Reading Cookbooks

I realize that I have come at this topic many times in my posts and wonder whether there is much to say about the topic. I own quite a number of cookbooks and rarely do I use the cookbooks for their recipes. Sometimes there is a germ on an idea or a technique, flavour combination or menu suggestion that starts me going. That is not to say that I don't rip off a recipe and make it my own, just that I rarely cook it as stated.

The question remains on why do I have so many and why do I continue to read cookbooks? Not so strangely, a cookbook that I was reading provided me with some insight into this compulsion.

I was reading Ivan Ramen and here are a few quotes that I pulled from it.

"I don't really open a cookbook to cook from it, and I don't know if many people do. I read cookbooks because I want to know why someone cooks the way they do, how they arrived at their recipes. It doesn't matter if the recipe is complex -- molecular, whatever -- or a simple one. It could be a pancake recipe, but I want to know why the author's excited about it. This book will teach you how to make an authentic bowl of Tokyo ramen, but I also encourage you to stray as much as you want from the recipes. This book is not intended to be a set of rules, but rather a window into a world I tumbled into years ago and have happily dwelled in ever since." p.3

If you can jack into the excitement of the author then you get an insight into the food and thought processes. Now, the only cookbooks that I buy are ones that make me think differently about the subject. Okay, not totally true. I sometimes buy them if they redefine what a cookbook is and does.

"Becoming a better cook is all about finding the best way to use what you've got on hand." p.135

This is really what I do at home. I don't care so much for going out and buying special ingredients for a particular meal only to have leftovers that just sit in the fridge. I'll boil extra potatoes for a Sunday meal so that I can make smashed potatoes in the oven for the week or use them as topping for a cottage pie. There doesn't have to be much in the fridge to make a meal.

"I generally find cookbooks that require a lot of specialty pantry items incredibly annoying, but the resulting dish is worth it, and you can always use components of this ramen in other dishes." p.165

Sometimes there is a recipe that calls out to me and requires extra effort. Mostly, I save those recipes for dinner parties. Nope, I don't try them before because I trust my ability to fix things. If it doesn't turn out, then it is an experience.

Ivan Orkin does point out that the reality of cooking other people recipes is that different kitchens and different cooks following the same recipe will get different results. I used to call this difference 'love'. When someone asked me why my recipe for whatever tasted so different than theirs, it was always the love I added. Flip, but an explanation. So, recipes might not be the reason for a cookbook.

To go back to Ivan Ramen for a second, in his actual recipe steps, he talks about his love of ketchup when discussing how much ketchup to add to rice. It's moments like these in cookbooks where you can begin to understand the author and by extension understand the cookbook. Another good example is the Joy of Cooking which has changed over the years from being a kind of compendium of what every good wife should know to feed her family and throw a dinner party to something of a replacement for home economics. In fact, many of the early cookbooks were aimed at the lady of the house to teach her home management, especially the training and maintaining of cooks and the kitchen.

Cookbooks have come a long way. They continue to evolve and continue to keep my interest. That makes me think of something else and when I have finally formed that idea, this might not be the last post on reading cookbooks.

Book Review: The Canadian Craft Beer Cookbook

I have been looking forward to reading The Canadian Craft Beer Cookbook ever since David Ort mentioned it on his twitter feed. 

This is a good base book for someone wanting to understand the intersection of beer and food and why it is a better choice. This is in contrast to wine. I'm not sure that wine is this versatile and I'm not sure that I want to use an expensive wine to figure out that I don't like a recipe. Give me a cheaper alternative like beer and then it is less of a barrier for experimenting, more latitude for making mistakes.

The introduction goes over some basics that will be familiar to those that are both beer drinkers and foodies. It covers subjects like beer styles, beer ingredients, and recipe ingredients. There is a pragmatic tone to most of the prose. Where you don't need a particular piece of equipment but it is nice to have, the note is there. This is not a dogmatic recipe book. It is not an over expansive section and that makes it accessible to those starting on this crazy journey. The basic information is there to act as either a guide for the novice or a set of crib notes for those who have already begun.

Sprinkled throughout are profiles of interesting craft beer people and places. This shows off David's blogging and magazine background. These are interesting little snippets to break up what could be the regular monotony of a cookbook. I appreciated these bits but his head notes are so thoughtful that I am not sure these were needed. Sometimes using specifics as a touchstone can date a cookbook but I have a further thought on that later.

Not all recipes have beer or beer ingredients as part of the recipe but all have recommended pairings. The pairings tend to have a Canadian element along with a more internationally available beer. This highlights Canadian beer while  recognizing that the beer might not be available across Canada.  This also makes the book relevant to a larger international audience for books about beer pairing and food.

There are many traditional recipes that are adapted to some brands of today. Classic beer culture countries are well represented with a few Asian treats. Some of the pairings intrigued me but it was always clear why the choice was made, largely because David Ort tells you why he made the choice and what the purpose was. Along with the notes in the front about beer styles, you can begin to approach your own pairings.

I was suprised to find two recipes that call for hop shoots. I never thought about eating hop shoots but in the space of a few weeks, I have come upon two other references. In Elizabeth David's, On Vegetables, there is great story on bruscandoli or loertis or brucelando or wild aspargus or luppoli. It turns out that this extremely limited seasonal ingredient is available all around Italy where it is available only for a short time in the spring. There is mention of how it was served and it is nothing like the recipes in David Ort's cookbook. Though there is something in his style that reminds me of her writing. There are other cultures that serve hop shoots, for example in Belgium, they are called jets de houblon. The second reference was in a bathroom type reader How to be a Better Foodie by Sudi Pigott where it was talked about as being a seasonal foodie treat like ramps or wild mushrooms.

This genius of this book is that with the continued proliferation of breweries and resuscitation of styles in Canada, there is definitely going to be an updated version at some time. As more restaurants take up the beer pairing, there are other options for a good blog on beer pairings and possibly a continuing series. Of course, that might be wishful thinking on my part. The recipes are fairly safe, standard and beer friendly. It would be nice to see a few more recipes that push the envelope but this is a good first book about Canadian Craft Beer and food. It would make a good choice for the budding beer geek on your list.

Book Review: Slow Cooker Revolution Series

These past weeks, I've been going through my tagged list of cookbooks to read and found these two on the list. Given the titles, I expected some mind blowing and earth shattering ways to use your slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Revolution and Slow Cooker Revolution Volume 2: The Easy-Prep Edition from America's Test Kitchen appear to promise just that. I used to read Cook's Illustrated quite religiously but found a few problems. Those problems that lead me to stopping my subscription are similar to the ones that I found with these books.

What I Like

The approach of trying different techniques, ingredients and brands without regard to tradition and dogma can be refreshing. Likewise, the recipes often have notes on what the testers and recipe designers were trying to achieve. It helps to understand their choices and can allow the veteran cook some latitude when they are trying to achieve or accent a different aspect of the recipe.

The timings tend to be accurate with notes on why they won't be. This is especially important when you are looking at non standard or non homogeneous cooking equipment like a slow cooker.

What I Didn't Like

The obvious one is that most of the recommended and tested brands are American. This means that there is very little relevance to me as a Canadian. The goodish news is that the recommendations sometimes come with descriptors that help define what was desired for the product. Unfortunately, without looking at the whole review, we are left taking ATK's word that this product choice  is best. I guess you could always search out the reviews in Cooks Illustrated or on their website. Still, not for Canadians.

The second is that very few of the recipes are useful for someone leaving the house in the morning and coming back at night. Many of the timings are well off the 8 hour mark with a note that chicken should never be cooked over 6 hours. I'm not leaving my chicken in a slow cooker with a timer for two to four hours before turning on. It seems... unsafe somehow. Those recipes seem to be fine for a weekend but I'm often available to turn on a braise and leave it simmer anyways. Not sure what is the difference.

And another thing...  a lot of the recipes use the microwave as a way to short cut time and provide a softer flavour especially for aromatics such as onion. Yeah, it's a way to develop flavour and I guess it is an innovation at best. But if you are doing all this other preparation and then throwing it into a slow cooker and claiming that it is shorter prep, then I am not so sure. I can't figure out what the is time and preparation savings from a traditional method.

The books on the whole fell short of the revolution moniker. I much prefer Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook for revolution. It introduced me to making cakes and stuff in the cooker. It also provided guidance on how to convert standard recipes into slow cooker recipes. I have lent this book to a beginner cook with great accolades. Not that ATK's are bad but they fall short. The two ATK books often share the same hints and similar recipes instead of providing templates and guidance. These are really recipe books rather than something more.

For people who just want a good wing recipe or a decent dip recipe then go ahead. For anyone wanting to be wowed and amazed by their slow cooker, just pass. No one ever gets fired for buying Microsoft and no one will be disappointed with ATK's recipes.

Graphic Novels and Food

Just looking at my to read and just read piles and have discovered that there have been quite a few graphic novels in the past while.

I have read and reviewed both dirtcandy and Get Jiro!. dirtcandy is a vegetable cookbook with interludes of pictures while Get Jiro! is a straight up novel with chefs as heroes and villians. The other two books that remain unread at this time are: In the Kitchen with Alain Passard and Relish: My Life in the Kitchen. These final two are partially biography and partially cookbooks. The Alain Passard has been recently translated into English and is not his first foray into the graphic novel format. Relish is drawn by the author, Lucy Knisley and tells about her life with food and gives a few recipes.

These two mediums, food and comics, seem to be made to go together. Eating is, at first, a visual experience. So much of your expectation of a meal is bound up in our sense of sight. If something looks unappetizing, it may never make it to your nose or mouth.

I wonder if I have not noticed a whole bunch of these books before or if this is finally going to be a thing. So far, my experience has been pleasant and I look forward to more.

Culling the Books

This morning, I finished reading a magazine from last year on food. The magazine was Creative Nonfiction Issue 41. Of course, it is from 2011. It was one of the first mags that I had bought to review for this blog but I never got around to it.

I read a few of the essays and only wish that some of my posts will read like these personal nonfiction essays. The best of the bunch was one that I posted in my twitter feed, How to Fix Everything. It was about the connection of food with memory and love. I don't really want to review this magazine but rather use it as a way to talk about letting go.

This past year was not a good year for me healthwise. Nothing major but the pains of getting old. My ankles seem to have some malady that makes it hard to walk for more than 2km or stand for a couple of hours in the kitchen without causing great grief the next day. Halfway through the farmer's market season last year, I walked the 1km home with too much stuff and brought out a lurking condition that is similar to Carpal Tunnel.  Sometimes it is hard to hold a knife or spend too much time with preparing a meal. My hands will go numb and turn into pins and needles that don't go away.

All this time away from the kitchen has made me look at my bookshelves differently. They groan with promise of cooking projects yet to be tried but now would be more trying. So, the cull begins. Firstly, I swept through the years of LCBO Food & Drink which I was able to do fairly quickly. The recipes are now on line and I usually only used the magazines for inspiration. It is always easier to find a number of different recipes for a named recipe but hard to find something that works with a half thought out menu. Other magazines also felt the scalpel. All that remains is fresh growth. Magazines either have to be used regularly or within the past year or so.

The problem lies with the books. Some recipe books sit on my shelf as companions to other books. Even though Russo and Lukins split from each other, their solo cookbooks still kept them together. I hardly used the books that came after the split. It was liking choosing sides in after a relationship has gone south. There was something as a couple that didn't exist afterwards and neither seemed particularly interesting. Now, these books will make their way to a cookbook swap, second hand store or thrift shop.

Other books were given as gifts. Some have made their way into rotation but others don't quite do it for me. The intention of the gift givers were good and they were definitely in the ballpark but as the days go on and the friendships dwindle or rage on, the book is secondary. It is not as if my friends will think less of me nor will they necessarily recognize or remember the book they gave. I have repaid them in food where food is my stand-in for love. I can some of these go.

The next set that are leaving are the ones that are currently the hardest to let go. My hands and feet are getting better but I am facing a slowdown in the kitchen. While I am only in my forties, I have to decide whether I want to be able to play with my kids in the park, go for a walk with my wife or continue to try and show my love in the kitchen. Maybe I'll return to the books filled with fascinating techniques when everything is better but there are some things that I must realize that I am probably not going to do. I am now becoming smarter with the culinary challenges that I take on. I need to judge how much wear this technique will cause or how much tear it will be to throw this type of party. I have started to let go of some of these things. It will make me a better person and a better cook. The simple, tasty dishes I make now are made more with love and dedication than any others I have made in the past.

Book Review: From a Polish Country House Kitchen

After reading Poland by Michener, which I still must review for all the food references, I decided that I would hunt up a Polish cookbook. In one of my feeds, this one came up, From a Polish Country House Kitchen: 90 Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food.  It is the result of the authors, Anne Applebaum an Danielle Crittenden, opening a country inn in Poland.

I had mixed feelings about this book. It seems that I share a similar background with one of the writers. Her family came over in the late 1800s and settled in USA. Mine came from 'Australia' and settled in Canada. I suspect it is really Austria giving the partition of Poland at the time.

The ingredients that are used in this book are definitely ones that I am used to such as: cabbage, venison, beets, plum, and mushrooms. Some of the preparations are decidely post WW2 with influences of the new Baltic states. Much of the same trepidation that I have with identifying with Polish heritage is the same issues I have with identifying with this cooking. 

Two issues in general. One is the fact that my family came over with a high number of Kashubs. Much of the dominant culture of the area that I grew up in has that aspect of a certain type of rural cooking.
The second issue is that the language my father spoke is considered Low Polish. It is also over 100 years older than the current language, so many Poles would not consider it Polish. Combine that with the fact that there were few Poles in the area that spoke this variant of Polish but rather Kashub and it muddies the waters. 

Still, when I started making friends with second generation Poles in Ottawa and Toronto, a lot of the same flavours and recipes are still familiar enough to leave echoes of longing. This leaves me with a few new recipes to try with familiar ingredients which I can share with my children.

There are many good recipes to try in the book but I was left with six that I wanted to try. Mustard soup just seems like a strong flavoured and nourishing soup. Another soup that caught my eye is the Sour Bread Soup. I have been playing around with rotting stuff for a while (beer and vinegar come to mind) and this starts out with souring bread and removing the green bits. I so want to try this. Dripped noodles is just that, some noodles made directly into broth. I like noodles a lot but am too lazy to make them. This recipe takes away that excuse. Red fruit salad uses fresh currants. I think it would work with chokecherries as well. It is just a sour and tartness that I like. There are a few more but this listing seems like a bit too much of self indulgence.

If you are interested in Polish food, there are probably other books that you could pick up but the pictures and stories in this one might make you want this one more. A lot of the recipes are interpretations but probably closer to a North American taste profile. This is not a real criticism as many of the headnotes speak about the way that these recipes were collected by watching or asking the people who cooked them how it was done. So many of them were done by feel or eye and that is what made this book appealing to me. Unfortunately, too many of these recipes and flavours are too familiar to me. However, for those just embarking onto a journey of culinarily visiting Poland, then this could be a nice stop at a country inn.

Book Review: America's Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook

My mother has an old step by step cookbook that includes photos. Each recipe is a classic where each stage is described with clinical efficiency and the newest in colour photography for the times. It was like reading a laboratory experiment from high school. Photo of completed product, list of ingredients and apparatus, followed by the methods.

America's Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook is a descendant of that style of cooking instruction. This cookbook is about canning, curing, churning and brewing according to its cover. This fits firmly into the urban homesteading or hipster cooking demographic. I find myself in a curious position right now. I am going to come to the defense of hipsterism and food.

The hipster generation, studied in the wild, grew up in the age of the plethorization of television channels and the rise of the internet. So much older programmes were required to fill these new channels, creating a nostalgia for a time that was unlived by the viewer. Nostalgia used to be expensive but now nostalgia is cheap, at least until DRM or some other scheme takes place. They are the last generation of mass media before it falls apart.

The second issue to bring into the mix the high unemployment that requires the hipster to find cheap retro items and use their skills to supplement income. They are no longer consumers due to not being able to afford those choices of brands but rather mix, sample and remix and repurpose. Whether it is to change an old item into something new or to make, grow or trade stuff, there is a perception of choice. This choice between competing cheap items whether food or clothing is discovered or adapted to show individualism. Think etsy or food trucks or the taco craze. Being first or being original is the currency.

This reminds me of a ruralization of the city rather than an urban homesteading. It appears as a movement against mass market coupled with distrust and ability to manipulate electronic media. This mastery plus a resurgence of other older skills serve to satisfy in the absence of climbing the corporate ladder. Sharing large becomes possible with the internet, using facebook groups, kijiji, craigslist and other forums.

This cookbook gives the skills from the memories of grandmothers' that never happened. Maybe I am wrong and it is just the new youth rediscovering everything like it is the first time and they are being douchy. Regardless, end of digression and now back to a more traditional book review.

There are a ton of useful recipes for everyday things that are preserved or fermenting in some way: Sriracha, Wine Vinegar, Oven-Dried Tomatoes, Bacon Jam, Refrigerator Jams, Kimchi, Paneer, Feta Cheese, Bacon, Duck Confit and Beer. Aside from those above that split into six categories of rotting foods of some sort, there are two additional chapters on snacks and sweets.

The organization in the book is great. It moves from technique to technique starting with simple ones in a chapter to more advanced as the chapter goes on. It has a novel like progression to help build confidence in the person cooking. The head notes in this volume contrast tremendously from the magazine. There is less of a statement of perfection that often crept into the magazine and more of the personal stories of the testers and why they preferred this recipe or technique to another one.

The collected wisdom that sits in the conversational tone of these recipes would be invaluable for a beginner into the old world traditions of preservation. If you have been around the block, you probably have a version of these recipes somewhere. The difference is in the delivery. The pictures provide comfort and there is enough explanation for you to rely on the techniques and begin to use these techniques for other purposes. It is missing a little of the clinical and scientific bent of the previous generations self-help cooking books. I miss that. I suppose that is why we have Robert Wolke and Harold McGee.

Look, if you are starting out on this whole journey of rediscovering old methods for whatever reason: frugality, environmentalism or nostalgia, then this book could serve you well.

Book Review: dirtcandy

I read cookbooks like a novel with a beginning, middle and end. The way the book is arranged tells a lot about how the author approaches the subject. Often, the preface opens with what the book will be about or approaches to cooking followed with an introduction to techniques, equipment needed, and any special ingredients. This is pretty standard.

Lately, there has been a push towards more porny books with huge centrefolds, closeups of food with gelled lenses. Many head notes describe the food in Penthouse forum detail along with the author's first time. This book, dirtcandy, kicks the shit out of these standard narratives by providing a real narrative. It is a cookbook told in a graphic novel format. This is part confessional a la Daniel Clowes and part Powerpuff Girls.

Here is, finally, a cookbook that has the same feel as the first time I read Kitchen Confidential. It seems as if it is a true peek into a restaurant. There is no glamour here. The monkey in the room is that this is a cookbook about vegetables made at a New York restaurant. Dirty secrets such as; why not to start a restaurant, expensive salads, vegetarianism's evil beginnings (and continued negative stances), and illegal workers take up most of the illustrations. There is a sense of movement and excitement in the panels that are more than just plain exposition. The graphic novel portion is fun to read by itself.

I appreciate someone saying that vegetables don't have to be boring and salads generally suck. I am not a vegetarian but I love vegetables.  It was nice to see an approach that started with what you have to do differently to get great flavours from veggies. The secret is to remove the water. Simple. It makes sense. I've dried tomatoes to make a powder and then used this to make ketchup. Who hasn't? Amanda Cohen's recipes are more like guideposts to making great food. Most are a step to making a larger plate of food, each adding a layer of experience to a plate but she explains how these work together.

The larger recipes that bring these pieces together allow for options but with the explanation of why the small pieces are there. Texture, acid, colour and repetition of a taste element all play large in the composition of the plate. Smoked Cauliflower and Waffles (with Horseradish Cream Sauce) consists of smoked cauliflower + waffles + horseradish cream sauce (separate recipe) + maple arugula salad (optional) + cauliflower bits (optional) + pickled cauliflower (optional).

More importantly, these recipes look as if they taste good. I don't buy many recipe books due to an already large size bookshelf that threatens to fall down but if a book offers something interesting, it can sometimes make its way onto it. This does mean getting rid of one of my more tried and true books. Last year's additions were 50 Shades of Chicken and Modernist Cuisine at Home, one for funny narrative and the other for technique. I already have stalwarts such as Vegetable Love by Kafka, an encyclopedic tome by type of vegetable but I have nothing like this.

I will be buying this cookbook and maybe never cooking a damn thing from it. However, the section on salads alone, suggests an approach that will help me construct better food. This will serve as a reminder on how to do this. Already, it has me looking at everyday items differently. I found a partially sprouted grapefruit seed in my grapefruit and tasted it. I think with a little pickle, it would add a citrusy acidic element to a salad or a contrast to a baked grapefruit.

The link that I provided to the cookbook is their website that includes a blog. I've started to go through some of the posts and think that this may be my current food crush to speak in terms of the new pornography of food.

Oh, I forgot about the recent interview with Serious Eats - here.

Book Review: Love in a Dish or MFK Fisher: First Food Blogger

This isn't really a book review. It is more of a rambling monologue after reading another of the Penguin Food Series. This time is it is Love in a Dish ... and Other Culinary Delights. The reason this isn't a book review is because I had already prejudged this short collection.

You see, about five years ago, I finally read a substantial amount of the canon of M.F.K. Fisher. I had been reading a bunch of chefs on cooking and writers on writing and her name kept cropping up. When I hear about classics, I often get turned off by the hyperbole and the quest for deeper meaning by the reader. With Fisher, I found that the reviews did not matter. There was a deeply personal tone to her work that resonates today. She admits primal urges and explores food in a delightful way. Food is not just nourishment and cooking is not just technical. At the same time that she recounts great meals or discusses her mother's cooking or her grandmother's dietary needs, she is communicating a deeper interior relationship with food.

My wife has a visceral reaction and compulsion with sweets. The fact that something has a sugary taste and a starchy base makes her happy. This physical act of eating a cookie drives her to take another and another. These personal stories were not shared much in traditional food writing (think of restaurant and lifestyle sections in the early twentieth century).

Many of Fisher's pieces are small. There are mini essays that differentiate between gourmand and gluttony or personal recollections like when she travelled with her uncle on a train. It is precisely these vignettes that make me think that if Fisher was alive today, she would be a food blogger.

Online food writing sometimes relies too much on shortcuts; pictures, memes (OM NOM NOM), and opinions without consideration. It is refreshing to see someone do something special. Some of my nominations for bloggers that seem to be using the tools of irony or new media to create this same feeling would include Nadia G., My Drunk Kitchen, Epic Meal Time, and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. I am not saying that these are at the same calibre but what I am saying is that they are showing their relationship with food in a visceral and personal way. I like that. I can only hope to achieve that level of honesty whether it is slathered in humour and bacon or not.

I guess this goes a ways to say, read M.F.K. Fisher if you are an aspiring blogger. There is a lot of good that can be had by watching a masterful chef or writer. You may not be able to do the same in your kitchen but you will get a few hints to make you better.

Book Review: Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving

I have over 100 cookbooks. My wife often asks why do I need another cookbook? Don't I have enough recipes? There are few cookbooks that I need at this time for the recipes. Most recipes can be found on the internet and if you know the technique that you want to use then you can find that as well. What is not often found easily are the little serendipitous moments when looking at an array of recipes or at the particular words of an author and get that AHA! moment.

This small cookbook from the Great Food collection at Penguin written by Hannah Glasse provided a few of this interesting moments for me. It was excerpted from a book that was to teach servants to cook. Glasse goes on about how food should be simple and local. Now, with our eyes this seems like a very modern take on food but as we continue to read her introduction, we realize what her intent was. It also begins to show some of the problems that I wrestle with around locavorism.

It seems that our Hannah, being a good Brit, has a problem with the French. The French style required more; more ingredients, more flavours, and more sauces. Her views may be more anti-French than they were a celebration of local cuisine. It was slightly xenophobic and maybe even a bit protectionist. I know that this isn't quite what happens in cities and areas such as Toronto. We have a litany of interesting ingredients from different cultures being grown locally such as Mexican chilies, Chinese and other Asian greens, and island ingredients like callaloo. Still, is the growth of locavorism pushed by a slight conservative bent?

Despite the reason behind the sentiment, I tend to agree that things that are grown closer taste better. This is not because they are inherently better tasting but rather that the ingredients don't spend a long time on trucks, boats, planes or trains. They require less gilding but I am not sure that I agree with the intimation that simple food is better or that all complex preparations should be shunned.

Another interesting note is the sheer amount of different meats available. In today's modern grocery store there is only a few options whereas in her day, there was an amazing array. I have seen the stores starting to carry more options but it still is not anywhere near the many that an ordinary householder in London would get at the turn of two centuries ago. Mass production has lead us to cheaper meat through picking the meats that are the fastest growing that can be tamed. It has lead to a truism of meat all tasting like chicken. Maybe that statement should say truthyism...

Two small moments stopped me dead in my tracks to note the pages and think about the recipe. The first was a common biscuit recipe (p.62:)

Beat up six eggs, with a spoonful of rose-water and a spoonful of sack, then add a pound of fine powdered sugar, and a pound of flour; mix them into the eggs by degrees, add an ounce of coriander-seeds; mix all well together, shape them on white thin paper, or tin moulds, in any form you please. Beat the white of an egg, with a feather rub them over, and dust fine sugar over them. Set them in an oven moderately heated, till they rise and come to a good colour, take them out; and when you have done with the oven, if you have no stove to dry them in, put them in the oven again, and let them stand all night to dry.

I'm thinking that rose-water and coriander seed might make a really good cookie. I am definitely going to get my wife to do this one or maybe even attempt it myself.

The second moment is seeing a recipe for quince wine. I love quince, a relative of the rose, when it turns the lovely pink-red after being boiled in sugar and water. It has a delicate flavour that does remind me of roses and apples. I think that flavour would make an interesting ale. You would have to cook then dry the quince before adding it to the beer. Alternately, maybe there is something in a rosewater beer but I think it would require cumin or something to offset the perfume taste.

Dieu du ciel does a beer based on Hibiscus.... and that is why I have over 100 cookbooks. The good ones send you off into the great blue making all sorts of connections where there were none. I will not be buying this book. The full transcript is available on the internet. I may revisit the link from time to time when I feel as if I am getting bored with my simple cookery.

Cookbook Review: Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding

This small 77 page book is part  of the Penguin Great Food series. This one is written by Dr A.W. Chase. While I have read a few titles in this series, this is the first one that I am writing about because it is an older cookbook (1896).  I am quite interested in the evolution and future of cookbooks and I have written a post On Recipes a while back that talks a little about this.

This book has a few sections that open up with some general remarks and comments.  This is the same style that is employed in Joy of Cooking or Fannie Farmer.  If you ever get a chance to get an earlier edition of these two classics, it is helpful to look at them.  The history of entertaining could easily be traced from following these cookbooks notes.  The earlier ones have helpful information on how to dress and cook game. Even though these type of general comments are very helpful, the recipes themselves provide plenty of illumination about cooking around the turn of the previous century.

These recipes are short paragraphs without the current form of ingredients followed by instruction.  Instead they are an interspersion of ingredients with notes and short items to complete the cooking.  Since cooking was often done on wood stoves, the instructions are more vague in a way but more concrete in another.  There is a description of how the recipe should come out including great descriptions of what a final product is.  There is an expectation that the person reading the recipe knows how to cook but not how to do this recipe. Often, there is homespun advice alongside the recipe. For instance;

On St. James' Stale Bread Pudding : "The author feels very sure that you will ask St. James to call again."

On Bread Pudding, Aunt Rachel's : "This is like what my wife used to make, except she used to put the raisins in whole, to which I should never object; nor did I, as above remarked. 'ever see the family taste rebel against it'"

On Apple Fritters: "These instructions are from Miss Arabell, of Knox City, Mo. I say Miss because, as she gives no 'sir' name, I take it for granted she had not found the 'sir.'"

At the end of the pie section: "If this new plan is done carefully you will be pleased with the result. If not, you can take the old crusty, mushy way again; but I know you will not."

There is just such a forcefulness and surety in these comments by the good doctor. The strange thing is that he's right. If you have cooked enough, you will recognize some of these old fashioned hints as being fairly true, even in today's cooking.  The recipes are so plain that they cut to the bone and you can begin to understand how to build and embellish on top of these skeletal recipes.  It does begin to show how many new cookbooks are just flipping in new flavours to old favourites.

After reading and using cookbooks for so long, I feel like Dr. Chase that "I know as quick as I read recipe whether it is reliable or not. At least, for several years past, I have tested but very few recipes which proved a failure; while, in my earlier experience, the failures were frequent. Such I now throw aside on their first reading."

It is refreshing to hear a cookbook say that you are going to fuck up sometimes but it may the recipe.  Just work at it and you'll figure it out. This book is a curiosity for most, an interesting historic document for others.  I am going to read other volumes in the series for the fact that I am intrigued about how food has been written about and thought about. I am sure that if you are an attentive cook that you could even make most of these recipes without too much trouble.  A few may even become instant classics in your household.

Cookbook Review: Eleven Madison Park

Okay, we all have them.  Some monstrous coffee table food porn cookbook from some famous 'IT' restaurant.  This is one of those cookbooks.  In this case it is Eleven Madison Park.   Daniel Humm and Will Guidara are the authors but if you read enough of these books, you know that in reality there is a whole bunch of people behind the scenes that make these books tick.

First thing, the photography is gorgeous. Will I ever cook from this book?  No.  There are some notes suggesting that you can, as a home cook, do this things but don't attempt some of them if you do not have the proper equipment.  My immersion circulator is in the shop right now...  Anyways, these techniques will become more common place and I wouldn't be suprised to see circulators and anti-griddles show up some time in your local WalMart.  But for now, some of these recipes are not possible regardless of the prose suggesting otherwise.

So, what use are these books?  Well, the ideas that anyone can get from them is fairly personal, so I will give you what I took away from this book and maybe that will help you figure out if you would be interested.  The main tricks that I would like to try from this book as a concept are things like flavoured beurre blanc, quince and cocao as a flavour combination, gels and using acetate sheets with them, and making savoury and spicy dusts.

I have made beurre blanc and I don't know why I never thought to flavour them but I will start.  The acetate sheets are interesting, I usually use a silpat or a hard plastic surface when making an agar-agar jelly but I may try this.  I made apple and tomato dust a while back and liked how they turned out.  It allowed for a punch of taste without impacting the look of a dish too much or relying on reduction, reduction, reduction.  A good trick when wanting to add a texture or a lot of flavour to a traditionally bland dish like custard.

What really amazes me about this book is the length of work to make dishes looked organic or natural.  Kind of reminds me of the natural look that was advertised by cosmetic companies.  The amount of work to make something look that natural is, well, ...unnatural.

There is a lot of work in this book to explain and show what the restaurant is about.  I enjoyed reading about the conception of the restaurant and the plating of the food was helpful if you wanted to recreate the dishes at home.  There are also sections on a regular day in the life of the restaurant along with a diagram of the restaurant and each of the staff positions.  I feel that I gained some insight into how eleven madison park works.  That is the great conceit of this book and any other books of this ilk. You begin to see how much work is involved and begin to dream that you too could do this, even though you have just seen witnessed what goes into it.  Unfortunately, I already own too many of these books and I will return this one to the library.  If I find myself wistfully dreaming of these dishes then I may have to pony up the money and buy this book.

Book Review: The Olive and the Caper

Finally, after years of living close to Greektown in Toronto, I decide to read a Greek cookbook.  I suspected there was more to Greek cooking than roasted meats, grape leaves, fried cheese, moussaka and potatoes.  That is not the interesting part of this cookbook.  The Olive and the Caper was written by Susanna Hoffmann, a food anthropologist who spent many years in Greece.

This cookbook will give you all the recipes that you remember from the restaurants but even more importantly, you can begin to understand what is happening in Greece right now.  Greece has had a history of hard times.  Before the meltdown, there was the end of WWII and the deep poverty that caused many of the Greeks to leave.  There are tons of peasant dishes, along with dishes that probably had some early form in ancient times.  Stories of how Ancient Greece became Modern Greece are located in sidebars and special sections.  Reminds me of another great Workman effort, All Around the World Cookbook by Sheila Lukins.

Sprinkled among the recipes are little tidbits such as; why Greeks don't eat corn (reminds them of poverty) and the fact that lasagna is possibly a Greek invention.  If you don't have a good mediterranean cookbook, then I would suggest you look at this one.  I am probably only going to use a few recipes (Sesame Soup, a greek style barbeque sauce and some sweet savory desserts) but the anecdotes have me seriously considering purchasing a copy.  (I got this one from the library.)

The one revelation that I will take away from this book is about a food that is dear to my heart.  I am partially from Slavic descent and two things struck me.  The first is that Slav comes from slave, which were what northerners were for ancient Greeks.  The second is that cabbage rolls can be served cold with a yoghurt sauce.  When I make cabbage rolls, I often sneak down the first night they are in the fridge and grab the tomato soaked, red greased rolls and gobble them in a few bits.  It never occurred to me to purposely make a lighter filling and intend the cabbage rolls to be eaten with a tangy yoghurt or some thickened lemon sauce.  In fact, you could think of cabbage rolls as a large dolmades.  So, instead of arguing amongst the Poles, Ukraines, Armenians and anyone else, it is possible that the Greeks invented the cabbage roll.

Regardless of the origin, the possibilities of what a cabbage roll can be have expanded for me.  That is the most that I hope for when I read a cookbook.  One morsel of inspiration can feed both my imagination and my family for many times to come.

On Recipes

I've been thinking a lot about recipes lately.  There must be a better way of representing recipes that appeals to the different type of learners. GOOD, ran a competition last year about redesign of recipes. Most of the recipes were geared to a more visual way of making a recipe accessible to readers.  Many included visual representation of techniques.  Reminded me of some of the step by step cookbooks that my mother had. Every step had a picture to show what was what.  It was clear what a translucent onion looked like or what a properly browned pot roast was.

Aki and Alex from Ideas in Food has written a post talking about the difference of a kitchen pro and a home cook.  A kitchen pro already knows what they are going to do at the start.  Most seasoned home cooks will adjust will little regard or knowledge about what they are doing. It strikes me that most recipes do not offer the why of the technique and that most home cooks don't care.  They have to get supper on the table and hope it tastes good.

In terms of recipes themselves, there is some thought of returning to a more instinctual style of cooking like our mother's mother's mother would recognize.  My wife has recently begun taking back the kitchen for two meals a week.  She has been getting more comfortable with improvising and making better decisions with flavours.  It is often more of a gentle art.  As long as you understand certain ratios, or certain techniques then you open up opportunities.  Whether it be ratios like Michael Ruhlman or more of an artful approach like A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider, there is definitely a move to a traditional approach to cooking.

If you look back to earlier mass cookbooks like Joy of Cooking or Fannie Farmer, you can see a collection of recipes that reflect a certain style of entertaining.  Each section would start with an overview of the area, usually arranged by course, and then follow with a few techniques and many recipes.  There was very little around how to improvise or change the recipes.  These books were intended to introduce women to nutrition and healthful eating; to act as a primer to a proper home economics course.The movement towards the science and technique of cooking continues with popular choices such as America's Test Kitchen.

What really sparked this review of types of cookbooks and recipes was the recent post about the cookie generator.  I can't help but believe that we can do better.  This idea of recipe generation gets close to marrying the science aspect of precision with the improvisational nature of creation.  Different websites have already begun to work in a way that values what you have in the house with the type of food you eat.  Searches and filters are working better to finding a recipe that will work for you.  This still feels as if it favours engineers and precision.

 It seems as if we are very close to being able to give everyday cooks all the tools they need to quickly reach a balance between the precise recipes of the recent past with the techniques and intuition of an older generation of intuitive cooks.  I am looking forward to seeing these moments because I think that there will be a growth of good food using traditional and scientific techniques with innovative tastes that will be really excellent.  Maybe we will get a glimpse on a new Escoffier in our lifetime. Or at least we will have a lot of really good recipes.