THE JOY OF COOKING

           
            This piece by Elinore Standard appeared in the Bedford, NY,
"Record Review" as one in an ongoing series -- "My Reading Life."

Works Mentioned: "The American Woman's Cookbook;" "Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking," by Meta Given; "Main Line Classics," "Il Talismano," by Ada Boni; "Alice B. Toklas Cookbook;" "The New York Times Cookbook," by Craig Claiborne; "Moosewood Cookbook," by Molly Katzen; "The Silver Palate Cookbook," by Julee Russo and Sheila Lukins: "The Book of Jewish Food," by Claudia Rhoden.
 

                        THE JOY OF COOKING


    I have a friend who came to the US from Germany in the late 1930s. The family left everything they owned behind in Munich, along with the cook and the maid. Their first stop was a bed-sit on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. The children – my friend and her brother – were sent to school and their father went off to find work. The children found a copy of “The American Woman’s Cookbook” and gave it to their mother, a smart and organized woman who had never cooked anything in her life. She paged through the book to find recipes within her limited scope and before the children came home for lunch, cooked up the plat du jour. If things went well and if it was received without too much fuss by the children, she served it up again to the whole family that evening.

    Later the family settled in LA and she became an inventive and competent cook. Her daughter, my friend, is one of the best cooks I have ever known. So when I think of cookbooks, I think of that family.
I’ve kept my first cookbook, “Meta Given’s "Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking” (Ferguson, 1947), a big, fat thing with recipes for squirrel and possum. I saved the menu of the first meal  (ham and scalloped potatoes, endive and radish salad, apple Betty) I served in my own kitchen. I have affection for this tattered book that I consider a poor person’s “Joy of Cooking”.

    Those were the days of the sunshine salad, the dump cake and the church ham supper. I have a lineup of cookbooks from churches and local organizations such as the “Main Line Classics” (Saturday Club, 1982) with recipes that make me wince. The Main Line one is heavy on the canapés like sweet and sour canned cocktail sausages.

    As times changed and everyday meals became more sophisticated, I began to collect more cookbooks. I remember when my own mother, a woman to whom garlic was unknown, began to slip in a little sherry into the odd casserole, never telling my father who would have gagged.

    After college, I got a TV job in Washington and my boss, just back in the States after a post in Europe, considered himself a cosmopolite among the yokels. He wore bespoke suits and shoes and yelled in Italian during his nightly calls to his mama in New York. Along with a bull whip which he sometimes cracked on the vinyl floor of his office, he kept on his desk a copy of Ada Boni’s “Il Talismano” a classic of Italian cookery. From him, I learned about such sublimities as a proper risotto and how to add anchovy paste to practically everything.

    Alice B.Toklas was Gertrude Stein’s longtime companion and, as far as I can make out, personal slave. Toklas ran the household and often cooked. She organized their travels and received the guests who came to enjoy the excellent table chez Stein; she cooked for famous people including Picasso and Picabia and, in a fine little cookbook, describes what she gave them. The recipe for “Haschich” Fudge is described as something that “might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR.” Two pieces are quite sufficient, she cautions. Oh, swell, Alice. Call the DEA.

     The paradox is that Alice may be longer-remembered than Gertrude because the little “Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” (Harper, 1954) remains a gem. Although it is a memoir more than a cookbook, its mission seems to be to acquaint Americans with French family cooking. Toklas and Stein remained in France during WWII and Toklas describes living (and dining) throughout the Occupation. This is a great book to re-read because it evokes a civilized time long gone. You may even decide to try Madame Louvet’s Asparagus Tips.

    “The New York Times Cook Book,” edited by Craig Claiborne, was indispensable to the young New Yorker that I was when it appeared in 1961. We actually served Beef Wellington and Crème Brulée at large dinner parties and thought nothing of the trouble. Cooking back then was a new extreme sport and the Times cookbook was our guide.

    “A wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.” Molly Katzen uses this William Blake quote as the epigram to her “Moosewood Cookbook” (Ten Speed Press, 1977). It is brought to us by Katzen and others who created the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. This delightful vegetarian cookbook includes delicious recipes that include such previously unheard-of ingredients as tofu, alfalfa and mung sprouts, brown rice, tahini and tamari.  I often made Cossack Pie (many kinds of vegetables topped by an egg and cheese soufflé, baked and covered with sour cream).

    “The Silver Palate Cookbook,” by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, came out in the early 1980’s (Workman) and takes it title from the name of their small Manhattan shop -- one of the earliest foodie establishments catering to the crowd that brought expensive take-out to unheard-of heights -- to the “passionate seekers of the good, the better, the best.”  I like the recipes in the cookbook and I like the authors’ you-can-do-it tone. Among standbys are Chicken Marbella and their lovely butternut squash soup.

    My current favorite, “The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey From Samarkand to New York”, is edited by Claudia Rhoden (Knopf, 1998). The collection is divided into the Ashkenazi and Sephardi worlds, that is, the European and Eastern spheres of Jewish tradition. Occasionally, a recipe will call for preserved lemon, an item not available out here in the sticks, so my friend and collaborator, Laura Furman, recently sent me a jar as a present.

    Like book recommendations, friends send recipes by email, or -- less often these days -- through the mail. I file these shared recipes in folders and keep them on a kitchen shelf along with the black and white marbleized school composition book that contains my mother’s recipes, handwritten on the wide-lined pages with index tabs she cut out and pasted on to create divisions. Her collection, with its hefty pastries and one-dish meals, is definitely pre-Whole Foods. One of the few vegetable recipes is for “Spinach Strata” that requires two cups of cheddar cheese, some canned cream soup, tons of mayo, four eggs, a lot of buttered bread cubes plus a pack of frozen chopped spinach.

    My cookbooks and family recipes are treasures, but more for browsing than for actual use. I am a scratch cook and for everyday fare I make do with whatever happens to be around.
       

                                             * * *





Tell me about your own favorite cookbook: ehstandard@gmail.com