Guest Author - Amy McDaniel

When many of us think of Mexican food, and no, I am not excusing myself, we think of the practically unbeatable combination of tacos and beer. We think casual. We think Corona.

A new book has just come to the rescue. What to Drink with What you Eat by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page provides detailed information about how to plan which beverages--and not just beer--to serve with any given ingredient, dish, or cuisine. Mexican cooks have plenty to learn from this comprehensive volume.

The book is organized into lists suggesting a number of beverages for a particular food, or vice versa. The vice versa is essential! I tend to go food to beverage--for example, if I am serving a rabbit mole (not that it's ever happened...) then I would look up what goes well with mole or with rabbit. But say I receive a rare vintage wine as a gift, and I want the wine to inspire the meal. What to Drink with What you Eat can be my guide then, too.

What's in it for a Mexican cook? Not only is there a long list of beverages (wine, beer, tea, water, and more) that pair well with Mexican food in general, but there are also entries for mole, flan, and chiles--not to mention tomatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and myriad other ingredients that could form the base of Mexican meal. Alternately, if you want to feature a special tequila, let that be your starting point!

A few things I've learned already:

Many Mexican dishes are defined more by the sauce than by the main meat component. When pairing beverages to sauce-based dishes, let the ingredients in the sauce, rather than in the rest of the dish, be your guide. A good rule of thumb is to pair white wine with fresh green chiles and red wine with dried red chiles.

The book also taught me that anything you can imagine adding lime to would pair well with any wine similar to Sauvignon Blanc--in other words, a wine that is not aged in oak barrels, unlike Chardonnay.

The fun part isn't reading the book, though--it's using it. So I set out to create an elegant Mexican dinner party menu, served with appropriate wine. What to Drink with What you Eat allowed me to do exactly that. Follow the links below to read about what I did.