Louisiana Cookbooks: favorites (merged)

[patti]

My Talk About Good cookbook is being held together with duct tape. Time for a new copy, I guess.

In addition to Talk About Good and Talk About Good II, the series includes Tell Me More and more recently, Something to Talk About. I don't have the last one, but will probably acquire it soon.

[Danno]

I was initially a little disappointed, actually looking for more Charcuterie recipes, but this is a really, really good cookbook. I've made over 10 of the recipes and they were all top notch. One of my favorites is the Smothered Pork Roast, the Chicken and Dumplings is awesome as well (they do it with Rabbit a lot at Cochon). Catfish fried in bacon fat. A lot of great stuff in there. I highly recommend it, every recipe I've tried so far blew me away.

Danno

http://www.nolacuisine.com

Has anyone picked up Donald Link's Real Cajun yet? Dying to get my hands on that.

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I have it. Right now I'm a little disappointed but that has more to do with my expectations than anything else. I bought it sight unseen thinking it was going to be mostly old-fashioned, rustic recipes. There are a few recipes like that but most are fancier than I expected. For example, he calls for poblano and jalapeno peppers in his etouffee and gumbo recipes. His seafood gumbo recipes calls for 3 cups of oil and 4 cups of flour, which sounds weird to me. There's no recipe for crawfish bisque. Duck gumbo and rabbit gumbo are mentioned but no recipes are provided. Come to think of it, I don't think the book contains a recipe for duck or rabbit. I was also hoping for more seafood recipes. Every recipe might be excellent, but the book is certainly not what I expected based on the title and the press.

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I definitely expected something a little different, but it seems like a good book. I haven't had a chance to make anything from it yet, but I expect to get a lot of use out of it this summer.

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[Danno]

I came across another great cookbook, out of print, New Orleans Cuisine by Mary Land, also author of Louisiana Cookery, both written during the late sixties.

I always enjoy the Louisiana cookbooks that came before the blackening craze in the eighties, you can really learn some history, before the cajun and creole cuisines started to evolve and somewhat mesh together in some areas. I think that I learn the most from the older cookbooks.

Danno

http://www.nolacuisine.com