Port Wine Seminar

Wine Knowledge / Familiarity is Important to a Well-Rounded

Culinary Education. Todays Port Wine Seminar was well attended

and imparted a wealth of knowledge not only about specific Port

styles and varietals, but also about the role wine plays with food

in general.

Our Host: Mr. Peter Cobb

Mr. Cobb has spent all his working life in the port trade. He started in 1960 working for Cockburns in London, selling to independent wine merchants. Following the take over of the company by Harveys of Bristol, he spent two years in France before moving to Bristol, England, in 1969.

He spent twelve years with Harveys on the export side of the business, becoming export sales manager in 1975 with responsibility for Harveys Sherry and Cockburns Port in all main overseas markets. In 1980 he moved to Cockburns in Portugal where he was appointed sales and marketing director until his retirement in 1999.

He is now a free-lance writer on wines from the Iberian Penisula for various American and British magazines. He lives in Porto, Portugal, with his wife Olivia, and two unruly puppies he rescued from a neighboring wood.

Day Two International Flavors - Asian Noodle Dishes

Todays lesson focused on three points:

How to:

1) Identify the extensive role of noodles in Asian cuisines
2) Identify a variety of Asian noodles and their appropriate cooking methods
3) Prepare a variety of traditional Asian noodle dishes

· Asian cuisine focuses on balance between fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. in each meal
· One way is common inclusion of noodles of various grains in many if not most meals
· Asian noodle making has a 2,000 year history; firmly ingrained portion of the diet
· Huge variety, not only in sizes and shapes, but in type of grain used
· Wheat flour noodles (with or without eggs)
· Rice noodles (rice paper wrappers, rice sticks)
· Mung bean noodles (commonly known as cellophane noodles)
· Agar-Agar noodles
· Buckwheat noodles
· Seaweed noodles
· Tofu (beancurd) noodles
· Noodle types
· Asian wheat noodles
· Chinese egg noodles
· Chow mein noodles
· Soba noodles
· Udon noodles
· Ramen noodles
· Saimen noodles
· Somen noodles
· Cellophane noodles, “Glass noodles” (mung bean)
· Wonton noodles
· Rice stick noodles
· Rice vermicelli