Classic Cookbooks

[Mao]

That picture is killing me, everytime I see it after another one of Mr Talentless's bitter and infantile comments I crack up.  I can't tell who is funny Mr Talentless and his running line of jealous insults or the silly monster.

[Wilfrid]

For someone who only registered ten days ago, Talentchops certainly has made up It's mind about other members pretty quickly.

Hahahahahahahhahahahahah.

[John Whiting]

Monsieur Pas de Talent: Seul le silence est grand; tout le reste est faiblesse.

[Toby]

What about Edna Lewis (The Taste of Country Cooking; In Pursuit of Flavor) and Bill Neal (Southern Cooking; Biscuits, Spoonbread and Sweet Potato Pie; Good Old Grits Cookbook) for Southern Cooking?

Cracking the Coconut by Su-Mei Yu -- Thai food.

Authentic Vietnamese Cooking by Corinne Trang

From Tapas to Mezes by Joanne Weir -- the working person's Paula Wolfert (I love Paula Wolfert, but has anyone read John Thorne's piece about her, which is epitomized in the Grains Cookbook, totally frustrating).

Edna Lewis is a treasure and a classic in her own right.  The Taste of Country Cooking has been in print since it was published in the 70s.  Bill Neal died some years ago but he did very pure Southern food, not Californeeized in any way.  The Thai book is Julia Child-like in its detailing of the various sauces, dips and pastes that are the basis of Thai cooking and the Vietnamese one has recipes that really work.

Anyone have any thoughts on Viana La Place?  Unplugged; La Bella Cucina; Verdura -- very poetic and simple style food.

[John Whiting]

John Thorne on Paula Wolfert is very perceptive. It's not just a put-down of Paula, who is indeed highly skilled, but a sober analysis of our modern urge to personalize traditional cooking and give it the unique stamp of individual celebrity. In contrast, I've already mentioned _Cuisine du Terroir_, an anthology in which the 300-odd recipes contributed by the Master Chefs of France are not even identified as to personal source.

[Toby]

John, Yes, I have Cuisine du Terroir right here and it is impossible to find which chef contributed what recipe.  I've never cooked out of it -- I use it as a reference book in combination with other books and then sort of figure out what I'll do.  It has recipes for miques so I'd keep it just for that and also for pounti (which I think is also found in Kamman's When French Women Cook).  Anne Willan's French Regional Cooking (now, I think, out of print and mentioned elsewhere in this thread) is wonderful also for many regional recipes not usually included in English-language cookbooks.

I've cooked a lot of food from Paula Wolfert and with the exception of her original Mediterranean Cooking, everything, in due time, comes out wonderfully.  (Unfair, some of her recipes are totally simple, like the shrimp, squid la planxa (spelling?)and the apple pie with cabbage leaf crust [hilarious to make].)  I also understand the satisfaction of a successful forager, but does she understand the frustration of a cook who can't obtain the ingredient that the entire recipe is based on?  And since the whole point seems to be that substitutes are unacceptable, there's something a little mean about it all.

[wingding]

I love Edna Lewis's books,and remember seeing her often at the Union Square Greenmarket years ago;I barely had heard of her at that point,but was struck by the way that she carried herself,and her personal style.Particularily interesting to me are the writings about her family in Freetown;how they lived and cooked,and the stories of New York in the 50s'.

[John Whiting]

And since the whole point seems to be that substitutes are unacceptable, there's something a little mean about it all.

Yes, it's the culture-motivated exclusivity that John Thorne talks about. Paula once told me in no uncertain terms that confit of goose or duck just wasn't worth making unless it could sit for half a year before using. Yes, it improves with age, but it's the same mentality that tells us that balsamic vinegar isn't worth consuming unless it costs at least sixty pounds a bottle.

But I have to thank her for one of the best tips I ever received for making a rich succulent cassoulet: reduce pork and/or goose/duck fat to paste in a blender, along with a generous quantity of raw garlic, and stir it into the stock you add to the cassole. It accomplishes even more effectively what you aim to do by lining the bottom with fatty pork rind.

[mamster]

Cracking the Coconut by Su-Mei Yu -- Thai food.

I seriously dislike this book;  I gave it kind of a sideways review here in my review of Kasma Loha-unchit's Dancing Shrimp, a far more rewarding volume.  Some of the choices Yu made in the book are really bizarre:  identifying black pepper but not chiles and salt but not fish sauce as central players in Thai food just doesn't make sense.

[Toby]

I liked Cracking the Coconut because it tries to give a historical background to modern Thai food.  It emphasizes techniques and ingredients found more often in north and northeastern Thailand, where you get a mixing of Thai and Lao peoples and where the food is probably more like Ur-Thai food.  She stresses salt and black pepper rather than fish sauce and chiles in her introduction to the seasonings chapter because originally Thai food used salt (salt was an important trade commodity) and a rather yucky concoction of fermented fish and salt called padek that's still used today in the north and NE; fish sauce was a later introduction and is still favored more in the south than the north (where they still use padek); and chiles were introduced by Europeans.  Originally, instead of chiles, Thai peppercorns were prized.  She says "in ancient times...Thai pepper chile paste, or seasoning paste, consisted only of salt, wild onion and Thai peppercorns, diluted with fermented fish.  From this humble formula comes a magic potion.... This seasoning paste was and still is the basis for all Thai dishes."   Later in the chapter she has pages and pages on what she calls "the supporting cast:  chiles and fish sauce."

Truly sorry to be so pedantic, but I love this book and feel it gives the best real background and explanations to Thai food.  Parts of it are very dense and the recipes for main dishes may seem secondary to all the pastes and sauces; she really is trying to teach the logic behind a cuisine.  I once tried to write a Laotian cookbook with people from NE Thailand and was so excited when I found Cracking the Coconut because it seemed to unlock so many mysteries of the why behind the food that my nonexistent Lao and my friends' sketchy English had left unexplained.  I think the other Thai book you mentioned focuses more on southern Thai food -- I've looked at it but I don't have it

It would also be kind of funny if we someday find out that the food we get in many Thai restaurants in America now is somewhat like the Americanized Cantonese food that used to be the norm in the U.S.

[mamster]

Not pedantic at all--I'm glad to hear your defense. If Yu's interest is in historical cooking, that's great, but I would argue that pre-Columbian Thai cuisine, like most pre-Columbian cuisines, is interesting only from a historical perspective and not as a model for a way to eat today.

Dancing Shrimp focuses on Central Thai food. If there's a good book on Southern Thai food, please let me know--I'd love to find one.

Sorry I can't give a more complete response; I haven't looked at Cracking the Coconut in a long while.

[Toby]

Mamster, actually I think the recipes in Cracking the Coconut may end up focusing on central Thailand (although I'm not quite clear what central Thailand encompasses; I thought Bangkok was in S Thailand, but maybe it's central?). I'd just finishing drinking some very lovely Australian dessert wine with a high alcohol content when I posted last night and was a little fuzzy. I looked at the book more closely today and the recipes for pastes, sauces seem to be a progression from the simplest and earliest to those used today both in north and center.

This is becoming both pedantic and tedious, but I just want to add that while I may have made it sound so, this isn't a food history but a very useable cookbook (with lots of recipes) that shows the logic behind the cuisine that people cook at home in Thailand today. It also has a whole section on pounding ingredients for pastes in a Thai mortar and pestle, and a wonderful explanation and recipe for sticky rice and how to use the strange spitoon-shaped pot and straw hat contraption you cook it in. Is there a sticky rice thread anywhere? It was fascination with sticky rice eaten with your fingers that got me interested in Thai and Laotian food to begin with.

I used to see Edna Lewis in the Union Square Greenmarket and she was so beautiful. A Taste of Country Cooking was one of the first cookbooks I ever owned; I love her descriptions of her life growing up in Freetown, VA. She supposedly is writing a cookbook on Southern food in collaboration with Scott Peacock, but I haven't heard anything about it in a while. I hope she's still in good health. Does anything know anything current about her?

[mamster]

Toby--if you haven't already, do start a sticky rice thread. There's something we can agree on.

[John Whiting]

While we're focused on the South Pacific, has anyone mentioned Rachel Lauden's _The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage_? Lauden is not just a food writer; she's a noted scholar and a trained historian. This keeps her from seeking for a narrow "authenticity" in the cuisine of one of the most polyglot cultures in the world. Free of bias, she is able to face the fact that Spam has become an integral part of Hawaiian cuisine, and so she gives it a chapter on its own in which she explains its wide pragmatic appeal. We need more like her.

[PaulaJ]

I'd like to include Craig Claiborne's NY Times cookbooks.

I feel that they revolutionized the way an average

housewife in the 60's could cook....and brought new

cuisines into the average home.

[lxt]

I can’t resist mentioning a long-time favorite “Death by Chocolate,” by Marcel Desaulniers. What better way to go, one may wonder assuming he is in charge of his fate? Every recipe I make from the book consistently has a devastating result providing a rhapsody one enjoys with each bite.

“This book is about obsession, cravings and licit indulgences. It is about deliriously delicious, silkily sensuous, soul-stirring chocolate desserts, about Rabelaisian pleasures, and fantasies come true.” I rest my case.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Lxt - You're in the wrong thread. Go over to the Union Pacific thread on the NY board and read the bottom of the thread about chocolate, and how restaurants like to serve it to women.

[Aurora]

Plotnicki, what the fuck do you think you're doing? Stop it.

I may be reviving what appears to be somewhat of a pressure point. I hope not. I don't fully understand what the Suvir thing is about (please, no one should take the time to enlighten me). Am I happy that I missed it, or am I disappointed? I don't know. Perhaps a bit of both, but oh well! C'est la vie, n'est pas?

Adam Balic - I appreciate your suggestion that this would make one hell of a cookbook title, and the former bookseller/promoter in me cannot avoid making a comment. I must tell you that I would have shelved that book, hand sold it often (i.e. led the customer directly to the book and placed it in their hands with a ringing endorsement), and displayed it prominently. I think it has terrific potential. Who would walk past that an not pick it up? Just think of the press kits that would accompany the advance copies. Curiosity alone would sell it in the thousands. Fat-guy, Plotnicki, you should consider this, but I digress...

I am so glad that the Time-Life Good Cook series was mentioned, and I will hold it up high to give it additional support. Until a few years ago, new volumes could be found in some of the larger bookstores as remainders. It can still be found online and at used bookstores. My set arrived at my house, one per month, over 20 years ago. My mother ordered the set during a short-lived exploration into gourmet cooking. If she cracked the bindings on 2 of the 28 volumes I would be amazed, but no matter. I feel quite fortunate.

To my surprise, no one has mentioned Roy de Groot's Recipes from the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth. I would put it in league with Elizabeth David.

As wonderful and visually alluring as Charlie Trotter's series is, the one that I most recommend is The Kitchen Sessions, mainly for its accessibility. It is far less daunting, the ingredients are easily obtainable, and Trotter's innovative style continues to shine through.

Finally, I would consider Sharon Tyler Herbst's Foold Lovers's Companion to be a "must have" in any active kitchen. Just sitting quietly and paging through it is an education for me.

[Steve Plotnicki]

John - I'm afraid that the Lauden book is no match for "The Hawaii Kai Cookbook."

Aurora - Just ignore the Suvir stuff. Why do you like the Trotter books, so you can make tall food? Actually I'm just being a bit snide about Trotter. I haven't eaten there since 1994. But my meal was less than impressive. In fact, downright mediocre. I get conflicting reports on the place. Some people love it and more find it ordinary. The best comment I heard was that if you live in NYC, you won't be impressed. But I'm going to go back one of these days.

[John Whiting]

To my surprise, no one has mentioned Roy de Groot's Recipes from the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth. I would put it in league with Elizabeth David.

Well said! I wrote about it at some length in another topic. It was an early influence on Alice Waters, along with E. David.

John - I'm afraid that the Lauden book is no match for "The Hawaii Kai Cookbook."

Steve, I'm afraid your response is uninformative.

[Aurora]

"Tall food?" Well, yukitty-yuk. You better watch out. If you continue to attempt a sense of humor and admit to snideness, some folks might get the wrong idea...

I appreciate the original Trotter books because they helped me learn how to take more chances with ingredients, infusions, reductions and flavor combinations. Charlie Trotter is not the only chef who is known for such inventiveness, but he is an exciting chef to watch, and one that I admire. Each aspiring cook finds their own way, and that was mine. To reduce the series of cookbooks to such a dismissive label completely misses the point. It leads me to believe that what you term "snide" is nothing more than spite in disguise.

I actually like to read your comments, but I wish your obvious intelligence would lend itself to a little more objectivity be it Charlie Trotter or Betty Crocker.

I apologize for going off topic on one of your threads. I hope that answers your question and then some.

[Toby]

The first cookbook I ever owned and that I taught myself to cook from was de Groot's Feasts for All Seasons, published in 1966. I cooked my way through it. It might seem a little outdated now (he uses msg, and suggests something called granulated instantized flour that always seemed weird, and there are now specialized books on ethnic and regional cuisines), but I'm looking at it right now and it's still amazing. Maybe because he was blind, he tells you how the food will sound, feel, smell at different stages of cooking up to doneness, so it was perfect for a beginner. And, as he explains in the introduction, "... for almost every food there was one time of the year when the highest quality was combined with the lowest price." He gives extensive lists of "the special pleasures of the season" -- fresh and saltwater fish, shellfish, fruits, salad greens, vegetables. And this was in 1966. His writing was lovely without being overblown. I have his Auberge book, but this one has always had a special place in my imagination.

[John Whiting]

And de Groot's _Revolutionizing French Cooking_ was America's introduction to nouvelle cuisine, back when it was a serious effort at reform and simplification -- not unlike what the Bauhaus did for art after the wilder excesses of 19th century romanticism and its heirs had finally unravelled.

[Toby]

John, do you know much about de Groot's background in food? And who he was associated with, in terms of influences? He never got the kind of recognition given to others of that era.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Aurora - Well I was only feigning being snide. I have nothing against Trotter and I'm not a professional cook so I have nothing to be envious about and nothing to be spiteful for. Based on my only visit, I will admit to thinking Trotter to be one of the countries poorer restaurants in that category. All sizzle and no substance. If I had to compare it to anything I would call it the American Ducasse. Everything perfect, but no real purpose to the food. And while I am open minded about giving it another chance, I can tell you that I never met anyone I considered a serious foodie who ever enjoyed his meal there. Now how useful his cookbooks are to chefs might be another thing and I make no remarks as to that topic.