As
my grandkids with their ever-present hand-held devices will tell you, I am
definitely a “book person”, and as my patient wife will add, there is a library
of one kind or another in every room of the house. As I draft this first paragraph of a brief
essay, I have nearby the first Christmas gift from out of the past I still own,
or even have much of a memory of. It is a much-loved book bearing a
hand-written dedication on the first inside cover page: “Merry Christmas 1947 to Albert from Frank”; Frank is my older, and
only surviving brother. Authored by
Florence Page Jaques and illustrated by her gifted husband the artist Francis
Lee Jaques, the book is literally “dog-eared”, where a new Labrador Retriever
puppy Shirley and I acquired during the first months of our marriage 59 years
ago, left her own “dedication”, adding even more to its incalculable value.
This is by way of conveying the idea
that I don’t just own books, I feast upon them; and with no genre is this more
literally true than with my collection of cookbooks. Carefully selected,
penuriously purchased and strategically placed on a dedicated, eye-level shelf,
to be read over and over again, they are among my most cherished and used
literary possessions. Food, and the ways in which we grow, harvest, preserve,
prepare and consume it is at once the most universal and diverse of human
undertakings. It unites all of us wherever and whenever we live, and yet
identifies and differentiates us as much as does the languages we speak and the
DNA that defines our individual uniqueness.
A well-written recipe – or
collection of recipes – is all about history, geography, genealogy, sociology,
and tradition; very MUCH about tradition. My favorite cookbook authors are
invariably also good story-tellers; writers who know that cooking is not just
about recipes, and that a book on the subject need not be just a “how-to-do-it”
guide with impressive full-color illustrations.
In her book “Dairy Hollow House Soup &
Bread Cookbook” Crescent Dragonwagon (nee Ellen Zolotow) capitalizes on
her years as a country inn keeper, and friendship with other inn keepers far
and wide, to fill every bit of available space in her beautifully
pen-and-ink-adorned 392 page food journey with anecdotes, cooking hints and
background history, to make hers one of my most often frequented volumes. With
similar dedication, Susan Herrmann Loomis traveled more than 20,000 miles on
America’s country roads over a period of two years interviewing, gathering and
then testing family recipes from small farms, ranches, dairies, vineyards and
orchards in order to publish “Farm House Cookbook”, an American
food odyssey and another favorite.
With a special love for the Amish
and Mennonite cooks who have kept alive farming and food traditions for more
than 200 years (while elsewhere, family farms have all but disappeared), I
never grow tired of perusing and sampling from “Cooking from Quilt Country”
by Marcia Adams, and “Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking”
by William Woys Weaver. I would never have perfected my “Black Gravy Roast
Beef” and “Shoo-Fly Pie”, or Shirley her prized “Amish Buttermilk Pie” without
their inspiration.
Peter Reinhart, author of “The
Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, set off on a personal quest in search of
“The Perfect Pizza”, visiting destinations in Italy and across America, from
the east coast to the west, from which emerged his wonderful book “American
Pie”. With my own Hearth Oven, I discovered MY choice based on his “Neo
Neopolitan” crust, as served by Vince Taconelli, at whose restaurant in
Philadelphia one does not make reservations by the table, but by the number of
balls of dough required!
Along with those mentioned, I love
Domenica Marchitti’s “The Glorious Pasta of Italy”, and “Charcuterie”
(the art of salting, smoking & curing), by Ruhlman & Poleyn, and one of
my newest prizes, “The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook”, a collection assembled by
Paragon Books, Ltd.
As we observe the four generations
of our own immediate family, we take great pride in having made the kitchen
table our most important piece of furniture, and seeing powerful evidence that
the magic of food traditions binds us all together in a way circumstances and
distance can never diminish.
Like
old friends whose welcome never dims, a covey of cherished cook books has the
power to carry us on a magic carpet to other
times and distant places. Journeying in their
story-filled pages
reminds us that each recipe is only an idea for a new story of our own.
Perhaps
no other tradition speaks more eloquently of the Emerald Isle than Irish Soda bread, this
yeast-free loaf redolent of golden raisins, currants and a wee dram of Irish whiskey. Born from a
dozen “baking stories” from as many authors, it is an example of
discovering new
combinations from reading widely and experimenting enthusiastically.
Photos by Al
Cooper
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