Darren > wrote:

> Most Italian restaurants have a pasta dish served with "Vodka Sauce",
> such as penne a la Vodka, etc.
> I have also noticed many bottled and jarred versions of "Vodka Sauce"
> in the supermakets.
> I have never tasted it, but I was wondering why Vodka is used in the
> sauce?
> Vodka doesn't (or shouldn't) have any real taste of it's own, and the
> alcohol would have presumably been cooked off.
> What then, does adding Vodka contribute to the sauce?

Yours is not exactly a frequently asked question, but it's been asked
more than a couple of times over the years. As posted befo

Here's what Arthur Schwartz writes at
<http://www.thefoodmaven.com/radiorecipes/penne.html>.

<quote>
This is not a traditional Italian recipe. I know because I was there --
more or less -- at its invention. It was the early 1970s and vodka was
a relatively new spirit to Italians. To promote the consumption of
vodka in Italy, vodka distillers provided restaurants with gizmos that
kept both the vodka and vodka glasses chilled and they held recipe
contests among Italian chefs. This dish was the rage in
fashion-conscious Italian circles in the mid '70s. I never see it
anymore in Italy. But Americans are entranced by the idea, even though
it is nothing more than a tomato cream sauce with hot pepper and a good
dose of vodka, which, to be frank, is hardly detectable in the finished
dish.

To be totally historically correct, I should add that the hot pepper is
a late addition. The original recipe was made with pepper-flavored
vodka.
</quote>

Victor