The email was very cryptic: “The Blindfold Dinner, April 24, 2012, at Osteria Mamma”. There wasn’t even a time, let alone an explanation. But still, how could we resist? After all, Osteria Mamma is our favorite Italian restaurant and the email is from Filippo, one of Mamma’s two sons who I became friends with first while taking an Italian Wine Specialist course and then from endless dinners at their restaurant. I hit the “reply” key on the email and write “Peggy and I will be there. What time?”
As the dinner approaches, we start to wonder exactly what will happen. The questions we keep coming back to are: (i) will it just feel silly to be blindfolded while sitting in the middle of a restaurant? (ii) will the blindfold really affect the flavor of food and our experience of it?, and most importantly, (iii) how do we avoid spilling our wine all over the people next to us? We find out that this is to be Osteria Mamma’s second Blindfold Dinner, so Peggy looks up the first on the internet and discovers that after a course is served and been experienced blindfolded, you can finish the dish with your sense of sight. (That’s when we decide to just not drink anything until we can see so our fellow dinners will all be safe.)
We get to the restaurant and are led to the back room that has a long table set for about fifteen guests. In addition to Filippo, our other host for the night is Giammario Villa, a wine educator who was one of the teachers at my wine class. Giammario is also an Italian wine importer and he is pairing the wine for the night. (At this point Peggy and I quickly reconsider and decide Giammario’s wines will be more than worth any possible risk to the clothes of those sitting next to us.)
Giammario starts off the night by explaining some of the rules: First, know where your water and wine glasses are at all times. Second, if you need anything, just raise your hand and help will appear. Third, pick up your plate to smell the food close up. Fourth, feel free to use your fingers to get the feel of the food. Fifth, and most importantly, have fun and maybe learn something. Now, put on your blindfolds.
I do as instructed and in a few moments I feel a hand on my shoulder and hear Giammario tell me that he is pouring the first wine. I find the glass and then keep my hand on it for the rest of the meal. No reason to search for something so good. In another moment, another hand on my shoulder and this time it is Filippo saying that he is putting a plate down in front of me. The blindfold dinner had officially begun.
First I try the wine. Everyone at the table quickly agrees that it is white. I’m not great at identifying the smells in wine, but maybe the blindfold is helping as I noticed crisp citrus fruit. Later we find out that the wine is a 2010 Pinot Grigio DOC Trentino, from Trentino Alto Adige, which is not the region where most Pinot Grigio is grown, and so it makes for both a very interesting and great tasting white. Next, I reach into my plate (no fork for me and no one able see me anyway) and pull up something soft, though with a bit of resistance in texture and guess it is a mozzarella ball, but the flavor is more complex and a bit salty.
After a bite, the soft inside slips back to my plate and I’m holding its very thin, slightly sleek wrapping. I taste this alone and get it: a mozzarella ball wrapped in prosciutto. I go back for another bite, and this time I find a basil leaf and a fantastic oily pesto. I’m not sure what the pesto is made of but here my past training at Osteria Mamma helps as I remember its amazing arugula pesto loaded with parmesan cheese. The sharp salty cheese really stands out for me. My next bite finds some sweetness that no one at the table can identify. Peggy comes closest with a guess of fig compote, but it turns out to be blueberry. Finally, when everyone stops guessing, we undo our blindfolds and Mamma (the master chef and owner) brings out the dish for everyone to see. The plate is beautiful, but no one feels cheated by not seeing this great looking plate before eating. The blindfold is just too much fun.
Once the plates are cleared we are told to tie back our blindfolds and the second course and wine are served. This time when I reach to my plate I find the food is very hot and so I can’t really get the tactual feel. I move to the fork (feeling a little bad about this) and scoop up a creamy rich and slightly chewy textured mouthful and know we are eating risotto. But just guessing the main component is not enough as we are instructed to try to identify each item in the risotto. My next mouthful is surprisingly cool with a sweetness that makes me think of cantaloupe.
There is an argument at the table about this ingredient, but when Giammario passes around a bowl that has isolated this one component for us to smell, I know I have it right. There is also a silky texture that comes next and the table settles on scallops. My next bite is crunchy and someone says they taste asparagus. Yes, that is my crunch. The one flavor I can’t identify is the saffron, but it clearly added something to this truly remarkable risotto. The wine that Giammario pairs with this course is a 2009 Podium DOC Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, Classico Superiore, Garofoli Winery, from the region of La Marche, which is a perfect expression of Verdicchio for one of its best growing regions in the world. A “Superiore” means that the wine is generally higher in alcohol, which only adds a bit more fun to the dinner.
Blindfolds back on for a third time, I’m again tapped on the shoulder for more wine and food, and by now this all seems very natural. My fingers are back on the plate and feel a piece of some type of meat and when I lift it from the plate I find the bone and know it is a lamb chop. Thinking I’ve now got this dinner wired, I bite into the lamb and realize that I am holding the meat end away from mouth as my teeth only hit bone. Humbled, I try to figure out what the lamb is served on. It is very creamy, but not mashed potatoes. It is not perfectly smooth and so I think polenta, but the table disagrees. They are thinking some type of root vegetable puree like a turnip or a butternut squash. In the end, no one figures out carrot, but when the blindfolds are removed and the bright orange color hits our eyes, a carrot puree it is for sure. The red wine served with this dish is 2008 Cannonau DOC Sardegna, deep in flavors of the red fruits that pairs perfectly with the lamb.
While the meal is amazing and the wines are fantastic, it is the blindfold, and by extension the requirement to use all of your other senses to their fullest to really experience the food, that makes the meal. In fact, the blindfold must have heightened my other senses because when Mamma comes out again at the end of the meal, the applause for her cooking is truly deafening.
Bob Wyman practices entertainment law as a partner in the firm of Wyman & Isaacs, LLP, but spends much of his time eating and drinking in L.A.