On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 04:44:26 GMT, alzelt
> wrote:
>
>Richard Periut wrote:

>> I ordered a Penne a la Vodka as a side dish, and found it quite good.
>> However, my questions a
>>
>> 1 Vodka is pretty much tasteless, so what does it give the dish?
>
>The vodka is present courtesy of a local contest in Italy where recipes
>were to contain some vodka (guess who sponsored the contest?). Stop
>trying to rationalize what was never intended. It was never designed to
>do anything. And it does it so well!!!

This sounds like the most likely explanation to me. I recently read an
interesting article (which I did not bookmark) by a (newspaper?
magazine?) food writer who felt a little guilty about joining a flock
of food writers accepting an all expense paid trip and presentations
sponsored by, I think, olive oil companies. The next month all the
food pages were full of OO recipes and comparisons and suggestions to
taste and compare. Beware when a flood of anchovie recipes and
articles appear!