Sauce Alla Vodka: Flavor or Flim-Flam???

My uncle recently asked what I thought about Pasta Alla Vodka. The query was not just to find out if I liked it, the query was to probe whether the sauce had unnecessary ingredients, namely vodka. My uncle pointed out that vodka is generally accepted as a flavorless or nearly-flavorless spirit. He also pointed out out that a good deal of the alcohol content "burns off" during the cooking process. So, he wondered, if there's not much flavor to begin with and the booziness is just cooked away, why bother with the vodka at all? My guess was that the vodka had to do at least a little something for the sauce, otherwise Pasta Alla Vodka would not have endured as a popular recipe, but he had some valid points.... Was Sauce Alla Vodka just a trend that had endured because it sounded fancy? (I am reminded of a New Yorker Magazine cartoon in which an unhappy diner is sitting in front of an unrecognizably charred something-or-other. The maitre d'hotel explains: "It's a burnt phone book. We gave it a fancy French name and you ordered it.")

The first premise to explore was whether or not vodka is truly flavorless. So I went on a 3-day vodka bender. No, no...I'm kidding! Vodka may be close to flavorless, but cocktailers will swear up and down that there is a difference between Ketel One, Absolut, Skye, Gray Goose, and Finlandia, and those purists stick to their favorite brand with a near-religious fervor. So, subtle though it may be, there must be some flavor there!

The next premise to explore was whether the alcohol is really burned off during the cooking process. According to a Department of Agriculture chart , only 65% of the alcohol would be completely cooked away in this sauce if simmered for about 30 minutes. So minute as it may be, some alcohol remains!

The final premise to explore was to actually taste two sauces side-by-side...one with vodka and one without. This was my lab experiment here at home tonight. I made two sauces, absolutely identical in every regard except one had vodka and one did not. The lab rats for the taste-test were mi esposo and yours truly. Mi esposo couldn't really taste a difference. I was able to tell that there was a difference, but it was a VERY subtle one. The difference, to my palate, was that the sauce with just tomato and cream (no vodka) allowed a tomato aftertaste to linger on the tongue for about 20 seconds. The sauce with the vodka in it had a clean, dry finish, with very little tomato aftertaste. My guess is that the scant alcohol that remains in the sauce has an evaporative quality that lightens the taste. I am not a food chemist, but it seems to make sense. Both sauces were good. It was really just the finish that made the difference.

Sauce Alla Vodka is not just flim-flam. But is it worth it? Well...if you are having a New York Times food critic over for dinner, you'd better keep the vodka in the sauce. He or she will pay attention to every nuance. But if you are entertaining folks who are not that particular (or if you are low on cash and the State Store prices are killing you), you can just make a darned good tomato-and-cream sauce and not feel like you've cheated anyone, because it truly is that close.