Wine and the American Superbowl

It's just so sweet that Americans would even consider having wine with their traditional Superbowl foods. This cute article goes into how to pair wine with the usual snack foods.

That's all well and good, but let me just address a point: Why is it so difficult to pair wine with American foods? In a word, American cuisine just isn't wine-friendly.

Here's a hint list to what foods don't make for good wine companionship. Not just for Americans, but for anybody getting into wine. Food will go better with wine if it isn't:

Swimming in sauce - Think "barbecue". What goes with barbecued ribs? Oh, I don't know, how about a drink of water from a firehose?

Loaded with spices - True, there's the South American influence going on with chili, tacos, burritos, and so on. But you have to realize that even true authentic Spanish cuisine doesn't pile on the peppers and hot sauce like Americans do.

Drowning in salt - "French fries" - see, right there, have you seen an American French fry? It's crusty with the salt. Pretzels, too. Chips, too.

All United States food seems to be like that. Hand an American a cracker, and they'll stack cheese and bacon and onion dip on it. Give them celery, and they have to pile peanut butter or cream cheese and raisins on it. Everything's smothered in ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise and nacho cheese and syrup...

So remember, Superbowl fans, if you're struggling to match a wine to spicy barbecue chicken, perhaps maybe you could just make that plain old broiled chicken and let the wine provide the taste?