail from Vienna. “They are making at least five times as much wine as Austria. But Australia has only about 2,200 bottling estates, Austria about 9,000. So we have to emphasize our authentic, artisanal, individual and natural wines made by families versus the world trend of commercial, industrial, uniform and technical wines made by big trusts.”

The work Klinger’s board does is based on three basic messages: Austria has a great culinary tradition; Austria makes authentic wines; Austria has a dynamic and innovative wine scene.

Klinger said the Austrians are focused on working with individual wine shops and restaurants because Austrian wine will not “conquer the supermarkets like Yellow Tail,” that Australian line of inexpensive wines.

Clearly the effort is bearing fruit. Austrian wines were all but unknown in the United States 10 years ago. Now it seems Austrian wines, particularly gruner, are showing up everywhere.

The Austrians are pushing into an economic market where people are “retrenching and saying ‘bargain, bargain, bargain,’ ” said Dan Fredman, owner of a wine public relations agency based in Malibu, Calif. “They (the Austrians) are saying you can enjoy a wine and you don’t have to spend a zillion dollars.”

Yet, Colman said, the higher-end Austrian winemakers are raising prices because of all the attention.

“Unfortunately, word has gotten out.”

MORE PAIRING IDEAS

The Austria Wine Marketing Board has done a good job matching its wines to a wide variety of Asian dishes, from Japanese sushi to tandoori chicken from India to spicy Sichuan beef. Download the handy pocket guide from the board’s Web site: winesfromaustria.com/ adventuretour/ asiancuisine.html. Don’t worry about how to say some of these grape varieties, the Web site has a “live” glossary where you can listen to these German words being spoken by a native speaker.

While the Austrians, naturally, focus on their wines in this guide, realize the flavor profiles listed for these specific Austrian wines can apply to other wines from other wine regions around the world. So don’t worry if you can’t find that one Austrian wine at your store, especially the more obscure ones. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Pairing suggestions

Fried spring rolls and riesling.

Other choices: sauvignon blanc, rose, weissburgunder.

Tandoori chicken and roter veltliner. Alternative: gruner veltliner.

Thai curry and zierfandler or rotgipfler (white wine grapes). Alternatives: Chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc.

Sichuan beef and blaufrankisch (red wine grape). Alternatives: Cabernet sauvignon, merlot.

By the numbers

Statistics tell the Austrian wine story – and the challenges still to be faced.

122: Percentage increase in Austrian wine sales in the U.S. as measured in dollars, from August 2007 to August 2008.

7: Percentage increase from August 2008 to August 2009.

8.8 million: Number of cases of wine that Australia sold in the U.S. during the year ending Aug. 25.

8,979: Number of cases Austria sold in the same period.

Source: The Nielsen Co.

Austrian wine regions

Austria’s major wine regions are located along its eastern boundary.