36 replies to this topic

[MatthewB]

Salt-of-the-earth Cunningham still has spice

[Jinmyo]

Never heard of her before.

[MatthewB]

Never heard of her before.

Are you pulling my leg?

[Jinmyo]

No. Who is she? Apparently around for a while.

[MatthewB]

No. Who is she? Apparently around for a while.

Yup.

She's well-known in the Bay Area.

Edited the "new" edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

I like to give her "Cooking with Children" book as a gift.

Check out her articles in the SF Chronicle. Her recent series is a preview of "Lost Recipes." I've found it interesting.

[Jinmyo]

I found a bio here.

Not really the kind of cuisine I'm interested in.

[MatthewB]

I found a bio here.

Not really the kind of cuisine I'm interested in.

I never found the Fannie Farmer cookbook to be interesting. I've leafed through it several times & never purchased it.

However, the "Lost Recipes" stuff has been interesting.

And the "Cooking w/ Children" has always been received well (& used).

[Katherine]

Not really the kind of cuisine I'm interested in.

Well, of course not.

No kimchi.

[nightscotsman]

I LOVE her Breakfast Book. The butter-crumb eggs are brilliant.

[kitwilliams]

I LOVE her Breakfast Book. The butter-crumb eggs are brilliant.

me too! mmmm. heavenly hots. and nutmeg muffins.

[Marlene]

Um, I have to admit, I'd never heard of her either until this thread. Jinmyo and I are way to similar.

[MatthewB]

Here are a couple of "Lost Recipes" that I'm going to try soon . . .

One

Two

[russ parsons]

boy, i have to admit i'm shocked. cunningham was james beard's assistant for the last decade or so. she didn't just edit the last fannie farmer, she edited all of them since the mid-80s (i dont have the editions in front of me to check). she was in the first group in the cook's hall of fame, i believe, back when that was going on. and her "baking" and "breakfast" books are classics. i guess she has always staked her territory as being "classic American home cooking," so if you're only interested in restaurant stuff or "ethnic" cuisines, i suppose she could have slid by you.

[Marlene]

I have know idea how I missed this. Most of my cooking would be classified as home cooking. I'm certainly not up to Jin's mastery! But I really didn't know who she was

[Jinmyo]

Americana, Russ. No impact in Canada or Europe. Even James Beard is a nobody outside the U.S.

[Nancy Berry]

Marion Cunningham didn't just edit the Fanny Farmer Cookbook and the Fanny Farmer Baking Book. She wrote those books! Well, she actually revised the old Fanny Farmer Cookbook, but the newest edition is VERY different from the old book and it really has taken on her voice. She's also written The Breakfast Book, The Supper Book and lots of others and was a major contributor to the Bakers Dozen Cookbook.

[trillium]

Fannie Merrit Farmer's book (originally The Boston Cooking School Book) revolutionized the way cookery books were written. I believe in the late 1800-1900s it was actually translated into several other languages, due to popular demand. If you read the old Joy of Cooking book you'll see how much they borrowed from Fannie Farmer. The modern FF book is a nice resource. I'll admit I use it more for the baking stuff like cookies and cakes, but her gravlax recipe is fantastic, the yeasted waffles are the best tasting waffles I've ever had and I love the conversion charts and information about American things I don't know how to cook because I don't cook them very often, like steaks. Sure, if I cooked them every month I'd know by now how long a steak of a certain thickness takes to reach med-rare, but since I do it once a year it's nice to have it right there in a cookbook. Read what Marion writes about her here.

regards,
trillium

[MatthewB]

Lost Recipes is a pretty fascinating book.

In what will probably be her last book, Cunningham is trying to get people back into the kitchen, cooking from scratch, & eating together.

Whether or not she succeeds is another question.

But at least she's *doing* something, something more than deriding Rick Bayless.

Edited by MatthewB, 05 December 2003 - 01:49 PM.

[Lori in PA]

I've just gotten a secondhand copy of Marion Cunningham's Good Eating, which is a combilation of her two books, The Breakfast Book and The Supper Book. I've borrowed the breakfast one from the library a few times in the past and enjoyed it -- her Knothole Eggs are well-loved in my household and by my cooking class students.

This summer I'll be using her Cooking with Children: 15 Lessons for children Ages 7 & up who really want to learn to cook in my children's cooking classes. This will be the second of three summer classes using the book as the text. I've taught kids' cooking classes for years, but am currently using her book because I'm impressed with Cunningham's excellent ability to give simple directions to beginners.

What I like most about her books isn't really even her recipes. They are fine, by and large, although I often like "mine" better. It is her tone that I love, warm and welcoming, beckoning me into the kitchen to cook something yummy and satisfying, assuring me I can do it very well if I'll only try. I appreciate the personal way in which she shares her feelings about a particular dish, especially how she describes the sensations preparing and eating it gives her. For example:

"Sometimes eating supper alone feels private, quiet, and blessedly liberating. You may eat anything you want; you needn't be conventional. I like a baked potato with olive oil and coarse salt and pepper followed by vanilla ice cream, which proves to me that money doesn't buy a good meal. One night not long ago I had freshly baked cookies and milk, and found that uplifting.

If my spirit is less than cheerful, it helps me to fix something restorative when eating alone. Split Pea Soup is easy to make -- it takes only a few minutes to get started and is ready in 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Kitchen preparations, the busyness of chopping, stirring, and watching a bubbling pot, can help dispel any gloom, at least for me.

I like to fix supper on a try and carry it back to the desk in my bedroom. I have a fireplace there and I can sit and eat while listening to music or watching the news on TV. Eating in bed will always seem like the height of luxury to me, but spilling one's soup on the bed destroys the mood, so only food that doesn't slosh is recommended."

--Marion Cunningham, The Supper Book

Unpretentious, lovable, like an older neighbor or friend who stands to the side, sharing stories and offering a bit of guidance with the knife now and then while one gets familiar with how to pare and dice the carrots for the soup.

[russ parsons]

i had the great pleasure of editing marion for many years--she wrote a bi-weekly column for the la times. she is a great lady.

[srhcb]

I can't explain why, but seeing Marion Cunningham on television always put me in mind of how MFK Fisher would have appeared?

SB (and that's pretty damn high praise!)

[*Deborah*]

I'm grateful to her for updating Fannie Farmer.

And I like the TV one, too

[Lori in PA]

Does anyone know how she is now? Is her health good? Is she teaching or writing or simply cooking nice little suppers for herself?

[ingridsf]

For example:"Sometimes eating supper alone feels private, quiet, and blessedly liberating.  You may eat anything you want; you needn't be conventional.  I like a baked potato with olive oil and coarse salt and pepper followed by vanilla ice cream, which proves to me that money doesn't buy a good meal.  One night not long ago I had freshly baked cookies and milk, and found that uplifting.

If my spirit is less than cheerful, it helps me to fix something restorative when eating alone.  Split Pea Soup is easy to make -- it takes only a few minutes to get started and is ready in 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Kitchen preparations, the busyness of chopping, stirring, and watching a bubbling pot, can help dispel any gloom, at least for me.

I like to fix supper on a try and carry it back to the desk in my bedroom.  I have a fireplace there and I can sit and eat while listening to music or watching the news on TV.  Eating in bed will always seem like the height of luxury to me, but spilling one's soup on the bed destroys the mood, so only food that doesn't slosh is recommended."

--Marion Cunningham, The Supper Book

I'm not complaining, mind you, but that is certainly remniscient of Fisher's piece on eating alone in An Alphabet for Gourmets. She makes consomme double with an egg, I believe, and savors it slowly on a tray in her room. There might even have been a fireplace!

Kind of explains why Cunningham brought Fisher to mind as mentioned upthread.

[srhcb]

I'm not complaining, mind you, but that is certainly remniscient of Fisher's piece on eating alone in An Alphabet for Gourmets.  She makes consomme double with an egg, I believe, and savors it slowly on a tray in her room.  There might even have been a fireplace!

Kind of explains why Cunningham brought Fisher to mind as mentioned upthread.

That's an interesting observation.

While Marion and MFK didn't (always) write about the same subjects, and had diffirent styles, they do seem to have shared a philosophy.

SB (at least about food)

[ingridsf]

Check this out:

"I always ate slowly, from a big tray set with a mixture of Woolworth and Spode; and I soothed my spirits beforehand with a glass of sherry or vermouth, subscribing to the ancient truth that only a relaxed throat can make a swallow. More often than not I drank a glass ot two of light wine with the hot food: a big bowl of soup, with a fine pear and some Teleme Jack cheese; or two very round eggs, from a misnamed 'poacher,' on sourdough toast with browned butter poured over and a celery heart alongside for something crisp; or a can of bean sprouts, tossed with sweet butter and some soy and lemon juice, and a big glass of milk."

from An Alphabet for Gourmets, M.F.K. Fisher

It makes me wonder if Cunningham was intentionally echoing Fisher; or wrote it as a private homage to a writer with whom she felt she shared a sensibility. Because the two excerpts seem too similar for it to have been coincidental.

[srhcb]

It makes me wonder if Cunningham was intentionally echoing Fisher; or wrote it as a private homage to a writer with whom she felt she shared a sensibility.  Because the two excerpts seem too similar for it to have been coincidental.

A nice bit of research!

I could attribute the similar diction to their having similar sensibilities, although the "misnamed 'poacher'" phrasing is almost scarey.

Did MFK ever write about poachers?

SB (keeps him MFK at the office)

[ingridsf]

the "misnamed 'poacher'" phrasing is almost scarey.

Not to scare you more but I understood that reference! There's a special pan for "poaching" eggs that has little round cups that sit above boiling water. You break the egg into the cup, cover the pan, the egg cooks in the cup. My mom had one and Williams Sonoma still sells them. But they're not "real" poached eggs, as those cook in the water.

Good lord, it's like I'm Being MFK Fisher.

[srhcb]

the "misnamed 'poacher'" phrasing is almost scarey.

Not to scare you more but I understood that reference! There's a special pan for "poaching" eggs that has little round cups that sit above boiling water. You break the egg into the cup, cover the pan, the egg cooks in the cup. My mom had one and Williams Sonoma still sells them. But they're not "real" poached eggs, as those cook in the water.

Good lord, it's like I'm Being MFK Fisher.

From With Bold Knife and Fork - A Recipe for Happy Hens:

"As for poaching, I cheat. I own a pan which makes two round steamed eggs, not poached at all, and another one which makes six slightly triangular ones, not poached at all."

MFK goes on to excuse herself for this "lazy compromise" on the basis of having correctly poached so many eggs as a young girl. She compares this to the "pusillanimous" argument she uses when explaining why she doesn't attend church services.

On the basis of this information I'm inclined to believe Marion Cunningham intentionally tried to evoke MFKF's work in the originally cited quote.

SB (always feels better after reading some MFKF)

[H. du Bois]

I always feel better after reading MFK Fisher, too. I feel she's letting me in on a delicious secret of how to eat (and live) well, without one smidgen of arrogance or "I shall show thee the way" about her - unlike the doyennes of domesticity who came behind her.

As for Cunningham, I don't own any of her books, but I have a great deal of respect for her philosophy of encouraging American families to cook and eat together, simply and well.