Our first author published two of the most stunning American cookbooks of the past 20 years before losing his life at a very young age. The beauty of his family’s resort caught the public’s eye, but it was his skills as a chef that placed it in the top tier of culinary destinations.

:: Author! Author! ::

Sam Beall (1980 - 2016)

Sam’s father, founder of the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain, purchased Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN, the year Sam was born, and opened a country inn. Following college, Sam moved to California and studied at the California Culinary Academy which led to work at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco and, subsequently, The French Laundry in Yountville. Upon his return, he took over management at Blackberry and turned the inn into one of the primer culinary destinations in the country on a par with The French Laundry and the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia. Sam became an ardent advocate of farm-to-table cooking, championing the creation of what he termed “foothills cuisine”.

In 2009, he published the Blackberry Farm Cookbook which introduced the inn to a national audience, followed by The Foothills Cuisine of Blackberry Farm in 2012 which presented the backstory of their artisanal approach with beautiful photography and plenty of recipes. Though there is not a restaurant open to the public, guests of the inn enjoy a 3-meal plan in addition to all the activities on offer including the spa, horseback riding, tennis, golf, fishing, a 60,000 bottle wine cellar and the luxury service you would expect from this idyllic 4,200 acre retreat.

Sadly, Sam passed away far too soon in 2016 at the age of 36 as a result of a skiing accident. His widow, Mary Celeste Beall, has continued to manage the inn and has overseen the addition of a second resort, Blackberry Mountain, on 5,200 mountain-top acres the couple had purchased near the Farm. This second location offers the same level of luxurious hospitality in a very different setting.

Significant publications:

• Blackberry Farm Cookbook (2009)

• The Foothills Cuisine of Blackberry Farm (2012)

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:: Below the Radar ::

This next author firmly positioned herself at the juncture of art and cuisine with the striking appearance of her first two cookbooks. Lest she be viewed only in that context, I would note that her culinary abilities remained solidly on display in all of her following publications through both her food writing and recipes.

Lady Arabella Boxer

Though retired today, Lady Arabella Boxer, born in Scotland in 1934, was a formidable figure in British culinary circles from the 1960’s through the 80’s. A founding member (and later Vice President) of the Guild of Food Writers, she was the food writer for British Vogue for close to 20 years, while also authoring a series of cookbooks. Her first, titled First Slice Your Cookbook, was published in 1964 and was notable for being physically split into three horizontal sections enabling the planning of a three-course meal at a glance. This was followed two years later by A Second Slice (1966).

Other notable works include her Garden Cookbook (1974) in which she was an early proponent of farm-to-table cuisine. Her Book of English Food (1991) offered a compilation of recipes from cookery books of the 1920’s and 30’s, while A Visual Feast (also 1991) presented a selection of her Vogue columns and essays addressing seasonal cooking. Later publications, The Herb Book (1996) and The Spice Book (1997), focused on enhancing flavor. All of her books were visually intriguing, as much works of art as they were practical kitchen instruction.

Today at the age of 92, Lady Boxer lives in London and remains socially active, the matriarch of a family that has both embraced and expanded upon her legacy. Her son and grandsons are all involved in hospitality with a popular deli, café and bar between them.

Significant publications:

• First Slice Your Cookbook (1964)

• A Second Slice (1966)

• Arabella Boxer’s Garden Cookbook (1974)

• Arabella Boxer’s Book of English Food (1991)

• A Visual Feast: The Year in Food (1991)

• The Herb Book (1996)

• The Spice Book (1997)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Over the past decade, a number of books have been published that delve into the biology of flavors, the science of seasonings and the art of flavor pairing. This next title was an early examination of these subjects, and remains one of the best available.

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity (2008)

By Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg

Since first published in 2008, this magnificent reference work has been considered an indispensable guide for professional chefs and home cooks around the world. Derived from studying hundreds of menus and interviews with the chefs who created them, this encyclopedic work provides an exhaustive analysis of hundreds of ingredients, herbs, spices and seasonings with information on seasonality, taste, function, weight, volume, preparation techniques, tips for use and, most importantly, flavor affinities and incompatibilities.

The authors are a James Beard Award-winning husband-and-wife team that have written additional influential works on creative cooking techniques, wine appreciation and wine-food pairing. In The Flavor Bible, they have also packed the book with quotes and suggestions from chefs based on years of personal experience in working with individual ingredients, and provided recommendations for dishes that showcase the most outstanding flavor pairings.

I do believe that every kitchen would benefit from having this exceptional publication readily at hand.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Fireside Cook Book by James Beard (Simon and Schuster, 1949)

• Country Food: A Seasonal Journal by Miriam Ungerer (Random House, 1983)

• Stephanie’s Feasts and Stories by Stephanie Alexander (Allen & Unwin, 1988)

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:: What I’m Reading ::

• Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West (Harper, 1999)

• American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater by Calvin Trillin (Doubleday & Company, 1974)

• The Island Kitchen: Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean by Selina Periampillai (Bloomsbury USA, 2019)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and please press the heart below if you’ve enjoyed reading this installment. I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites. Please share this article with others you feel would enjoy it.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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In this wonderful land of immigrants called America, there is always room for another part of the world’s culinary mosaic to make its mark in our kitchens - it just takes the right person with the right skills to show us how. This next author is one of those talented individuals, and the line to offer our thanks forms right here.

:: Author! Author! ::

Andrea Nguyen

Andrea is the very embodiment of the American Dream. Born in Vietnam in 1969, her family emigrated following the fall of Saigon in 1975, settling in southern California. Among the few items they brought with them was a notebook containing her mother’s recipes. When she was unable to purchase any produced foods comparable to those they’d had in Vietnam, her mother decided to make her own and thus began Andrea’s culinary education during her childhood in San Clemente.

Following graduation with degrees from USC (B.S. in Banking and Finance / M.A. in Communication Management), she moved to Santa Monica with her husband and worked as a bank auditor and university administrator. It was during this time she began writing restaurant reviews while publishing an autobiography detailing her family’s migration to America in 1997.

When Saveur accepted one of her food articles, she launched a website and began work on her first cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (2006). The book, nominated for both James Beard and IACP awards, is considered by many to be foundational for cooking Vietnamese food. Her use of detailed instructions and photographs have become a hallmark as seen in her subsequent publications.

Her next four books - Asian Dumplings (2009), Asian Tofu (2012), The Banh Me Handbook (2014) and The Pho Cookbook (2017) - each offered a deep dive into essential components of Southeast Asian cuisine while garnering a wok-full of awards and industry recognition. In 2019, she returned to the home kitchen with Vietnamese Food Any Day, illustrating how to use ingredients from your local supermarket to easily cook Vietnamese food without a trip to a specialty grocer.

Andrea’s 2023 publication, Ever-Green Vietnamese, showcases recipes using a variety of herbs and vegetables from both land and sea. True to form, the book is a James Beard Award finalist, an IACP Award winner and a Best Cookbook of the Year designee from The New York Times, Food Network, San Francisco Chronicle, Epicurious and more.

Most recently, Andrea has collaborated with Michelin-starred chef Pim Techamuanvivit to produce Cooking Thai: Heritage and Modern Recipes from My Kitchen Notebooks (2026). Pim is the owner of three restaurants in San Francisco and Executive Chef of David Thompson’s Nahm in Bangkok. The book has garnered tremendous reviews for both its engaging exploration of Thai cuisine and the clear, patient instructions from a master.

Andrea and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay area. In addition to working on her next cookbook, she teaches cooking classes around the country while writing articles for a number of newspapers and magazines. Beginning in 2017, she has written a monthly column in Cooking Light called “The Teacher”.

Significant publications:

• Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (2006)

• Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls Samosa and More (2009)

• Asian Tofu: Discover the Best, Make Your Own and Cook it at Home (2012)

• The Pho Cookbook: Easy to Adventurous Recipes for Vietnam’s Favorite Soup and Noodles (2017)

• Vietnamese Food any Day: Simple Recipe3s for True, Fresh Flavors (2019)

• Ever-Green Vietnamese: Super-Fresh Recipes Starring Plants from Land and Sea (2023)

• Cooking Thai: Heritage and Modern Recipes from My Kitchen Notebooks (2026)

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:: From the Vault ::

While every cultural movement can’t necessarily trace its beginning to a single person, there is usually a name behind the tipping point at which visibility begets social consciousness. Such is the case with this next author who found himself the unlikely spokesperson for a culinary trend that continues to resonate amidst our appreciation for natural and organic fare. Like ripples from a stone in a pond…

Euell T. Gibbons (1911 - 1975)

Few embodied the return-to-nature movement of the 1960’s as thoroughly as Euell Gibbons. Born in Texas in 1911 to a father who wandered from job to job, he seems to have naturally fallen into a similarly peripatetic lifestyle after leaving home at the age of 15. Over the next 20 years, he drifted around the Southwest taking work as a dairyman, carpenter, trapper, gold panner and cowboy, amongst various pursuits. Eventually he served a stint in the army before becoming a beachcomber in the Hawaiian Islands while repairing boats for the Navy during World War II. His first marriage seems to have been a casualty of his “unsettled” existence.

Following the war, he entered the University of Hawaii, majoring in anthropology and demonstrating a flair for creative writing. He married again in 1948, joined the Society of Friends (the Quakers) and moved back to the mainland in 1953. With encouragement from his wife, he wrote his first book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962), as a treatise on foraging for wild foods and preparing them at home, something that he had done all of his life. It was an instant success and has remained in print ever since.

Over the next four years, he published three more works, Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop (1964), Stalking the Healthful Herbs (1966) and a memoir, Stalking the Good Life (1966), solidifying his legacy as the father of modern foraging and the back-to-nature movement. The success of his books brought him considerable public fame including periodic guest appearances on The Tonight Show where he was a favorite of host Johnny Carson.

Euell continued to write books for the next decade and was widely published in various magazines including articles for National Geographic. In 1975, he unexpectedly passed away at the age of 65 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Significant publications:

• Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962)

• Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop (1964)

• Stalking the Healthful Herbs (1966)

• Stalking the Good Life (1966)

• Stalking the Faraway Places (1973)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Sometimes, we all need a hug, and these two titles are the written word equivalent. Turn off your phone, turn on soft background music, settle in a big comfy chair and prepare for some warm fuzzy recipes. And even if this isn’t how you recall your youth, you’re welcome to adopt these memories for yourself.

At My Grandmother’s Knee: Recipes & Memories Handed Down by Women of the South (2011)

At My Grandmother’s Table: Heartwarming Stories and Cherished Recipes from the South (2013)

By Faye Porter

Southern society is thoroughly matriarchal so, when it comes to the kitchen, grandmothers rule. They are both the recipients and the progenitors of generations of culinary tradition and lore. They put the comfort in comfort food. Gramma always serves your favorite dish and there’s always something good in her fridge.

Faye Porter has done us all a great service by corralling a few dozen of the best Southern home cooks and eliciting memories of their grandmothers’ favorite dishes. Trust me when I say that 1) there is nothing in these books that you won’t want to make, and 2) there is nothing you can’t easily cook up in your own kitchen. How cool is that? I rediscovered my childhood and you will, too.

You need these books (even if you didn’t grow up in the South.)

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Orvis Cookbook by Romi Perkins (The Lyons Press, 1999)

• The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)

• Irish Traditional Food by Theodora FitzGibbon (St. Martin’s Press, 1983)

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:: What I’m Reading ::

• Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Journeys by Caroline Eden (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024)

• Tom Fitzmorris’s Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans, the City Where Food Is Almost Everything by Tom Fitzmorris (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2010)

• Gourmet Dinners by G. Selmer Fougner (M. Barrows & Company, 1941)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and please press the heart below if you’ve enjoyed reading this installment. I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

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Visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites. Please share this article with others you feel would enjoy it.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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The first author I want to write about holds a particular significance to me, having grown up in the south and spending my formative cooking years in New Orleans. I had also majored in history at the University of Virginia, and she writes with a voice the reminds me of my most engaging professors. I can’t ask for much more.

:: Author! Author! ::

Jessica B. Harris

As an American culinary historian, few authors are more respected than Jessica Harris. With degrees in French language from Bryn Mawr and Queens College and a PH.D. in African Studies from New York University, she taught as a professor in the English Department at Queens College for 50 years and founded the Institute for the Study of Culinary Cultures at Dillard University in New Orleans.

Along the way, she has published sixteen titles, primarily cookbooks, focused on the African diaspora. In Iron Posts & Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking (1989), she explored the influence of African cooking on Cajun, Creole and Caribbean cuisine. In The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking (1995), she presents a best-of collection of African-American cooking from church suppers and family reunions picnics and Sunday dinners. With Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim (2003), she examines the range of Creole cooking from Haiti to Brazil and Barbados to Peru, illustrating how techniques and ingredients cross-pollinated throughout the region.

In 2011, she wrote High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America which was turned into a four-episode docuseries on Netflix in 2021. Her 2018 release, Sweet Home Café Cookbook: A Celebration of African-American Cooking, showcases recipes from the restaurant in the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C. Most recently, she has published Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine (2025) tracing our culinary foundations from Indigenous cultures to European and African customs.

She has won a Lifetime Achievement Award from both the James Beard Foundation and the Southern Foodways Alliance and, in 2021, appeared on the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

At the age of 76, Jessica remains active with a monthly program, My Welcome Table, on the Heritage Radio Network and continues to offer lectures as professor emerita at Queens College. She maintains homes in Brooklyn, Martha’s Vineyard and New Orleans.

Significant publications:

• Iron Post and Wooden Spoons, Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking (1989)

• Sky Juice and Flying Fish: Tastes of a Continent (1991)

• The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking (1995)

• The Africa Cookbook (1998)

• Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim (2003)

• High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (2011)

• Sweet Home Café Cookbook: A Celebration of African-American Cooking (2018)

• Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine (2025)

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There is definitely a southern theme to today’s selections, and few could be more apropos than this scholar of Appalachian food traditions. Her rigorous research attests to the authenticity of the recipes and their significance within the culture.

:: From My Shelves ::

Ronni Lundy

Born and raised in Corbin, Kentucky, in 1949, Ronni was a music editor in the 1980’s and early 90’s for both the Louisville Times and Louisville Courier-Journal focusing on folk and country genres. Her abiding interest in Americana led to an expanded role in writing about food and she became a restaurant reviewer.

In 1991, she published her first book, Shuck Beans, Sack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken, combining her dual interests in food and music. The subtitle explains it’s subject is “The Heart and Soul of Southern Country Kitchens” and it’s release introduced an important voice in Southern culinary studies. Her second work, Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden (1999), is an authoritative look at the bounty of Southern markets and the vegetables that are the foundation of the region’s heritage. The book was a finalist for the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) cookbook awards the following year.

In 1999, Ronni was a founding member of The Southern Foodways Alliance and served as editor of Cornbread Nation 3 (2005), the third release of the organization’s annual roundup of the best Southern food writing, and in 2009 she was the recipient of the Alliance’s Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. Her writing has also appeared in Esquire, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Cooking Light and numerous other publications, twice being recognized as a finalist for James Beard Journalism awards.

Her 2016 masterwork, Victuals: An Appalachian Journey - with Recipes, received two James Beard Foundation awards in 2017 - Best American Cooking book and Cookbook of the Year - cementing her reputation as the leading authority on the foodways, people and places of Appalachia.

Speaking as a bona fide history nerd, Ronni’s books are just plain fun to read.

Significant publications:

• Shuck Beans, Sack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken (1991)

• Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden (1999)

• In Paise of Tomatoes - Tasty Recipes, Garden Secrets, Legends & Lore (2004)

• Sorghum’s Savor (2015)

• Victuals: An Appalachian Journey - with Recipes (2016)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

I have love, love, loved this book since I first got my hands on a copy, but I had been prepped seven years earlier by Sylvia’s first book, Sylvia’s Soul Food (1992). Everybody knows Sylvia and her seasonings, but if you thought she had put all her recipes in that one, you’re in for a big surprise.

Sylvia’s Family Soul Food Cookbook (1999)

By Sylvia Woods (1926 - 2012) & Melissa Clark

Now listen up, child. You need to get this book, and not just because it is a wonderful cookbook. It is really a love story with recipes, and that works out just fine. This is Sylvia’s story from her childhood on a small family farm in Hemingway, SC to proprietor of a world-famous restaurant in Harlem. It is also the story of a nurturing community, a loving family and a beautiful marriage that lasted 58 years until her beloved husband Herbert passed away in 2001, preceding her by eleven years. The restaurant has been run by her children and grandchildren since she retired in 2005.

Family is as essential to soul food as any edible ingredient, and that comes through loud and clear in these pages. Every single recipe can be attributed to immediate family, close relatives or long-time friends which pretty much covers the entire population of Hemingway. What you eventually realize is that everyone in that town can cook and I mean good.

While you would never be expected to cook every single recipe in a given book, you will most surely be tempted and then you’d really have something to brag about while everyone else is braggin’ on you.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Frog Commissary Cookbook by Steven Poses, Anne Clark, Becky Roller (Doubleday, 1985)

• The Peerless Cook Book by Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln (Little, Brown & Company, 1901)

• Cider, Hard and Sweet by Ben Watson (The Countryman Press, 1999)

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:: What I’m Reading ::

• Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (Alfred A. Knopf, 1988)

• Orchards in the Oasis: Recipes, Travels & Memories by Josceline Dimbleby (Quadrille Publishing, 2010)

• The River Cottage Year by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and please press the heart below if you’ve enjoyed reading this installment. I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites. Please share this article with others you feel would enjoy it.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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This week’s primary author was a remarkably talented woman whose exacting sense of taste and rigorous focus on testing helped ensure her books found a place on kitchen shelves in homes across the country.

:: Author! Author! ::

Barbara Kafka (1933 - 2018)

Born in 1933 into a life of wealth and privilege (her mother was the first woman to graduate from the New York University School of Law; her father was a founder of Brandeis University and founder and president of Parfums D’Orsay), a career in the culinary world seemed unlikely. For a time, up to and during her teenage years, she danced with the Ballet Russe. After graduating from Radcliffe with a degree in English, she married Ernest Kafka who was to become a distinguished Freudian psychoanalyst. For several years, they lived in London and frequently traveled around Europe, enjoying a social life with prominent artists and art dealers.

In the early 1960’s, the couple moved to Manhattan and Barbara began working as an editor at the magazine Mademoiselle which, in turn, led to her becoming a food writer at Vogue. In the 1970’s, she worked with James Beard, cooking and teaching classes with him while contributing to his 1976 book The Cooks’ Catalogue.

She wrote a couple of cookbooks during the first half of the 1980’s, but it was her third book, Microwave Gourmet (1987), that brought her national attention. At the time, the ovens were disparaged by professional chefs, but her extensive testing and precise instructions provided the encouragement home cooks needed, sparking demand. In 1995, she published Roasting: A Simple Art, advocating the use of very high heat. Again, her research and clearly explained recipes offered an alternative to traditional practices, and the book became a classic.

Two further works that displayed the depth and thoroughness of her approach to cooking - Soup: A Way of Life (1998) and Vegetable Love (2005) - proved to be best sellers, further cementing her reputation as an author with strong opinions and the wherewithal to back them up. During her writing career, she was the recipient of eight James Beard Foundation awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 and the entry of Vegetable Love into the Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2015.

Barbara passed away at her home in Manhattan in 2018 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease at the age of 84. I have missed her distinctive voice as it came from the pages and am pleased to say that Roasting has remained within arm’s reach of my kitchen for the past 30 years.

Significant publications:

• Food for Friends (1984)

• Microwave Gourmet (1987)

• Roasting: A Simple Art (1995)

• Soup: A Way of Life (1998)

• Vegetable Love (2015)

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:: From the Vault ::

The family behind this book is closing in on two centuries of experience, an accomplishment that uniquely enables them to speak with unquestioned authority on their subject of expertise. While they have published numerous books over the past fifty years, I remain most fond of their first. It stands as a pure expression of passion for their profession.

Meat (1971)

By Leon & Stanley Lobel

In the world of meat and butchers, there is one name in America that stands above the rest - Lobel. Beginning with Nathan Lobel’s first herd of beef cattle in Austria in the 1840’s, the family developed and maintained an impeccable reputation for quality and personalized service for over 185 years. Currently, the sixth generation to embrace the business manages an expanding meat empire based around their legendary store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

In 1971, Nathan’s great-grandsons, Leon and Stanley, wrote down the family’s collective knowledge and published Meat which was later reissued with the title All About Meat. Subsequently, various family members have updated and expanded the initial effort with Lobel’s Meat Bible. Regardless of which title you choose, they all contain solid, no-nonsense advice on buying, storing, preparing and serving all forms of meat. I would just note that the later publications include information on poultry, seafood and various cuts of meat that were not used or popular almost 50 years ago.

In 1975, they wrote The Lobel Bros. Meat Cookbook which offered an extensive collection of meat recipes from Asia, North Africa, Europe and America. Further cookbook publications have included Lobel’s Prime Cuts, Lobel’s Meat and Wine, Lobel’s Prime Time Grilling and How to Be Your Own Butcher.

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:: Recommendation ::

Kate McDermott’s Newsletter

Kate is the author of the James Beard Award nominated Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings and Life (2016) which firmly established her as the authority on pies. But as the title implies, the book and her newsletter are about so much more. In her own words:

“This newsletter is about much more than pie. I write of my thoughts, my walks, rides on Arrow my ebike, my garden, apple orchard, books I’m reading, music I’m listening to, recipes to cook and bake, thoughts about aging gracefully.”

In 2018, she released Home Cooking with Kate McDermott showcasing hearty one-dish meals interspersed with personal anecdotes from a life with much to share. It is a book to keep close to the kitchen, filled with delicious, practical recipes you’ll want to set on repeat. It feels like a warm hug.

Kate’s most recent publication, Pie Camp: The Skills You Need to Make Any Pie You Want (2020), is based on the personal baking sessions she conducts from her home, Pie Cottage, in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. Her research is impeccable, her explanations are clear and her instructions are straightforward. The book is filled with the encouragement of a master teacher helping build the skills you want to have.

Andrew Scrivani provides the beautiful photography in all three books, including the detailed step-by-step pictorial guides that make using them such a joy. There are very few who do food photography as well.

Kate’s is a voice you’ll be pleased to see in your inbox. I know I learn something every time from Kate McDermott’s Newsletter.

As Kate encourages: Be Happy - Make Pie

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:: My Favorite Things ::

How can you not love Edward Lee? It is an absolute joy to join him on his journey of discovery in American southern cuisine viewed through the prism of his Korean culinary roots. The results are pure magic as he does such a wonderful job of documenting the process.

Smoke & Pickles (2013)

By Edward Lee

The most successful cultural exchanges are those that create hybrid results on both sides. Raised in Brooklyn, Edward’s home was filled with traditional Korean cuisine, but he was continually exposed to the melting pot cultures of the neighborhood. As a chef, he was trained in classical French kitchens so, by the time he ended up in Louisville, KY in 2003, he was ready to unleash his inner flavor disruptor in a head-on collision with the culinary traditions of the Deep South. The results, as witnessed in his highly acclaimed restaurant 610 Magnolia, are documented here in this brilliant personal manifesto.

I am quick to note that this is not a “restaurant cookbook”, and is most definitely a useful addition to home kitchens. It is also way more than a collection of recipes. Perhaps, the most exciting thing about this book is the running exposition as Chef Lee explains his thought processes behind his Southern food with an Asian twist (or his Asian food adapted to Southern ingredients and techniques.) This is fusion of the most profound kind - one that starts with a commitment to flavor and is driven by soulful passion and a deep understanding of both cultural environments.

This is also food you want to eat. His creative take on so many Southern standards begins with what you know, riffs on two or three aspects, and then throws a curve that you won’t have seen coming but totally works. This book is just downright fun. Thank you, Chef Lee.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Other Half of the Egg by Helen McCully, Jacques, Pepin, William North Jayme (M. Barrows & Co., Inc., 1967)

• A Guide to Good Cooking by Jean Brodie (Lake of the Woods Milling Company, Ltd., 1938)

• The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison, Bill Jamison (The Harvard Common Press, 1995)

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:: What I’m Reading ::

• Confections of a Closet Master Baker - One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado (Broadway Books, 2009)

• A Kitchen in Corfu by James Chatto, W. L. Martin (New Amsterdam Books, 1998)

• The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy by Alan Davidson, Helen Saberi (Ten Speed Press, 2002)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and please press the heart below if you’ve enjoyed reading this installment. I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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:: Author! Author! ::

I’ve never sought cookbooks from restaurants just because they are famous. Were I to do so, I could easily add a thousand or so reflecting popular culture over the last century, but that would be outside the guidelines I’ve set for my collection. Rather, I have accumulated a couple hundred volumes influenced by personal encounters. And, while I don’t usually expect to tackle the recipes as written, I thoroughly enjoy reading them as mementos of past culinary journeys. Sometimes, they so perfectly portray the chef’s vision and the experience of dining there that they are worthy of recommendation to everyone. The following title is one of those.

Benjamin Cooper

While on a food vacation (yes, it is a thing, and I do them as often as I can) in December of 2014 in Melbourne, I had the great good fortune to spend an afternoon at Chin Chin, Chef Benjamin Cooper’s white-hot “people’s restaurant” where the lines are always out the door, and any and everything on the menu is an obvious reason why. With a staging background including London’s Nobu and Melbourne’s’ own Longrain, plus working with David Thompson at Nahm, it is easy to understand how much of his inspiration derives from Asian cooking and has influenced the twisted Thai underpinnings of much of the restaurant’s approach. The menu is absolutely brilliant with each dish revealing layer after layer of intoxicating flavors.

Many of the recipes here require a fair degree of familiarity with Asian cooking techniques as well as the ingredients, all of which are increasingly available throughout America, but may still be unknown to many. As a result, I’m suggesting the audience for use of this book is a bit more limited. However, that is not to say that this is the usual collection of only-in-a-restaurant dishes. Chef Cooper emphasizes simplicity while encouraging home cooks to “get outside of their comfort zone” as a way of expanding their repertoire and developing a feel for exciting flavor combinations.

If you can’t tell by now that I really, really love this place, you’re just not paying attention. Part of the appeal is the vibrancy of the atmosphere. The dining room is right off the street in an old brick building along one of the less trafficked laneways in the heart of downtown Melbourne. With bare bulbs suspended from high ceilings, huge windows and a hard tiled floor, sound reverberates into a continual cacophony as the tables packed into every available space remain filled from opening to close with a raucous hungry crowd. But the sound is that of happy, contented customers engaging in the communal experience of having their taste buds blown. This is food to enjoy, food to share, food to talk about. Thank you Chef Cooper!

There are so many more places in Melbourne that I adore, but Chin Chin is always near the top of my list. BTW, there is a second location in Sydney where the food is just as good and the experience is 98% as much fun. (It is not possible to beat the original.)

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:: From My Shelves ::

This week, I want to talk about another author whose books I have loved from the first moment I encountered them. Her unconventional topics could have been a turn off for her potential audience of home cooks. Instead, each volume has been embraced for providing a wealth of information while offering plenty of recipes worth exploring.

Jennifer McLagan

Described in Mother Jones as “perhaps the most idiosyncratic and underrated cookbook author of our time“, Jennifer is definitely a star to those who are familiar with her works. Originally from Australia, Jennifer stepped away from a degree in economics and politics to explore the food business. Beginning her professional training in Melbourne, she moved to London and continued with positions in high-profile kitchens before marrying and moving to Toronto.

As successful as she has been as a chef, it is her cookbooks that have brought her international recognition and awards. She has never shied away from what might be described as challenging culinary subject matter, instead embracing some of those aspects that could gain from greater exposure and discussion. Her first book, Bones: Recipes, History and Lore (2005), examined the benefits of cooking meat on the bone and incorporating it in stocks, soups and other preparations. Additionally, she delves into the history and tradition of cooking with bones and provides information on a variety of related topics. Bones won the Single Subject James Beard Foundation Award in 2006.

Her second book, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient (2008), was a huge success, celebrating the values and demystifying negative associations with the use of animal fats. Tackling our collective fat-phobia head on, she reminds us that fat is fundamental to flavor while, simultaneously, offering guidance on sourcing, rendering, using and storing all forms from butter and bacon to schmaltz and suet. In 2009, Jennifer won two awards for Fat from the James Beard Foundation, both Cookbook of the Year and Single Subject.

With the 2011 release of Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal, Jennifer addresses nose-to-tail cooking, and tries to determine when we decided offal had become awful. There are so many parts of food animals that are forgotten about in the market yet are considered to be delicacies and, historically, are found in many regional specialties. The numerous recipes incorporating these lonely parts appeal to serious eaters while engaging the curious home cook. This was a JBF Award nominee for Single Subject in 2012.

In 2014, Jennifer examined an intriguing topic - bitterness - with Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor, and again won the James Beard Single Subject award. While some cultures display an intrinsic appreciation for bitter flavors, that has not been particularly true for North American taste buds. In recent years, though, we’ve seen an increased appetite for bitterness in the form of craft beers, artisanal coffees, salad greens and dark chocolate. Jennifer explores the history and science behind these preferences while offering recipes that showcase these flavors.

In 2019 Jennifer published Blood, a small (86 page) yet incisive exploration of the culinary history of the subject combined with recipes for cooking all manner of meat, poultry, fish and game on their bones. Instructions are also provided for a variety of dishes incorporating what is, after all, simply another animal product.

I have to say that I have been a big fan since her first book and I eagerly await whatever topic she chooses to tackle next.

Significant publications:

• Bones: Recipes, History and Lore (2005)

• Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient with Recipes (2008)

• Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal (2011)

• Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor with Recipes (2014)

• Blood * (2019)

* Note - I do not (yet) own a copy

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:: My Favorite Things ::

I prize cookbooks that provide the “why” for recipes rather than just the “how”; books that place their food in the local context from which it emerges and to which it belongs; books that take me on a journey to a place or a time and then feed me. That may sound like a bit of heavy lifting, but there are absolutely authors who do that well. I collect them and this is one.

Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook (2008)

By Martha Hall Foose

I own hundreds of cookbooks about Southern food, not surprising since I hail from the South. They are a repository of thousands of recipes that help define our cultural experience. Martha Foose’s writing, however, manages to capture the heart and soul of the region in a way that other authors only wish they could, masterfully using words to paint impressionistic images of our culinary lives the way we live them.

This is real food as made and enjoyed by real people. For those who have never spent time in the South, reading this volume may just be the next best thing, hearing those voices, tasting these dishes, visiting their homes and kitchens. I have lived in Vermont for the past 38 years and have thoroughly embraced and enjoyed the quality of life here in the Green Mountain state. Even so, not a day goes by that I don’t rely on my Southern roots to provide a sense of place for my values and aesthetics. Just leafing through this book conjures images of my youth and family long departed. Fortunately, I can cook from it and get even closer.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Glutton’s Glossary: A Dictionary of Food and Drink Terms by John Ayto (Routledge, 1990)

• At Home with Japanese Cooking by Elizabeth Andoh (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980)

• A Salute to American Cooking by Stephen and Ethel Longstreet (Hawthorne Books, Inc., 1968)

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:: What I’m Reading ::

• Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr (Clarkson Potter, 2013)

• Stephanie’s Australia: Travelling and Tasting by Stephanie Alexander (Allen & Unwin, 1991)

• Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace by Ella Brennan & Ti Adelaide Martin (Gibbs Smith, 2016)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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This week’s lead-off author holds a special place in my affections as her writing is about Vermont, the state I’ve called home for the past 37+ years. Her descriptions of our foodways ring as true today as they did in the 1940’s, and while much has changed and advanced over the ensuing decades, the general ethos of rural traditions guided by the growing seasons remains firmly entrenched in our lives.

:: Author! Author! ::

Louise Andrews Kent (1886 - 1969)

Born in 1886 in Brookline, MA, Louise wrote a series of cookbooks detailing the cuisine of rural Vermont from the perspective of a fictional character named Mrs. Appleyard. Louise married Rich Kent, a native of Vermont, in 1912 and they maintained residences in both Brookline and Calais, VT. Fourteen years after his death, she permanently moved to Calais where she remained until she passed in 1969 at the age of 83.

During her life, she wrote a number of books including numerous works of children’s fiction and several novels, but it is her cookbooks that established her celebrity. In 1941, she wrote Mrs. Appleyard’s Year detailing twelve months of observations and stories set amidst the gentle pace of New England country life. It was an instant best-seller. The following year, in response to hundreds of letters, she wrote Mrs. Appleyard’s Kitchen (1942), which provided recipes enjoyed by the fictional family and their neighbors. It was equally successful.

Over the next 25 years, Louise published three additional cookbooks and, at the time of her death, was working on compiling her favorite recipes drawn from her previous publications. That work was completed by her granddaughter, Polly Kent Campion, in 1977 and released as Mrs. Appleyard’s Family Kitchen.

Her recipes were structured for the novice cook but presented in a humorous and practical manner with clearly defined instructions. Menus were provided for afternoon teas, ladies’ luncheons, holiday events and so forth, reflecting the period. They remain as charming to read today as they were when originally published.

Significant publications:

• Mrs. Appleyard’s Year (1941)

• Mrs. Appleyard’s Kitchen (1942)

• The Vermont Year Round Cookbook (1965)

• Mrs. Appleyard’s Family Kitchen (1977)

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:: From My Shelves ::

The U.S. is a country with many regional cooking traditions, but perhaps the most widely recognized and geographically extensive is that of the American South. While this next author was simply one of many to write a cookbook on the subject, hers was that unicorn finding itself at the right time in the right place to connect with home cooks across the nation.

Southern Cooking (1928)

By Mrs. S. R. Dull (1863 - 1964)

The end of the 19th century saw the publication of a number of influential cookbooks around America, and the south was no different. Mrs. Washington’s The Unrivaled Cookbook and Housekeeper’s Guide (1885), What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (1881) by Mrs. Abby Fisher, and The Carolina Rice Cookbook (1901) by Mrs. Samuel Stoney (sadly, none of which do I own) captured a culinary way of life that provided the foundation for contemporary southern cooking. But, they also reflected techniques and methods of preparation that would soon fade as the industrial revolution began to transform the kitchen, elevating cooking from a time-consuming chore to a practical art.

In 1928, Mrs. S. R. Dull, long considered one of the godmothers of modern cooking, published her classic Southern Cooking ensuring that subsequent generations of brides would get their new families started with confidence. Born in confederate Georgia in 1863, she grew up in the shadow of the Reconstruction as southern society came to grips with post-war deprivations and adapted their cuisine to changing conditions. In 1887 she married and moved to Atlanta as the city began to regain its position as a capital of regional culture. When her husband died in 1919, she began cooking to support her family, which lead to a very successful catering business. From 1920 to 1945, she wrote a weekly column of cooking lessons for the Atlanta Journal (with assistance from a young Margaret Mitchell.)

One of the things that set her cookbook apart was that she adapted classic recipes for use with modern gas and electric appliances. Offering over 1,300 dishes, this volume helped introduce southern cooking to the rest of the country with a practical style and clear instructions that could be followed by home cooks of any ability. Revised in 1941, it has continued to be reprinted periodically, though the presentation appears dated by contemporary standards. Regardless, these recipes remain the basis of the region’s food culture.

Mrs. Dull died in 1964 at the age of 100, having witnessed in her lifetime an almost unbelievable transformation of the culinary arts in America.

Fun Fact - I am thrilled to say that one of the crowning jewels of my collection is a very rare signed first edition of Southern Cooking.

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:: Recommendation ::

On the Kitchen Porch from Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Born and raised on the coast of Maine, Nancy began traveling the world right out of college and hasn’t stopped since. Though her trips have taken her throughout SE Asia, China, India and the Middle East, it is the Mediterranean that captured her heart as she has become a leading authority on the cuisines in the region, a subject she has surveyed in eight cookbooks to date.

Her inaugural book, The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (1994), may not have been the first to tackle the subject but it is broadly recognized for casting a significant spotlight on the culture and promoting the benefits of its culinary lifestyle. Moving onto an exploration of regional Italian variations, she published Flavors of Puglia in 1997 followed by Flavors of Tuscany in 1998.

Her most recent release, Virgin Territory (2015), is an illuminating examination of another topic on which she is the recognized leader - olive oil. This influential work covers all aspects of the subject from growing and harvesting to buying and cooking.

Nancy divides her time between her home in Maine and an ancient olive farm in Tuscany. When not authoring cookbooks, she is busy writing articles for numerous publications, appearing as a commentator on various radio and television programs or leading food tours of Italy, Spain and Tunisia. Her daughter, Sara Jenkins, is a well-known chef and an occasional co-author with her mother, and is also a published author in her own right having released the highly respected Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Beyond in 2008.

For the past 4+ years, Nancy has hosted a Substack called On the Kitchen Porch which provides the perfect platform for discussing the things she finds most appealing, or as she describes them: “…food, wine, people, places, gossip, politics, recipes, the state of the world, new ideas, you name it.” The topics are timely, the vibe is affable and the conversation is engaging. As suggested by the name, there’s a pitcher of iced tea and an empty chair just waiting for you to drop by and chat. I heartly recommend that you do. This is good food talk… you won’t be disappointed.

Significant Publications:

• The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (1994) (Updated 2008)

• Flavors of Puglia (1997)

• Flavors of Tuscany (1998)

• The Essential Mediterranean (2003)

• Cucina del Sole: A Celebration of Southern Italian Cooking (2007)

• The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (2008)

• The Four Seasons of Pasta (2015) (w/Sara Jenkins)

• Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil (2015)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Americans love a good Horatio Alger success-by-your-bootstraps story, and there are few more inspirational that the one depicted in the following autobiographical cookbook. Of course, none of it would have happened if the food hadn’t been wonderful, and that’s where talent takes a bow.

Cleora’s Kitchens: The Memoir of a Cook & Eight Decades of Great American Food (1986)

By Cleora Butler (1901 - 1986)

Though labeled a memoir, do not be fooled into thinking it is not a cookbook. Originally published in 1985, this is a reflection of an extraordinary cook’s life through eight decades of American food from the heartland and the black settlement movement in Oklahoma. Born in 1901 in Texas, Cleora moved a year later with her family to Muskogee where she grew up learning her way around the kitchen from her mother. By the time she was in her 20’s she was already well recognized for her talents, spending the next 30 years as a live-in cook for several families amongst the wealthy Oklahoma oil barons.

In the 1960’s, she open Cleora’s Bakery and Catering in Tulsa with her husband, and her fame only increased. Finally, in 1985 she wrote Cleora’s Kitchens, telling the story of her life through 400 of her recipes broken into decades. At the invitation of the Neiman family, planning for the launch party was held in Dallas at Neiman Marcus. Sadly, the following day upon returning to Tulsa, Cleora fell into a comma from which she did not recover. She passed away at the age of 84 on the day her book was published, never knowing the impact it would have on the American culinary world.

Receiving rave reviews, it was selected as best cookbook of the year by Gourmet, Bon Appetite and numerous others. Looking through the collection of recipes, it is easy to see why. Decade after decade, these were the dishes she fed her patrons, and they all remain as mouthwatering today as when Cleora was in the kitchen. Gourmet magazine named it the best cookbook of 1986, and it is justly considered a true American gem.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice A. Ojakangas (Little, Brown and Company, 1988)

• Gray’s Wild Game Cookbook by Rebecca Gray, Cintra Reeve (Gray’s Sporting Journal, 1983)

• Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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I grew up in northern Virginia where we were blessed with four fairly evenly divided seasons. My exposure to New England was always in the summer, so it wasn’t until I moved here in the mid-80’s - first to New Hampshire, then to Vermont - that I got to know and love the other parts of the year. True winter, stick season, mud season and blink-’n-you’ll-miss-it spring were interesting, but the seasonal food was a revelation. In her regional cookbooks, this week’s author celebrates those dishes and makes them accessible to everyone.

:: Author! Author! ::

Sarah Leah Chase

Born and raised in New England, Sarah did not have a plan to become a cookbook author. In the 1980’s she ran a specialty food store on Nantucket called Que Sera Sarah, but it was an unexpected encounter with Sheila Lukins (from Manhattan’s Silver Palate) that altered the course of her life. In the winter of 1983, she moved to New York City and began work as a recipe tester for Lukins and Julee Rosso, co-authors of The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook (1985). Sarah ended up contributing so much to the book that they gave her co-author status.

That was the inspiration she needed to write her first solo publication, Nantucket Open-House Cookbook (1987), based on the recipes in her shop. She followed that in 1990 with Cold-Weather Cooking and then collaborated with her brother, chef Jonathon Chase, on Saltwater Seasonings: Good Food from Coastal Maine (1992).

An avid bicyclist, she conducted annual luxury trips for a Canadian travel company. At the urging of her publisher, her next two cookbooks, Pedaling through Burgundy and Pedaling through Provence, were released in 1995 as culinary travelogues based on her experiences in those two provinces. That same year she married and, in 1999, the family moved to Barnstable while Sarah put her writing career on hold.

In 2010, she began research and recipe development for her most recent publication, New England Open-House Cookbook (2015). Currently, she writes a weekly food column for Nantucket’s Inquirer and Mirror newspaper, and serves as a recipe consultant to Ina Garten. She and her husband, Nigel, also own Coastal Goods, a company that specializes in gourmet seasoning blends offered through their Seasoned Pantry website.

Significant publications:

• Nantucket Open-House Cookbook (1987)

• Cold-Weather Cooking (1990)

• Saltwater Seasonings: Good Food from Coastal Maine (1992)

• New England Open-House Cookbook (2015)

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:: From the Vault ::

Has it really been 53 years since this delightful tip-toe through the garden began proffering meatless meals to home kitchens across the country? Much has changed in America over the ensuing years, but it’s fun to revisit original sources, particularly when they are as useful and tasty as this.

The Vegetarian Epicure (1972)

By Anna Thomas

If you are looking for vegetarian cookbooks, today’s shelves are weighted down with fabulous mainstream works from the likes of Deborah Madison, Mark Bittman, Yotam Ottolenghi, Deb Perelman, Susie Middleton, Travis Lett and a whole host of chefs and authors who have embraced the ethic. But back in the dim mists of time, long before the world could envision a Whole Foods Market (let alone a chain of 450 nationwide) and organic was still just a word used in chemistry classes, vegetarian food was appropriated by the 60’s counterculture, becoming synonymous with tofu, brown rice and other inedible forms of Styrofoam. While it might have been groovy to hang with Zap and Moonstar at the commune, smokin’ weed and listening to Jimmy and Janice, you sure didn’t want to stay through dinner. Even the munchies weren’t enough to make it palatable.

And then things changed. In 1975, Mo Willett published Vegetarian Gothic and in 1977 Mollie Katzen wrote the legendary Moosewood Cookbook. But back in 1972, Anna Thomas had penned The Vegetarian Epicure while still a film school student at UCLA, and we can all point to that moment as the birth of the Ur text from whence the rest have tumbled.

I’m taking liberties, of course, by making fun of the origins of modern vegetarian cuisine, but I feel entitled having lived through the 60’s and, improbably, remember the occasional meal of stone soup and rice cakes. In reality, though I am not a vegetarian (nor lactose-intolerant nor seeking gluten-free anything), I have always had a robust interest in all vegetables (except for parsnips… no parsnips) and, not infrequently, find myself fixing a meal comprised of nothing else… because they taste good. The recipes in Epicure absolutely hold up to this day, and we can all thank Anna Thomas for showing the world there was a another way. (Lest we forget, she published a second volume in 1978, The Vegetarian Epicure - Book 2, and it is just as good.)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a total N’Awlins freak with bookcases of credentials to back that up. I will contend that there is no more food-savvy populace in the country, which goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many amazing restaurants in a, relatively, small city. It is also a very difficult place to succeed with a new restaurant as the bar is set so high, and that same discerning citizenry does not suffer culinary fools gladly. What they welcome with open arms (and a perceptive palate) is authenticity in the dining room and aptitude in the kitchen … and that’s what this next selection is all about.

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table (2008)

By Sara Roahen

There are a few places in the world that speak directly to my soul, and New Orleans has always been at the top of that short list. When people ask me to explain what it is that attracts me so, I’m never satisfied with my descriptions. They seem too specific or too nebulous; too hyperbolic or too mundane. When I hear myself, I am unconvinced that I’ve done much more than babble, and can’t imagine that I’ve managed to convince anyone that I’m not just a little tech’d in the head (as in “that boy just ain’t right.”)

From the first sentence on the first page, I knew that Sara Roahen would understand me because she has written a book that speaks to my experiences, seemingly by having shadowed me for years. And I never saw her standing there.

Each of the fifteen chapters captures the experience of discovering the culinary zeitgeist of the city from the perspective of one who begins as an outsider yet is totally open to surmounting that ancestral oversight. It speaks to me as a born again New Orleanean, but the beautiful observations and heartfelt descriptions of everyday life in this parallel universe will resonate with anyone who values a life enhanced by an appreciation of the table.

This is what I have been trying to say for years, and she has done it effortlessly. I am in awe.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Summer Food by Judith Olney (Atheneum, 1978)

• Cookery the Australian Way by Shirley Cameron, Suzanne Russell, Winifred Williams (Macmillan, 1987)

• The Antipasto Table by Michele Scicolone (William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1991)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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This week’s first author holds a very special place in my heart. Though I grew up surrounded by cookbooks (my mother began collecting years before me), it wasn’t until I graduated from college and moved to New Orleans that I was exposed to world-class chefs in person. This author was my first “kitchen crush” and I fell hard. I followed his cooking closely, and it informs my own to this day. I do miss him so.

:: Author! Author! ::

Austin Leslie (1934 - 2005)

Austin was one of the most beloved culinary figures in New Orleans, whose passing in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was universally mourned. Born in 1934, he began working in high school at Portia’s Fountain on Rampart Street under Chef Bill Turner where he learned to cook many of the dishes for which he would become famous.

In 1964, his Aunt Helen opened the legendary Chez Helene, and he went to work as the full-time chef. The restaurant’s menu offered both haute creole dishes and down-home items with the former being positively compared to those of the classic grand restaurants such as Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Brennan’s and Commander’s Palace. New Orleanians know their food and Austin became a major star in the local firmament from the modest neighborhood dining room. A number of his signature dishes remain untouchable in local memory including the transcendent Fried Chicken with Dill Pickle, Potato Salad and Stuffed Peppers. His Creole Bread Pudding with Vanilla Whiskey Sauce was the stuff of culinary dreams, while the Smothered Cabbage with Pig Tails, his Fried Chicken Livers and ethereal Mustard Greens should never be forgotten. In 1984, he published his first cookbook, Chez Helene: New Orleans House of Good Food, which has become highly collectable.

The North Robertson neighborhood where the restaurant was located gradually became unsafe, causing a drop in business. Though Austin, who had become the sole owner in 1975 when his aunt retired, moved the restaurant to the French Quarter, much of the charm of the original location was lost, and he eventually closed Chez Helene in 1995.

His subsequent endeavors included stints in Denmark, as well as a couple other restaurants in New Orleans, most notably Jacque-Imo’s, all while continuing to burnish his reputation with ecstatic guests. In 2000, he published Austin Leslie’s Creole-Soul: New Orleans’ Cooking with a Soulful Twist.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he was forced to take refuge in the attic of his home. He was rescued from the roof after two days in 98 degree heat and humidity, and evacuated briefly to Arkansas, then finally to Atlanta. Several days later, he was admitted to a hospital with a high fever, and died the following day from a heart attack at the age of 71.

Anyone who knew him will always remember his trademark captain’s cap and great big smile, as well as the well-earned moniker of The Godfather of Fried Chicken.

Significant publications:

• Chez Helene: New Orleans House of Good Food (1984)

• Austin Leslie’s Creole-Soul: New Orleans’ Cooking with a Soulful Twist (2000)

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:: From My Shelves ::

There are gifted authors who write beautiful memoirs, and then there are a few who do so using food as a prism to parse their lives into a series of courses suffused with color and clarity. Molly is one of those rare individuals, freely sharing her feast.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table (2009)

By Molly Wizenberg

M.F.K. Fisher left some very big shoes to fill when it comes to culinary writing. Her sharp intellect, natural curiosity, joie de vie and pleasure in food were all expressed with superb writing skills So it should not be taken as a casual observation when literary critics and other authors in the genre make that comparison with Molly Wizenberg’s writing, or when they liken her approach to that of Gourmet magazine doyenne Ruth Reichl. Hi praise, indeed.

Molly keeps busy with the weekly blog she began in 2004, Orangette (2015 James Beard Foundation winner), and the weekly podcast Spilled Milk with partner-in-food-crime Matthew Amster-Burton. She is also co-owner with her ex-husband of two restaurants in Seattle, Delancy and Essex. A Homemade Life was her first book. It quickly became a New York Times bestseller, as has her second, Delancy: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage, which examines the experience of entering the restaurant business and its effect on her marriage.

A Homemade Life is a coming-of-age story as the author comes to grips with the death of her father by moving to Paris, site of a previous trip with him that had left wonderful impressions. Throughout the course of the book, she discovers that food plays a much more central role in her life than she had previously imagined, finally eschewing graduate school in favor of writing about her favorite subject. Clearly, she made the right decision, and we are all the beneficiaries.

Her beautifully lyrical essays on life, family and food are a true joy. Reading the stories in a single sitting is akin to binge-watching a full season of your favorite program - just one more until you’ve reached the end and now there aren’t any more. Aargh!

And then there are the recipes. Yes, there are several dozen skillfully woven into the narrative which will make you pause after each to decide whether to make it right now or wait until the end of the next story. Just one more…

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:: My Favorite Things ::

I hadn’t expected to enjoy this book as much as I did - I’m not a big griller or smoker, and I don’t have a rig in my backyard for outdoor gatherings - but I was pulled in as much by the personality of the author as by the food. It remains to be seen, but there just might be a Traeger in my future.

Taming the Feast: Ben Ford’s Field Guide to Adventurous Cooking (2014)

By Ben Ford

When you are preparing to entertain a crowd, sometimes you just gotta go big. And what better way to tackle a feast than grilling everything that isn’t nailed down, which just happens to be chef Ben Ford’s specialty. This is outdoor cooking for the enthusiast who wants to Barbecue with a capital B.

But you don’t have to be planning a block party or an alumni reunion to find this wonderful book useful.

Yes, there are instructions for constructing your own welded cooking shed, clambake barrel, cinder block pit oven or 8’ by 4’ rolling roasting box, but in between the whole pigs and planked sturgeons are recipes for tasty salads, side dishes, drinks, desserts and all the other accoutrements that will make perfect sense for your next backyard Q.

Widely respected as the force behind Ford’s Filling Station, a gastropub in Culver City, Chef Ford is even better known for the events he and his team cater around Los Angeles. The fun and excitement of those dining adventures comes across here loud and clear, and will have you searching for any excuse to invite friends over for an outdoor gathering.

Fun Fact - Ben is Harrison’s son. The charm and work ethic apples did not fall far from the tree.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Great British Puddings by Mary Smith, Debbie Smith (Pavilion Books Limited, 1996)

• Sherry and Port by H. Warner Allen (Constable and Company, Ltd., 1952)

• La France Gastronomique by Anne Willan (Arcade Publishing, 1991)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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In America, one name will quickly come to mind when Indian food is mentioned, and that is this week’s author. I wanted to highlight her for a couple of reasons. One is to bring her remarkable story into view. If you are only aware of her as a cookbook author, you are missing an equally important part of her life. Secondly, I wanted to highlight her most significant works as she has been prolific and, if you are looking to explore the cuisine, it can be daunting to know a good place to begin.

:: Author! Author! ::

M. Madhur Jaffrey

This author of 30+ cookbooks is generally considered to be the doyen of Indian cookery writers, yet while growing up this hardly appeared to be the career path her life would follow. Born in 1933 in Delhi into a prosperous family, she virtually never set foot in a kitchen before moving to London in 1955 to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art… and even then it was only in reaction to the dismal state of British food and Indian restaurants. In desperation, she asked her mother to send her recipes for the food on which she had grown up and she began to teach herself to follow them.

In 1958, she moved to New York City, continuing to act in theater, primarily in Off-Broadway productions. That same year, she met Ismail Merchant who had just arrived from Bombay to attend New York University. In 1959, she introduced him to James Ivory and she subsequently appeared in a number of their films.

In 1966, an article appeared in The New York Times describing her as “the actress who could cook” which lead to a contract for her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973), with Judith Jones at Alfred A. Knopf as her editor. The book was an immediate success and she began teaching classes in Indian cooking at the James A. Beard School of Cooking and in her Manhattan apartment throughout the 1970’s. In 1982, she hosted a cooking program for the BBC, Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, followed by two more series in 1989 and 1995.

For 50 years, Madhur has been publishing cookbooks on every aspect of Indian cuisine. Several of her most notable titles include Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavors of India (1995) Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (1999) and From Curries to Kebabs (2003). Seven of her books have won James Beard Foundation Awards and, in 2004, she was named an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Throughout this time, she remained active as an actress on both stage and screen though, at the age of 90, she has now retired from that aspect of her career.

Significant publications:

· An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973)

· Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavors of India (1995)

· Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (1999)

· From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail (2003)

· At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (2010)

======================================

:: Below the Radar ::

This next author played a key role in the British culinary revolution in the 90’s, skillfully bridging the gap between centuries of traditional agrarian practices and the interests of contemporary palates. His career is proof that, sometimes, it takes an outsider to light new pathways.

Fergus Henderson

Though lacking any formal training and never having staged under any chef, Fergus opened the award winning St. John restaurant in London in 1994 with his wife, Margot, and business partner Trevor Gulliver. The menu reflects his philosophy of nose-to-tail cuisine making full use of the whole animal. Though the menu changes daily, one dish is consistently available - Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad. The restaurant received its first Michelin star in 2009.

While Fergus’ kitchen skills are widely respected by his peers within the global culinary industry, it is through his cookbooks that he is best known internationally amongst home cooks. His first book published in 1999, Nose-to-Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, examined offal in depth and provided recipes addressing all parts of an animal. A second volume, Beyond Nose-to-Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook, was released in 2007 and, in 2012, he combined and expanded the two into a single release, The Complete Nose-to-Tail.

His most recent work, The Book of St. John (2020), celebrates the 25th anniversary of the restaurant with a look back on his path to success and features the most popular dishes, menus and wine recommendations.

In 1998, Fergus was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease for which he underwent innovative treatments that helped to improve his mobility, enabling him to remain active to the present day. In 2005, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and, in 2021, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Significant publications:

• Nose-to-Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking (1999)

• Beyond Nose-to-Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook (2007)

  • Above two titles combined and released as The Complete Nose-to-Tail (2012)

• The Book of St. John * (2019)

* Note - I do not (yet) own a copy

======================================

:: A Recommendation ::

The Cookbook Kitchen from Mark Thomas

Every now and then, I am introduced to a Substack that really resonates with me. It could be the approach – perhaps a twist on something familiar; it might be the photography or the layout of the posts; or possibly the writing – presenting stories I need to read in a distinctive voice that I need to hear. In this case it turns out to be all of these, and that makes me really happy. Those are all the same things I look for in an inviting cookbook.

The Cookbook Kitchen is a platform for the author, Mark Thomas, to create a community about all things cookbook from his home in Devon in the southwest of England. In his own words “… it’s a warm, curious space for people who love food, cookbooks, good stories and the joy of gathering around a table.”

Mark’s diverse offerings include a Cook the Book Club for testing and discussing recipes from a selected title, Cook the World - an exploration of international countries and cultures through books and recipes, The Kitchen Table - a monthly summary of cookbook recommendations, reviews and food related activities, which is also home to Kitchen Table Talk – Mark’s podcast series of interviews with authors, recipe developers and other creative folks in the food world. That’s a lot to manage, but he does it with the charming ease of a true cookbook aficionado.

I’m looking forward to following the conversation. I can’t wait to see where it goes, but I’m certain it will be tasty.

======================================

:: My Favorite Things ::

Having lived in New Orleans (and considering it my spiritual home), I will admit to being more attuned to Creole cuisine than Cajun, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still love it. I do, and I also love reading about it. This book makes me happy.

In a Cajun Kitchen (2007)

By Terri Pischoff Wuerthner

Welcome to the heart of Cajun Country. Concentrated around a half dozen or so parishes in Southern Louisiana, Cajun culture is at the core of one of the most unique and vibrant cuisines in America. With its roots extending to France, Quebec and the Canary Islands mixed with influences from Germany, Africa and Native Americans, the culinary hallmarks are sustained by the indigenous bounty of the land, sea and bayous. At its core, this is a family oriented foodscape, and the most successful and authentic representations are those that come in the form of domestic memoirs.

Two centuries of heirloom recipes are interwoven with tales from nearly a dozen generations of family experiences resulting in a genuine classic that you can turn to time and time again in your own home. Pull up a chair and join the Wuerthner’s at their kitchen table. Everyone will be happy you came.

By the way, I have a LOT of Creole and Cajun cookbooks and I’m not saying this is the best of the bunch, but it is an enjoyable read, the recipes are true and it makes me want to come visit. There’s not a whole lot more to ask.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• French Bouquet - An Epicurean Tour of the French Provinces by Samuel & Narcissa Chamberlain (Gourmet, 1952)

• Italian Bouquet - An Epicurean Tour of Italy by Samuel & Narcissa Chamberlain (Gourmet, 1958)

• British Bouquet - An Epicurean Tour of Britain by Samuel & Narcissa Chamberlain (Gourmet, 1963)

======================================

I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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For this week, I want to do something special to honor the American semiquincentennial which is the 250th anniversary of the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence. While I’m not going that far back on the trail of cookbook lore, I do want to take a look at a timeline of interrelated authors and books that begins in 1872 in Boston and continues to this day with a book everyone knows.

:: Cookbook History 101 ::

During the Revolutionary War in the 1770’s, Boston was a pivotal location for events that sparked the rebellion, changed public opinion and galvanized the resolve of the other colonies to demand independence. One hundred years later, a second series of events ignited a cookbook revolution that eventually spread throughout the country.

One of the things I find most interesting is the sequential relationship of seven women who each played an important role in this transformation.

• Maria Parloa (1843 -1909)

Though little is known about her early life in Massachusetts, by the early 1870’s she had considerable experience as a cook in private homes and hotels around New England. In 1872, she published her first cookbook, The Appledore Cook Book, based on her work at the eponymous hotel on Appledore Island, Maine. After obtaining her teaching certificate, she opened Miss Parloa’s School of Cooking in 1877 in Boston. Two years later, the famous Boston Cooking School was founded and she was engaged to offer lectures there, as well.

In 1882, she relocated her school to New York City where she enjoyed great success while continuing to publish additional books. In 1887, she returned to Boston where her fame as, arguably, the country’s first celebrity cook, enabled her to endorse various food products. She was also recognized as an early and important figure in the “domestic science” (home economics) movement in the U.S., as well as Britain, France and Germany.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

• Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln (1844 - 1921)

Born and educated in southern Massachusetts, Mrs. Lincoln lived with her husband in Boston until his ill-health necessitated her entry into domestic service. In 1879 she was invited to be the inaugural teacher at the newly opened Boston Cooking School. Though she initially declined that offer, she did attend the school and the lectures by Maria Parloa. Later that year, she joined the staff as a teacher, eventually becoming the school’s first principal.

In 1883, she wrote Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book for use by her students, and In 1887, at the request of the Boston Public School system, she wrote Boston School Kitchen Text-Book. Both books, among the first to address the nutritional basis of food preparation, would become the foundation of cooking education in America for decades.

Though Mrs. Lincoln resigned from the school in 1885 following the death of her sister, she remained very active in culinary matters, writing books, periodicals and advertising pamphlets for various food and equipment products. She also founded her own company, Mrs. Lincoln’s Baking Powder Company of Boston.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

• Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857 - 1915)

Born in Boston, MA, Fannie suffered a debilitating stroke in 1873 at the age of 16. This prevented her from walking, necessitating she remain under the care of her parents at home. In 1887. she enrolled in the Boston Cooking School. After graduating 2 years later at the top of her class, she joined the administration and became school principal in 1891.

In 1896, she revised and expanded Mrs. Lincoln’s original 1883 cookbook, retitling it The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. In her new version, she provided scientific explanations of the chemical processes in cooking and, most notably, introduced and helped standardize the system of level measurements, subsequently adopted nationwide.

She left the school in 1902 when it became part of Simmons College and founded Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. Over the next 13 years, she published an additional seven cookbooks, as well as a second edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1906. In 1908, she began teaching a course at Harvard on dietary preparations with a focus on the sick and convalescent, and in 1912, published A New Book of Cookery which she had envisioned as a sequel.

Fannie passed away in 1915 at the age of 57 due to complications from a stroke, but it was her original publication that caught the attention of the country and it was destined to become one of the all-time best-selling cookbooks with multiple editions, revisions and reprintings.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

• Mary Farmer (1867 - 1916) / Cora Farmer Perkins (1861 - 1929)

Following Fannie’s death, publication responsibilities fell upon her sister Mary, who had been working closely with her on edits to the 3rd edition, destined to be released in 1918. Sadly, Mary passed away in 1916 and editing duties were assumed by another sister, Cora Farmer Perkins, who devoted her attention to the 3rd, 4th and 5th editions until her own death in 1929.

During this thirteen year period, the scope of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book continued to increase along with the page and recipe counts. Accommodations were made for rationing in World War I, while sections were added in recognition of the growing awareness of American regional cuisines and the influence of immigration. Additionally, Cora appended the contents of Fannie’s New Book of Cookery into the 1923 4th edition.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

• Wilma Lord Perkins (1897 - 1976)

Born in 1897, Wilma was Fannie’s niece by marriage to Cora’s son Herbert. The family copyright and editing duties fell to her after assisting Cora on the 5th edition and, in 1930, she became the sole editor for the next six editions and numerous printings. As a side project in 1942, she compiled an introductory title for children aged ten and above, The Fannie Farmer Junior Cook Book, consisting of recipes with a moderate number of ingredients and using limited utensils.

In 1946, the title on the 8th edition was changed to Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book. Further changes over the next 20 years included the addition of the words “New” and “All New”, until the 11th edition in 1965 (the so-called controversial release) when the title became the one familiar to most of us, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Wilma’s guiding principle in expanding the book was always to maintain the relevance of recipes to home cooks as Fannie had done.

The “controversy” erupted when well-known food writer and critic Michael Field took exception to the ingredients and instructions for several recipes, blaming Wilma for these shortcomings and declaring that the last dependable edition was the 4th from 1923. The argument devolved into a war of words between Mr. Field and Wilma’s publisher, Little, Brown & Co., but seems to have had scant effect on dampening sales.

Following Wilma’s death in 1976, responsibility for future editions was transferred to publisher Alfred A. Knopf under the direction of the legendary editor Judith Jones.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

• Marion Cunningham (1922 - 2012)

Born in 1922 in Los Angeles, this genuine American culinary icon did not begin the career for which she is famous until 1972 when she took a cooking class from James Beard. Immediately recognizing her innate talent, he hired her as his assistant and, for the next 11 years, she ran cooking classes with him in the San Francisco Bay Area and other locations around the country.

At his recommendation, she was selected by Judith Jones to rewrite The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, becoming the first non-family member so entrusted. Marion published her new edition in 1979 (the 12th) and revised it again in 1990 (the 13th). Fastidious in testing, she was always careful to preserve the best of the traditional entries, updating them when necessary for contemporary audiences. She also restored a number of recipes from older versions that had been removed as practices and tastes had changed over the years. (Home bread baking was back!).

Marion authored several additional cookbooks to universal acclaim including The Fannie Farmer Baking Book (1984). In 1993, Marion received the Grand Dame award from Les Dames d’Escoffier and, in 2003, the most fitting of all, The James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award. Throughout her career, she befriended and mentored an entire generation of young chefs who would be responsible for ushering in the ‘fresh & local’ evolution of American cuisine.

During the last couple of years of her life, Marion suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, passing away near her home in Walnut Creek, CA in 2012 at the age of 90.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

In 1996, an Anniversary release of the 13th edition was published on the centenary of Fannie’s update of Ms. Lincoln’s original cookbook. Throughout all of its incarnations, it has remained one of only a handful of cookery bibles found on the kitchen shelves in millions of American homes… emanating from a Boston revolution.

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:: From My Shelves ::

This next authors’ first book may have been right on-message with cookbooks from Sharon Cadwallader (Whole Earth), Anna Thomas (Vegetarian Epicure) and Alice May Brock (Alice’s Restaurant) (and barely a year after the first dinner was served at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse), but the intended audience was quite different. Her target was your Mom’s kitchen rather than the local commune, and the memo was received.

Perla Meyers

Right from her first publication, 1973’s The Seasonal Kitchen: A Return to Fresh Foods, Perla has been well ahead of the American culinary zeitgeist as an advocate for natural, local and seasonal foods. The following year, the James Beard Foundation recognized that publication with its award for Outstanding First Cookbook and she also received three Tastemaker Awards. (Fun fact: the cover features a photograph of Perla, marking the first time an author appeared on the cover of a cookbook.)

Born in Vienna and raised in Barcelona, she lived in France and Germany before finally moving to the US. While attending interpreter school in Geneva she began taking cooking courses at the Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, followed by the Cordon Bleu in Paris and staging at Vienna’s Hotel Sacher. When she moved to Manhattan in the late 60’s, she was ready to open a restaurant, but that was a difficult prospect for a woman at that time. Instead, she opened a cooking school - The International Kitchen - which she ran for 20+ years before it was acquired by Macy’s.

Other notable cookbooks she authored include The Peasant Kitchen (1975), The Art of Seasonal Cooking (1991) [JBF nominee for best General cookbook], Spur of the Moment Cook (1994) [JBF nominee for best General Interest cookbook] and her 2004 work How to Peel a Peach: And 1001 Other Things Every Good Cook Needs to Know.

Though she has now retired from writing and teaching, her place in the American canon is firmly established as both the quintessential teacher and a founding member of the local foods movement.

Significant publications:

• The Seasonal Kitchen: A Return to Fresh Foods (1973)

• The Peasant Kitchen (1975)

• The Art of Seasonal Cooking (1991)

• Spur of the Moment Cook (1994)

• How to Peel a Peach: And 1001 Other Things Every Good Cook Needs to Know (2004)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Over the years, various books on Southwestern cuisine have gathered their own following - the Sunset Kitchen Cabinet Recipes Vol 1-3 (1939-1943) from Sunset Magazine, A Taste of Texas (1949) by Jane Trahey, The Wide, Wide World of Texas Cooking (1970) by Morton G Clark, even The Southwestern Cookbook from Southern Living - but this was the first to reach a large, nationwide audience, and it remains one of my favorites.

Jane Butel’s Tex-Mex Cookbook (1980)

By Jane Butel

Jane Butel is frequently credited with creating the nation’s interest in Southwestern and New Mexican cuisine. Written over a 10-year period, The Tex-Mex Cookbook caught the public’s attention when it was first published in 1980 shortly after she founded the Pecos Valley Spice Co. and launched her Southwestern Cooking School with locations in New Mexico and Arizona.

While arguments persist over the “purity” of her Tex-Mex recipes, there is no disagreement with just how delicious they are. Her cooking school expertise shines through in the clear, easy to follow directions and the tips and recommendations scattered throughout. Jane has subsequently published over 20 more cookbooks on Southwestern cuisine but her first remains an excellent go-to source when the call of the spice strikes.

Time has not slowed her down as, today at the age of 88, she continues to offer online cooking courses and lead culinary tours to Mexico including one later this summer in Oaxaca.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Chatelaine Cookbook by Elaine Collett (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965)

• Burma Superstar by Desmond Tan (Ten Speed Press, 2017)

• The Food of Southern Thailand by Austin Bush (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024)

======================================

I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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Writing about the following author might seem to be a bit outside the mission I’ve stated for this Substack. Her name is easily recognized, her books remain in print and at least her two most recent titles are readily available in bookstores. She is not in danger of being forgotten, so why include her here? I’m doing so because I don’t think that most who are familiar with her work will be aware of the backstory of her life that lead to her notoriety. While I certainly can’t cover it all here, I am hoping to prompt you to dig a little deeper into the grand dame of Mexican cooking. It is a fascinating journey.

Author! Author!

Diana Kennedy (1923 - 2022)

It is somewhat disconcerting to note that the preeminent authority on Mexican cuisine did not publish her first cookbook on the subject until 1972 at the age of 49, but she certainly packed a lifetime’s worth of writing and teaching into the following 50 years. Born in southeast England in 1923, she emigrated to Canada at the age of 30. In 1957, she met her husband, Paul, and they moved to Mexico. During the eight years they lived there, she became fascinated with the local and regional cuisines, documenting her findings as she researched the ingredients and dishes found in local villages, markets and homes.

The two moved to New York City in 1965 where, sadly, Paul succumbed to cancer the following year. With encouragement from Craig Claiborne, Diana began teaching cooking courses in her apartment, something she would continue to do for the rest of her life. In 1972, she published her first book, The Cuisines of Mexico, which became a best-seller and remains one of the most authoritative volumes on Mexican cooking. Four years later, she returned to Mexico, initially living in Mexico City, but in 1980 building a house in eastern Michoacán about three hours west of the capital that she used as home base for the remainder of her life.

Her travels for research took her throughout the country and lead to another seven cookbooks, most notably Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico (1978), My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More than 300 Recipes (1998) and her final publication, Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy (2010). Her work is credited with changing Americans’ perception of Mexican cuisine, but was equally appreciated within Mexico. She documented, not only the local food culture and techniques, but the loss of many traditional ingredients as the country gradually transitioned from a rural to a more urban society.

Diana also frequently traveled to other countries, particularly the U.S., giving lectures and cooking classes. In addition to her books, she starred in a 26-part television series on Mexican cooking for The Learning Channel. Though she was dismissive of the extent of her influence, always insisting on the importance of authenticity, many chefs in the American southwest credited her as the inspiration for their innovations in Tex-Mex cuisine.

In her later years, she was the recipient of numerous international awards including an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2002. She also received James Beard Foundation awards for three of her books and a Lifetime Achievement award from the International Association of Cooking Professionals (IACP) in 2003.

Diana passed away at her village home in 2022 at the age of 99.

Significant publications:

• The Cuisines of Mexico (1972)

• Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico (1978)

• My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More Than 300 Recipes (1998)

• From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients (2003)

• Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy (2010)

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From the Vault

Next up is an author who actually has been largely forgotten despite having enjoyed a lot of success in her adopted country, the U.S., in the 1940’s and 50’s. Tastes change, culture evolves and fame is, most often, fleeting. Nonetheless, her technical instruction remains accurate even if it lacks the warm fuzzies sought today.

Dione Lucas (1909 - 1971)

Before Julia Child, there was Dione Lucas (pronounced “dee-OH-nee“). Born to English parents in 1909 in Venice, she moved with her family moved to a suburb of Paris in 1920. At the age of 19, she enrolled in L’Ecole de Cordon Bleu and studied under Henri-Paul Pellaprat, becoming the first woman to earn the Grand Diplome.

While at school, she became friends with fellow student Rosemary Hume and, in 1931, the two established a restaurant and cooking school in London, L’Ecole du Petit Cordon Bleu, as an official branch. They enjoyed considerable success as Rosemary ran the restaurant while Dione conducted classes. In 1936 they published their first cookbook, au Petit Cordon Bleu.

Dione had married architect Colin Lucas in 1930 and they had two sons. In 1940 following the start of World War II, Dione moved to Canada with the children while Colin remained in Britain to aid in the war. The separation eventually led to a divorce. Though the war caused closure of the school, it reopened in 1945 when Constance Spry joined Rosemary as a co-owner. The pair would later publish The Constance Spry Cookery Book, which became one of the most successful British cookbooks of all time.

In 1941, Dione moved again to New York City where she would eventually open Le Cordon Bleu school, which became a great success and attracted many high-profile students. In 1947, she published The Cordon Bleu Cook Book and debuted a cooking show, To a Queen’s Taste, broadcast from the school. The following year, CBS picked up the show and moved it to their studios, providing her with a national audience as she became the face of French cuisine to America. The program aired five days a week ending in 1949.

In the 1950’s, Dione opened a second school, The Gourmet Cooking School, and two restaurants in New York where she specialized in cooking endless variations of omelets, a preparation that was still new to Americans. In 1953, she also hosted another television program for the local market, The Dione Lucas Show, and in 1964 she published The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook.

Suffering from cancer, she was receiving therapy in London when she passed away from pneumonia in 1971 at the age of 61. In 1980, The Cordon Bleu Cook Book was entered into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame.

Dione’s legacy has largely suffered from a combination of cultural impediments. While technically brilliant, she did not possess a warm and friendly personality, something that Americans look for in their culinary stars. The 1960’s were a time of change across all facets of society and, in the cooking world, Julia Child arrived on the scene with Mastering the Art of French Cooking and nothing remained the same. Where Dione emphasized the importance of classical French technique and focused on “dinner party” fare, Julia’s relaxed presentation relied on the same techniques but approached dishes from the perspective of home cooks and their relatable aspirations. One seemed passe while the other was fresh and exciting. Dione’s books remain valid for use today but, as with her legacy, have fallen out of favor behind a curtain of cultural transformation.

Significant publications:

• au Petit Cordon Bleu (1936) [w/Rosemary Hume]

  • Note - 1964 edition cover image above

• The Cordon Bleu Cook Book (1947)

• The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook (1964)

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My Favorite Things

When an author puts their lived experience on the page, it feels as if they’ve opened a door to their home and invited you in. This is one of those authors and he’s written one of those books. I grew up with a more-than-passing familiarity with this regional cuisine but, even if I hadn’t, this work would more than make up for it. There are other cookbooks that go deeper into various sub-genres, but this one will comfortably put a distinctive part of the nation’s culinary legacy into your kitchen.

Hoppin’ John’s Low Country Cooking (1992)

By John Martin Taylor

Whilst one of the hallmarks of American cooking is the abundance of regional cuisines, some are more well-defined and geographically specific than others. One of the most unique and undiluted of these culinary cultures is alive and well in Carolina Low Country, a roughly 8,000 square mile portion of South Carolina bounded by the Atlantic coast to the east, the Savanah and Pee Dee rivers, north and south respectively, and, 80 miles inland, the Piedmont plateau to the west. The coastal jewel around which all of this is centered is Charleston, while the shared heritage is a mix of European, African and West Indian, mixed with Sephardic and Mediterranean influences. Ground zero for American slavery gave rise to the most intense expressions of Plantation culture, yet have also left a striking legacy in the Geechee population and the remnants of the Gullah language.

The co-dependence of the Master/Slave relationship resulted in a cuisine found nowhere else in the country. Insular in its reliance on the local bounty, seafood and game are foundational elements supported by rice, corn, greens, legumes and root vegetables. Yet what truly differentiates much of Low Country cooking is the use of a wide array of condiments - pickles, relishes, chutneys and vinegars, sweet and savory sauces, local peppers, coconuts, okra, peaches, pears, grapes and blackberries - based on techniques and recipes stretching back across generations of experience in Western Africa.

Author Taylor has beautifully captured both the history and the essential flavors of the region in this engaging account of the cuisine that remains a vital part of the area’s culture. His personal style and clear directions make these recipes accessible by cooks everywhere.

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Recent Additions to My Collection

• The Frenchwoman’s Kitchen by Brigitte Tilleray (Cassell, 1990)

• Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book - Volume III by Fu Pei-Mei (T&S Industrial, 1979)

• My Life With Wine by Francis Lewis Gould (Private, 1972)

======================================

I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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Welcome to today’s selections from Cookbook Chronicles’ Culinary Archive, and thank you to all of the newest subscribers. I hope to repay your interest with some observations that will be worth your while.

This week, we begin with a British author that I almost put into my Below the Radar collection, but as I reflected on her publication history, I concluded that she is better known in the U.S. than I initially thought, and that her audience is as universal as her travels. Her popularity can also be attributed to the sheer beauty of her books, interspersing recipes with personal stories and lush photography. I always look forward to her next volume.

:: Author! Author! ::

Tessa Kiros

The following quote is a better introduction to Tessa than I could write, and it is in her own words:

I love travelling. Collecting things I love. Food. People. Colour. Smells. Fabrics. Details. Different cultures & traditions - why they do what they do & how they put their dishes together. How people, families & nations connect. And I love weaving these all together.

She may be describing her life, but it is also the perfect description of her cookbooks, now numbering eleven.

Born in London to a Finnish mother and Greek-Cypriot father, the family moved to South Africa when she was 4 years old providing an upbringing that clearly helped to shape her multi-cultural approach to life. At the age of 18, she left home and began to travel the world, exploring the nexus of cuisine and culture, working in restaurants and private homes, all while completing a degree in Anthropology & Sociology. During a visit to Italy, she met her husband, Giovanni, and they made that their home.

Her cookbooks reflect her journey’s, beginning with her first in 2003, Twelve: A Tuscan Cook Book, tracking seasonal dishes across the months in a year. In Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook (2007), she arranges recipes from Australia, Greece, Mexico and London into chapters grouped by color and in Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found (2008), she explores the culinary traditions of the country, tracing many of their origins to global influences during the Age of Discovery.

For her next book, Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes (2009), she collected personal dishes and the stories behind them from the branches of her family tree in Finland, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa and Italy. Then, continuing to write at a furious pace, three of her next four books focused on various aspects of Italian life, while the fourth, Food From Many Greek Kitchens (2011) delved into the traditional home foods of festivals and special occasions.

In her 2016 book, Provence to Pondicherry: Recipes from France and Faraway, Tessa begins by examining the Mediterranean roots of traditional Provincial cuisine, before following the journeys of the early French explorers to the Caribbean, India and Southeast Asia, tracing their influence on local ingredients and traditions. The story then winds back to the region of Normandy to explore why its cuisine is so different from that in the South of France. It is a fascinating account both as cultural study and cookbook.

It goes without saying that I am a big fan of her work and am always ready for the next journey wherever she is going. This is food writing as we always wanted it to be.

Significant publications:

• Twelve: A Tuscan Cook Book (2003)

• Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook (2007)

• Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found (2008

• Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes (2009)

• Food from Many Greek Kitchens (2011)

• Limoncello and Linen Water (2012)

• Provence to Pondicherry: Recipes from France and Faraway (2016)

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:: From the Vault ::

The 1950’s were a period of tremendous growth in so many aspects of life in post-war America - everything from middle-class neighborhoods and jobs to kitchen appliances and a new-found interest in aspirational dinning and social gatherings. This next author found herself at the forefront of popular culture during that decade and, though her books are seriously out of alignment with contemporary sensibilities, they remain fascinating time capsules of a generation within memory.

Poppy Cannon (1905 - 2075)

Born in 1905 in Cape Town, South Africa, she grew up in Pittsburgh following her parents’ immigration in 1908. Her culinary career included turns as food editor of the Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful and she authored a number of popular cookbooks.

In the 1950’s, Poppy’s writing promoted a reliance on canned and frozen foods, modern electric kitchen appliances and pre-made mixes of all sorts as the way for the contemporary housewife to create the image of glamorous and sophisticated gourmet meals as fast, and with as little effort, as possible. Her most notable books were The Can-Opener Cookbook (1952), The Bride’s Cookbook (1954) and The Frozen-Foods Cookbook (1964). As times changed, she periodically revisited her earlier books and updated them.

In retrospect, she was somewhat of a disruptor in both her personal and professional life. Among her four husbands were restauranteur Claude Philippe (the legendary Philippe of the Waldorf Astoria) and Walter White, president of the NAACP, the latter creating a scandal in that era being a high-profile interracial marriage. Though good friends with James Beard and Julia Child, she was an early and emphatic proponent of the convenience foods that were so prolific in the wake of World War II, something that put her at odds with the American culinary awakening beginning in the 60’s.

Most improbably, she formed a firm friendship with Alice B. Toklas and became the annotator of Alice’s second cookbook, Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present (1958), providing the introduction and comments. The disconnect between Poppy’s short-cut approach to cooking and Alice’s emphatically classical techniques was, shall we say, somewhat controversial. Their friendship survived, but was strained.

By the early 70’s, Poppy was in failing health and, in 1975, tragically fell to her death from the balcony of her apartment in New York City at the age of 69.

Significant publications:

• The Can-Opener Cookbook (1952)

• The Bride’s Cookbook* (1954)

• The Frozen-Foods Cookbook (1964)

• The Presidents’ Cookbook (1968)

* Note - I do not (yet) own a copy

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Elizabeth David’s culinary writing can comfortably be considered some of the absolute best during the second half of the 20th century. If you’re not familiar with it, this compendium is as good an introduction as you could find. And if it leads you to explore the source material, all the better.

At Elizabeth David’s Table (2011)

By Elizabeth David / compiled & edited by Jill Norman

Over the past 50 years, it has seemed as if roughly once each decade the American public has been on the cusp of discovering the brilliance of Elizabeth David’s work as new editions and compilations have been published to great acclaim. Mentor and inspiration to such culinary greats as James Beard, Julia Child, Molly O’Neill, Alice Waters, Richard Olney and on and on… she remains just out of sight in the modern arena. And yet, her influence is such that all five of her major works remain in print and are every bit as relevant today as they were when she was laying the foundation for the revolution that has swept through the worlds of American and British cuisine, and continues unabated.

Perhaps, this time will be the charm. Jill Norman, author of the Bantam Library of Culinary Arts and a James Beard award winner in her own right, has created a compendium of the best recipes from Elizabeth’s books woven together with essays and articles from throughout her writing career to deliver a wonderful introduction for the contemporary generation of home cooks. Yet, it will also appeal to those who have long been familiar with her publications by providing beautifully muted photographs of dishes, ingredients and locations which were absent from the originals.

This is a book to cherish and to turn to now and again for cooking inspiration, and the comfort of the well written word. The adulation is well deserved, and you do yourself a disservice if you remain unfamiliar with this culinary icon.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Yemenite Cookbook by Zion Levi, Hani Agabria (Seaver Books, 1988)

• Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book by Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln (Roberts Brothers, 1891)

• Boston School Kitchen Text-Book by Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln (Little, Brown and Company, 1899)

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Leave a comment

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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If Marcella Hazan can be considered the Queen of Italian cuisine in America (and I would say she can), then a strong argument can be made that this week’s author can be hailed as the King. A born teacher, he was equally adept at leading culinary tours, researching recipes and writing exceptionally usable cookbooks. Those books, by the way, are just as enjoyable to read as they are to follow in the kitchen.

:: Author! Author! ::

Giuliano Bugialli (1931 - 2019)

In 1977, four years after Marcella Hazan’s The Classic Italian Cook Book, Giuliano released his first publication, The Fine Art of Italian Cooking. Taken together, these two works were responsible for the popularization of authentic old-school Italian food in America. Born in Florence in 1931 to parents who both worked, he grew up learning to cook for the family with his grandmother and aunts as teachers. Following business studies at the universities of Florence and Rome, he worked as an Italian instructor for American college students.

By 1972 he had opened his first cooking school in Florence and, the following year, moved to Manhattan and opened another. During his life, he published a dozen cookbooks with a focus on various regions of Italy. As a culinary historian, his books were authoritative presentations based on meticulous research at the service of authenticity. Even so, they were far from being stuffy scholastic tomes in offering clear, relatable instructions and being filled with beautiful photography. Of particular note is Bugialli on Pasta (1988) which is, possibly, the most comprehensive guide on pasta preparation from every region of Italy.

Beyond his cookbooks, Giuliano’s greatest gift was teaching. When he wasn’t filming his cooking shows on PBS or demonstrating in cooking schools around Italy, he could be found offering classes in the spacious kitchens of his villa outside Florence.

In April of 2019, Giuliano passed away at the age of 88 leaving behind a bibliography that ensures his legacy for generations to come.

Significant publications:

• The Fine Art of Italian Cooking (1977)

• Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking (1982)

• The Foods of Italy (1984)

• Bugialli on Pasta (1988)

• Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Tuscany (1992)

• Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Sicily & Sardinia and the Smaller Islands (1996)

• Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Naples and Campania (2003)

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:: From the Vault ::

Based on her biography, this next author would not have been a likely candidate for cookbook author. And yet, when circumstances required adaptation, hidden talent emerged. While most of the contents of her books may be outdated today, it is worth remembering that she was striking a tone very much in sync with the times, and that earned her credibility and respect for her cooking and writing skills.

Mildred O. Knopf (1898 - 1991)

Mildred was born in 1898 in New York into a family of wealth, providing an opportunity for her to travel extensively while growing up, though not to spend any time in a kitchen. In 1926 she married Edwin H. Knopf, brother of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf and, following a sojourn in Italy, they returned to spend a couple of years in Baltimore while Edwin produced plays. In 1928, they moved to Los Angeles where Edwin worked as a producer, screenwriter and director in film and television until retiring in 1961. During these years, Mildred developed her much-admired cooking skills, a necessity in view of the extensive entertaining demanded by their social position.

It was Edwin who encouraged Mildred to compile a collection of her recipes, thus launching her career as a cookbook author. Her first publication was The Perfect Hostess Cook Book (1950) drawing upon her extensive experience entertaining in Hollywood. Her second book in 1959, Cook, My Darling Daughter, was designed as a tutorial for her daughter Wendy with each chapter beginning with a letter to her about cooking, followed by recipes. While many of the dishes are now dated, the book was popular in its day as a mother/daughter gift and remains a nostalgic time capsule.

Mildred wrote two cookbooks for children, Around the World (1966) and Around America (1969), but she is best remembered for her last work, Memoirs of a Cook: Yesterday and Today, published in 1986, five years before she passed away at the age of 93. As a legendary hostess, she was much admired for her cooking skills and the book intersperses recollections of memorable meals with the recipes behind them.

I should also note that Mildred and Edwin co-authored The Food of Italy and How to Prepare It (1964), a cookbook that drew its authenticity from Edwin’s extensive travels in the country and retains its relevance today.

Significant publications:

• The Perfect Hostess Cook Book (1950)

• Cook, My Darling Daughter (1959)

• The Food of Italy and How to Prepare It (1964)

• Memoirs of a Cook: Yesterday and Today (1986)

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:: My Favorite Things ::

As usual, I like to close the week by sharing one of my personal treasures in the hope it might become one of yours. From the moment I opened this book, I immediately connected to the story unfolding on page after page. In fact, I read it cover-to-cover on that first occasion, and I periodically return so I can relive the experience. This is the complete package and, even if you never cooked from it (and you should), the journey behind the recipes would make it totally worth your time.

Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean (2006)

By Ana Sortun

My copy of this book contains an inscription to me from Ana, chef at her magnificent Boston restaurant Oleana, that says in part “May this Inspire“. I am extremely happy to report that it did that, and so much more. In fact, this wonderful book played a role in the creation of this Substack. From the first moment I picked it up and read the opening line of the introduction, “What makes each country’s food taste unique?”, I was hooked.

The author describes her culinary education from beginning at her grandmother’s side on the family farm to working in a local Seattle restaurant, and on to staging at La Varenne in Paris. Returning to the US, she worked under a Tunisian chef at Aigo Bistro in Concord, and at Casablanca in Harvard Square. The chef at the latter sent her to travel through Turkey where her love of spices became a lifelong compulsion.

Organized around compatible and complimentary spice and herb groupings, the techniques for each recipe are listed in conversational detail as if Ana were standing beside you step-by-step along the way. And yet, it is the descriptions, the asides and the hints that tell the story of each dish and paint the larger picture of these flavor ingredients that illuminate the soul of the food. Reading this book for the first time, I realized that I wanted to share my knowledge of the great cookbooks I’ve collected for decades and, perhaps inspire a similar passion for culinary adventure and travel in others, much as Ana had inspired me.

I am indebted to her for having written such a beautiful book… and cannot miss an opportunity to give a shout out to her brother-in-law, Adam Kurth, whom I have known for many years during which we’ve shared a love of good food.

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Recent Additions to My Collection

• Glorious Food by Christopher Idone (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc., 1982)

• The Cuisine of Venice and Surrounding Northern Regions by Hedy Gusti-Lenham (Barron’s, 1978)

• Vino: The Wines and Winemakers of Italy by Burton Anderson (Little, Brown and Company, 1980)

======================================

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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Few culinary authorities were as respected in America as this next author, and it is important to keep her accomplishments from slipping out of the public’s memory. After all, the focus of her career was to preserve the traditions of Southern cuisine and provide visibility to them through her publications. I regret never having had the opportunity to meet her as I immediately felt a connection through her writing.

:: Author! Author! ::

Edna Lewis (1916 - 2006)

Universally recognized as the “mother of Southern cooking”, Edna was born in 1916 into a large family in the small farming settlement of Freetown, VA about 40 miles outside of Washington, DC. At 16, she left home and settled in Washington for several years before moving to New York City in the mid-1940’s. Initially, she worked as a seamstress, achieving success copying haute couture designs for members of high society. She also began hosting dinner parties for friends which lead in 1948 to a 5-year run helming the kitchen for the newly-opened Café Nicholson, which was to become a legendary gathering place for noted writers, artists and cultural celebrities.

Over the next 20 years, Edna variously opened (and closed) her own restaurant, ran a catering business, and taught cooking classes while devoting time to liberal political causes. With encouragement from Judith Jones, the legendary editor at Knopf, she collaborated with Evangeline Peterson (a NY socialite who had introduced her to Jones) on her first publication, The Edna Lewis Cookbook, in 1972. Though successful, Judith felt the book was lacking Edna’s voice and worked with her on her own to write The Taste of Country Cooking in 1976, the book that brought her wide recognition. (In 1979, Craig Claiborne named it as “the most entertaining regional cookbook in America.”)

In 1988, she wrote In Pursuit of Flavor, about the same time she founded the Society for the Revival and Preservation of Southern Food, a precursor to the Southern Foodways Alliance. Her focus was always on ensuring that the classic Southern dishes and the techniques involved in creating them would not be forgotten. Beginning in the 1990’s, Edna was the recipient of numerous culinary awards including being named the first James Beard Living Legend, as well as a Grande Dame by Les Dames d’Escoffier.

In 1990, she met Chef Scott Peacock who was employed at the time in the Georgia Governor’s Mansion, and the two formed a close working relationship, eventually collaborating on The Gift of Southern Cooking (2003). While Edna retired from cooking in 1995, she continued to work with Chef Peacock who became her caregiver until her death in 2006.

From very humble beginnings, Edna earned herself a well-deserved place among a handful of celebrated professionals at the pinnacle of American culinary history.

Significant publications:

• The Edna Lewis Cookbook (1972)

• The Taste of Country Cooking (1976)

• In Pursuit of Flavor (1988)

• The Gift of Southern Cooking (2003)

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:: From the Vault ::

While we typically think of James Beard as a solitary character, one of his closest relationships was with a food columnist and cookbook author who lived in California and to whom we can trace the rise of one of the most distinctive American culinary movements. Though not as well remembered today as many of her close friends, her influence on cooking and cookbook design more than qualifies her inclusion amongst the gastronomic stars.

Helen Evans Brown (1904 - 1964)

Born in Brooklyn in 1904, Helen was first attracted to a culinary lifestyle when she and a friend opened a catering business in the 1920’s, followed by a restaurant with her husband, Stephen Comstock, in New Haven, CT in the early 1930’s.

In 1936, she divorced and married Phillip Brown, and the two subsequently moved to Pasadena, CA. In the meantime, she had established a substantial reputation as a food writer and restaurant critic while authoring articles for House & Garden, Sunset and Woman’s Day throughout the 1940’s. Between 1946 and 1951 she published her first four cookbooks, but it was her classic West Coast Cook Book in 1952 that brought her national acclaim and recognition as the authority on what would eventually become known as “California cuisine”.

Her approach was revolutionary for the time, championing the use of local, fresh ingredients regardless of what was imported in the grocery store. Local, even backyard, sourcing brought attention to items such as avocados, cherimoyas, figs, guavas and loquats, and the use of cilantro and garlic for seasoning. She advocated for the use of farm-raised meat and locally caught fish, and used them in recipes that fused traditional American cuisine with immigrant cultural influences.

Her writing style also had a transformative effect on the structure of cookbooks with the incorporation of bibliographic references providing historical context and social significance to her recipes. It was this that first brought her to the attention of James Beard and helped to forge a close relationship that would last until her untimely death in 1964. The two wrote hundreds of letters to each other and visited as often as possible. They collaborated on The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery (1955), and Beard posthumously dedicated his American Cookery to her in 1972. Their correspondence was eventually published by Beard’s editor, John Ferrone, in Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles (1994).

Helen published six more cookbooks through the 1950’s while heading the cooking department at Sunset magazine and writing articles for Collier’s, the Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s and Woman’s Home Companion. In 1961, she fell ill during an extended research trip to Europe and was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease that developed into cancer. A final cookbook that was jointly written with her husband, Shrimp and Other Shellfish Recipes (1966), was published two years following her death at their home in Pasadena.

Helen’s circle of friends included Julia Child, Craig Clairborne, M.F.K. Fisher, Helen McCully, Chef Albert Stockli and dozens of other culinary notables, but it was her influence on cookbook design and West Coast regional cuisine that cemented her legacy.

Significant publications:

• Chafing Dish Book (1950)

• West Coast Cook Book (1952)

• The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery (1955) [w/James Beard]

• Breakfasts & Brunches for Every Occasion (1961)

• Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles (1994) [Compiled by John Ferrone]

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Though I’m not a vegetarian, my love for virtually all produce (OK, excepting parsnips) is enormous, and I am perfectly content to have meatless meals several nights a week. Amongst my several hundred books on the subject, this one has stood out for its accessibility and the inspiration it provides when I’m looking for something different from my usual selections.

V is for Vegetables (2011)

By Michael Anthony

In a very short time, this book has become one my favorites. Not only is it beautifully produced, but it absolutely rings true on every point. All too frequently, executive chefs from world famous restaurants (Anthony leads the team at Gramercy Tavern in NYC and, previously, Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills along the Hudson) can turn even the simplest kitchen preparation into a daunting sequence of tasks better suited to the attentions of their brigade de cuisine. So, what excites me here is the complete absence of pretense and a focus on recipes that can be easily managed by most home cooks while sacrificing nothing in maximizing flavor and presentation. That would describe just about the perfect cookbook and, in truth, that’s what this may be.

In collaboration with the brilliant Dorothy Kalins (founding editor of Saveur magazine), Chef Anthony has captured the character of his subjects listed from A to Z with captivating introductions, accessible ingredients, simple techniques, and clear directions for producing uncomplicated yet inspired dishes showcasing the essence of each. This is truly a book for keeping close at hand for a jolt of creativity. Pay attention to this wisdom. Cooking from this book will absolutely expand your kitchen repertoire.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Fish Game Cook Book by Harry Botsford (Cornell Maritime Press, 1947)

• An Invitation to Indian Cooking by M. Madhur Jaffrey (Alfred A. Knopf, 1973)

• The Vegetable Book by Terence Conran, Maria Kroll (Crescent Books, 1984)

======================================

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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Our first author this week was one of my earliest global influences when I began collecting cookbooks. I’ve had many more since then, but his curiosity paralleled my burgeoning interest in both foreign lands and their foodways just as I was starting to travel.

:: Author! Author! ::

Copeland Marks (1921 - 1999)

Born in Burlington, VT, in 1921, Copeland came to writing somewhat late in life but, starting at the age of 60 he published sixteen cookbooks between 1981 and 1999 on a wide variety of global cuisines that were relatively unknown to American kitchens.

Following a degree in agriculture from the University of Vermont and service in World War II, he joined the Foreign Service which provided frequent opportunities to travel the world, after which he opened an import-export business dealing in art works and textiles. During these years, he lived at various times in Mexico, Guatemala, India and South Africa before finally settling in New York.

A lifelong interest in global cuisine, and an endlessly curious nature, led to his first book, The Indonesian Kitchen (1981). This was quickly followed by investigations of cooking in Calcutta, Guatemala, the Himalayas, Malaysia, Korea, Burma and North Africa. His approach involved selecting a location and then spending a few weeks to several months traveling around the region and cooking with people in their homes. After returning to New York, he would find people from that locale and spend considerable time testing recipes with them.

At the time he was publishing, Copeland’s books reached an appreciative audience, but were also a source of some contention with food professionals. While acknowledging that his efforts brought valuable recognition to cultures and cuisines lacking prior exposure in the U.S., some questioned the depth of his scholarship, finding it often superficial. By contemporary standards, his books fall short in comparison with the later authoritative works of the Malouf’s, Alford & Dugiud or a host of other international authors; but, as he readily noted, he had never trained as an historian or anthropologist (or even a cook, for that matter) - it was his enthusiasm and sharp inquisitive mind that compelled his explorations. In today’s globally wired environment, authenticity can be debated and more easily vetted; but in retrospect, his bibliography is a remarkable achievement that amply rewards today’s food readers and home cooks.

Of his many works, two in particular deserve a shout out. False Tongues and Sunday Bread (1985) was the first serious exploration of contemporary Mayan cooking for a Western audience, reflecting influences from India, Africa, the Caribbean and Spain. His 1992 Sephardic Cooking, is generally recognized as his masterwork, delving into the 500-year old roots of the present day cuisine of Jewish communities in Greece, Calcutta, Libya, Turkey, the Caucasus and Northern Africa.

Copeland passed away in 1999 at the age of 78. At the time of his death, he was working on a book about the foods of the Senegalese coast. As far as I have been able to determine, it was never completed.

Significant publications:

• The Indonesian Kitchen (1981)

• False Tongues and Sunday Bread (1985)

• The Burmese Kitchen (1987)

• Sephardic Cooking (1992)

• The Exotic Kitchens of Peru (1999)

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:: Below the Radar ::

I am as fascinated by “what was” as I am by “what is” in the culinary landscape. This next author has built a career on exploring both aspects, and doing so with an enviable command of the English language. Though well known in Britain, her writing deserves greater visibility in the U.S.

Elisabeth Luard

Elisabeth’s compelling prose and her knowledge of European culinary history place her in rare company alongside Elisabeth David and Jane Grigson in the British pantheon of food writing. While her publications have not had the same landmark impact on contemporary English cuisine, her scholarly works and personal memoires have proven to be as popular in Great Britain as her international and single-subject cookbooks.

Born in 1942 in London, she lost her father to action in World War II not long afterwards. Her mother remarried a diplomat with posts in Latin America which is where she spent her early years, becoming fluent in Spanish (she already spoke English and French) while gaining plenty of exposure to the region’s culinary cultures. Summer holidays were spent in various European locales before attending finishing schools in Paris and Florence. She married in the early 60’s, four children quickly followed, and the family moved to a remote area of Andalusia where she began writing a cookery column for the British country lifestyle magazine “The Field”. Subsequently, she became, and has remained, a frequent contributor to numerous magazines and newspapers.

In 1984 she published her first book, The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cookery, which lead to her hosting a 13-part cookery series based on the title for Australian and British television. In 1992, she moved to a farmhouse in Wales where she spent the next 25 years writing prolifically on the food of France, Spain and Latin America, as well as two novels and four memoires-with-recipes. In 2017, she moved back to London where she has been working on reissuing updated editions of some of her earlier works, as well as drafting a fifth memoire.

Elisabeth is currently President of the Oxford Symposium of Food & Cookery. The organization was founded in 1962 by Alan Davidson, Theodore Zeldin, Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson and, in fact, it was Mrs. Grigson who invited her to attend one of the initial gatherings. In 2016, she was the recipient of The Guild of Foodwriters‘ Lifetime Achievement award. Elisabeth is also an accomplished artist who illustrates many of her works and publishes a Substack, Elisabeth Luard’s CookStory, which she describes as a “cartoon cookbook based on recipes gathered on my travels as a food-writer”. In addition, her beautiful watercolor vegetable and fruit prints are available from her personal website shop. I am pleased to own several, and I recommend them highly.

Significant publications:

• The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cookery (1981)

  • Issued in the U.S. as The Old World Kitchen (1987)

• The Barricaded Larder (1988)

• The Flavours of Andalucia (1991)

• A Cook’s Year in a Welsh Farmhouse (2011)

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:: A Few Reflections ::

I would like to offer an observation about Substack – specifically, about consuming it. There is something I continually find myself overlooking when I am reading other authors’ Substack’s and I suspect you might be, as well.

I love the convenience of receiving subscribed posts as emails which keeps me up to date and allows me to read them at my leisure. But what I forget is that behind every of those emails is a Home Page, curated by the author and frequently containing a variety of benefits. It’s easy to miss because the Substack toolkit for constructing emails doesn’t offer a handy widget for readers to access their sites. Beginning today, I will be addressing that by deliberately including a well-labeled link to my own Home Page on every installment.

All of which begs the question – why should you go there? I can’t speak for every author because each site is largely customized, but I will tell you about mine. To begin with, there is a complete Archive of every installment defaulting in chronological order. If you’ve just recently discovered my posts, this makes it easy to catch up on those you’ve missed.

Something else that is archived on the Home Page is a feature called Notes. I’ve only begun to explore its uses, but it is sort of a sub-Substack in that the contents are separately archived, though they won’t be emailed. (Subscribers and Followers can choose to receive notifications of them in their Substack account Settings page in the Connections section.) So far, I’ve used them for recipes and included links from the related installments, but I will let you know when I use them in other ways.

Lastly, there are Recommendations and other links. When I recommend another author’s Substack in an installment, it appears as a visible listing on my Page. Non-Substack links appear under the headings Culinary Websites and Collector’s Tools. These are all newsletters and websites that I find particularly noteworthy, and I encourage you to visit them. If you find my writing of interest, I believe you will enjoy these, as well.

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Although I’ve lived in Vermont for the past 35 years, I’ve always identified as a Southerner having grown up in Virginia and enjoyed deep roots in Kentucky. The cuisine of the South is so broad in scope and reflects such a wide diversity in its influences that it is predisposed towards periodic reinterpretation. The culture has customarily viewed such ideas as additions rather than replacements. Thus, I appreciate the approach in the following title, in keeping with that tradition.

A New Turn in the South (2011)

By Hugh Acheson

There is a revolution taking place in the South but, this time around, it has been warmly embraced by Yankees, Westerners and folks from every other part of the country. Interestingly, one of the leaders is Canadian, but we’re certainly not going to hold that against him. We’re talking, of course, about food and the most exciting culinary innovations taking place in a region known for generations of tradition.

Prior to opening the legendary restaurant Five and Ten in Athens, GA in 2000, Hugh Acheson had already spent major portions of his life living, studying and cooking in the US, predominantly in the Deep South. His culinary education came about through stages with classically trained chefs at leading restaurants in Ottawa and San Francisco before he and his family settled down in the heart of Dixie. And that is where he began to work his magic.

Applying classic French techniques to seasonal local ingredients and traditional Southern cuisine was a shock to the system, but one that was immediately appreciated both by natives and foodies across the country. Sometimes it takes an outsider to open your eyes to the potential of what has always been around you, and that may be Hugh’s secret sauce. His ability to turn time-honored regional specialties on their ear and update your grandmother’s old family favorites in unique ways has sparked interest from an entire generation of young, talented up and coming chefs. Further inspiration has come from other like-minded culinary talents such as Frank Stitt, Scott Peacock, Mashama Bailey, Donald Link, Vivian Howard and Edward Lee - all helping to create the future by reimagining the past.

This one-of-a-kind cookbook is a joy to read, giving everyone a glimpse into the creative mind behind one of the best examples of the new Southern cuisine. Though filled with sidebars, tangents, historical tidbits, cooking tips, casual observations, interesting quotes and handmade cartoons & illustrations, there is still plenty of room for some serious recipes. All the fun and games are in service to the food and it is glorious, indeed.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Trader Vic’s Book of Mexican Cooking by Victor Bergeron (Doubleday & Co., Inc, 1973)

• Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook by Alice May Brock (Random House, 1973)

• The Time Reader’s Book of Recipes by Florence Artmann, Mary Margaret McBride (E.P. Dutton Co., 1949)

======================================

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I look forward to your Comments and suggestions, and I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

Please visit my Home Page to catch-up on missed installments, Notes, recipes and my personal Recommendations for other Substacks and websites.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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This week, I’m pleased to focus on an author I have long admired. She initially came to my attention through her radio program, which led me to her excellent cookbooks. Regardless of the medium, she was always asking and answering the questions I would have as a cooking enthusiast. Regrettably for me and hundreds of thousands of her fans, her retirement has left a melancholy void in our weekly listening schedules.

:: Author! Author! ::

Lynne Rossetto Kasper

Lynne, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, was born in 1943 and raised in New Jersey with a deep appreciation for the culinary culture of the country of her ancestors. After initially pursuing an acting career, she changed direction and embraced cooking, teaching Chinese classes out of friend’s kitchens before managing and teaching at the Cordon Bleu of New York. In the mid-70’s, she moved to Denver where she opened a cooking school called Lynne Kasper’s Lid and Ladle in 1978.

In 1997 she created and launched The Splendid Table on Minnesota Public Radio, winning the James Beard Foundation award for “Best National Radio Show on Food” the following year. The program was a huge success and was (and still is) distributed by American Public Media nationwide. Each week, listeners enjoyed travel-related segments that explored cuisine from around the world, interspersed with guest appearances from chefs and food writers, along with call-in questions. One of her first guests was an old friend, Julia Child, who reciprocated some years later when she invited Lynne to join her on two episodes of In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs.

The title of Lynne’s program was taken from her 1992 cookbook, The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food, for which she won a James Beard Cookbook of the Year award in 1993. In 1999, she revisited the subject with the equally popular The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy’s Farmhouse Kitchens.

During her years on the show, Lynne co-authored two more cookbooks with her producer, Sally Swift, drawing on the most popular tips, recipes and culinary know-how - The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper (2008) and The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends (2011). Both are thoroughly engaging, reflecting the curiosity, attitude and originality that listeners had come to love.

In 2017, Lynne retired as host and lives today in Englewood, NJ with her husband Frank. In 2025, she placed her entire collection of cookbooks, kitchen & serving ware up for auction. (BTW, I was late to the party and did not acquire anything.)

Significant publications:

• The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna (1992)

• The Italian Country Table (1999)

• The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper (2008)

• The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends (2011)

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:: From My Shelves ::

Despite having collected hundreds of noteworthy volumes on the subject of Southern cooking, there are always those that rise to the top and the following two titles belong in the upper echelon. I was a big fan of Nathalie’s for the last 40 years and these can be considered her master works.

Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking 2012)

Mastering the Art of Southern Vegetables (2015)

By Nathalie Dupree (1939-2025), co-author Cynthia Graubart

In the 96 years since the publication of Mrs. Dull’s Southern Cooking, a number of authors have taken up the mantle of Chief Proselytizer for Southern Cuisine, but few more so than Nathalie Dupree. Best recognized for launching the New Southern Cooking movement early in her writing career with her similarly-named publication in 1986, she has the bona fides to support that distinction including fourteen additional cookbooks (to date), an advanced certificate from Le Cordon Bleu, nine television cooking series, ten years as Director of Rich’s Cooking School in Atlanta and chef for three different restaurants on her résumé.

Her list of accolades include four James Beard Awards, “Grande Dame” of Les Dames d’Escoffier, founder and two-time president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and a founding member of Southern Foodways. In addition to her cookbooks, she has frequently written for such publications as the LA Times Syndicate, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Food and Wine, Cook’s Magazine and Bon Appetit.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Nathalie would be the author of these two masterful explorations of one of America’s foundational cuisines. Tradition is at the very heart of Southern cooking and her recipes pay the requisite amount of respect to those customs while introducing modern touches to increase their relevance for contemporary cooks.

As extensive as is the scope of the Southern cooking volume, it is entirely appropriate that a separate publication be devoted to vegetables. Devotees would argue that American produce reaches its apotheosis in the South, and Nathalie does nothing to dissuade that claim. The same neighborly personality she honed over the years hosting hundreds of television shows shines from these pages and beckons you into the kitchen. My advice? Don’t fight the feelin’.

Sadly, Nathalie passed away January 13, 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the age of 85. Hers was a voice that will be sorely missed.

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:: Recommendation ::

While there are varying definitions of the term “vintage”, the range of 20-99 years of age is generally applied to books. But beyond practical determination, I would argue that there is an instinctive element associated with the cookbooks your grandmother used and your mother grew up with. I am retired, and vintage to me is instantly identified with the pictorial aspects of covers and illustrations from the mid-1930’s to the late 1950’s. Yet, if you are in your 20’s today, you’re more likely to perceive similar attributes from the mid-1970’s to the late 1990’s. The aesthetics are entirely different, but the correlation is comparable.

Yes, there are plenty of other elements that can contribute to the label from descriptive text and formatting to recipe selection and ingredients, but I suspect each generation responds intuitively to their own visual clues. My vintage may be your antique, while your vintage may seem reasonably contemporary to me.

Despite the occasional jarring reminder of my age, I am greatly appreciative of “vintage” cookbook collectors who write about them. While my collection is devoted to authors and titles that deserve more recognition than they receive today, the majority of my books do fall into the category. My research benefits greatly from the writing of others, and one Substack I love to read is My Vintage Cookbooks. It is an absolute warehouse of titles that are threads I can pull and fall down the rabbit hole of research… and therein lies the fun.

If older cookbooks are something you enjoy, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

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:: My Favorite Things ::

Reading has always been one of my favorite activities, earning bonus points if the subject is food. When the author is as engaging as this one, you can easily fall into the literary equivalent of binging your favorite cable show as the chapters sweep past.

American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of our Woods, Wates and Fields (2010)

By Rowan Jacobsen

Before I say anything else, I am compelled to go on record and testify that Rowan Jacobson is one of the two or three greatest food writers of any era. Each of the twelve chapters, devoted to such disparate subjects as salmon, chocolate, avocados and cider, is a revelation leaving the reader feeling, not only knowledgeable, but in awe of the tremendous bounty of the western world. At an all-too-brief 270 pages, you may well find yourself consuming it in its entirety in one sitting.

The two or three recipes that accompany each topic are well worth trying, aided by the resource listings for related websites. But the real reason for coming here is to travel to the source of each ingredient - explore its history, visit the locale, learn the science behind its excellence, discover why the land matters - all under the guidance of a master story teller.

This is truly what food writing is all about. It just doesn’t get any better.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book by Alice B. Toklas (Harper & Brothers, 1954)

• Meat by The Lobel Brothers (Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1971)

• A West African Cook Book by Ellen Gibson Wilson (M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1971)

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I look forward to your Comments and recommendations. Remember, too, that I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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In the world prior to the wine authors and critics that come first to mind today - before Kermit Lynch, Jancis Robinson or Robert Parker - there was Hugh Johnson. Parker may have created the point rating system in the Wine Advocate that has become the industry standard, but Johnson was precociously writing with authority from the time he graduated from Cambridge. All the rest of us could do is read’em and drink.

:: Author! Author! ::

Hugh Johnson

Born in 1939 in London into a family of privilege and position, Hugh was educated at Rugby School and read English at King’s College, Cambridge. A random wine tasting with his roommate in 1959 proved to be an epiphany, and he became a member of the Cambridge University Wine and Food Society. Following graduation in 1961, he began writing wine columns for Vogue and House & Garden and, in 1963, became general secretary of the Wine and Food Society and editor of their publication (succeeding the legendary gastronome André Simon.)

In 1966 at the age of 27, he published his first book, Wine, establishing himself as one of the subject’s foremost authorities. Five years later, he authored The World Atlas of Wine (1971), considered the first serious attempt to map the world’s wine regions. The book has been translated into 14 languages and sold over 4 million copies. It continues to be updated and is currently on its ninth edition. For the past 48 years, he has published the annual Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, the world’s best-selling wine guide.

In addition to writing about wine, Hugh is an avid gardener and has published books and columns on the subject for many years. In 2004, he was honored with the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite by the French government and, in 2007, was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Today, at the age of 87, he lives in Kensington, West London, and continues to remain active in his field.

Fun Fact: in 1964 he tasted a 1540 Steinwein from the German vineyard Würzburger Stein, thought to be the oldest vintage ever tasted.

Significant publications:

• Wine (1966)

• The World Atlas of Wine (1971)

• Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book (1977)

• The Story of Wine (1989)

Note: most of Hugh Johnson’s publications have gone through periodic updates and some offer annual releases.

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:: Below the Radar ::

Today’s next culinary personality was born and raised in France, but spent the great majority of her life in the U.S. Nonetheless, I am choosing to post this as part of my Below the Radar collection as so much of her impact on American culinary history was expressed directly through her teaching and personal interactions. Her cookbooks deserve a wider audience.

Josephine Araldo (1897 - 1989)

Born in 1897, Josephine Araldo’s life was dedicated to preserving and spreading the culinary heritage of her birthplace in Brittany. Her expertise and devotion to her craft earned high praise from her mentor, Henri-Paul Pellaprat, founder of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, resulting in her being one of the first women to earn a toque from the school. In addition to teaching thousands of students, much of her life was spent as a private chef in the homes of wealthy patrons. Her two most notable characteristics were 1) an exquisite sense of taste which enabled her to create unusual yet successful pairings of ingredients and 2) an absolute hatred of waste resulting in recipes that utilize virtually every aspect of an entire vegetable.

Her legacy is captured in three cookbooks – Cooking with Josephine (1977), Sounds from Josephine’s Kitchen (1978), and a loving combination biography/cookbook written by her former student and close friend Robert Reynolds, From a Breton Garden, published in 1990, shortly after her passing at the age of 93.

The following quote from Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore in NYC describes Josephine’s life and her importance in culinary history.

Among the extraordinary array of figures who have appeared in kitchens over the years to feed their clients, win the hearts of their students, and inspire their colleagues, one of the most memorable was a brilliant, eccentric, magnetic woman named Josephine Araldo (1897–1989).

Born in rural Brittany, she gardened from childhood and learned to use what she grew to make food that “tasted like itself.” Deciding on her vocation while still in her teens, she went to Paris where she studied at the Cordon Bleu with, among others, the great Henri-Paul Pellaprat.

She worked briefly for luminaries in the French government, but in 1924 she was asked by a wealthy American to come work for his family in San Francisco. That she did, and although she remained in California, she made many return trips to France to seek additional training. In time, she was fully engaged in teaching both amateurs and professionals, and her West Coast reputation and devoted following grew.

Although formally trained, her kitchen work was far from orthodox. Brilliantly instinctive, she knew when to follow the rules and when to take off and fly. Many fine cooks, ranging from Alice Waters to Marion Cunningham, came to see her and to absorb what they could from both her technique and her keen sense of what worked.

Her cookbooks contain no-nonsense instructions from a master chef based on the classic principles of Cordon Bleu cooking leavened with her own inventive suggestions drawn from a lifetime of culinary experience.

Significant publications:

• Cooking with Josephine (1977)

• Sounds from Josephine’s Kitchen (1978)

• From a Breton Garden (1990) [written by Robert Reynolds]

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:: My Favorite Things ::

As usual, I like to close the week by sharing one of my personal treasures in the hope it might become one of yours.

Spice - Layers of Flavour (Weldenfeld & Nicolson, 2014)

By Dhruv Baker

While I have over 160 books in my collection devoted to herbs and spices, far too many of them stumble over the same obstacles when it comes to presenting recipes for the average home cook - difficult to source ingredients and complex, time-consuming instructions. They mean well, and the resulting dishes can be amazing, but if the effort is more applicable to a professional chef or a culturally-specific pantry, then the larger interested audience will be cast aside, left staring at the pictures while wondering whether they actually know anyone who would do that.

That is precisely why I am so drawn to this book - Dhruv Baker gets it. His amazingly multi-cultural background combined with professional training has provided him with a deep understanding of how spices interact, and the skillset to construct recipes that take full advantage of them. The magic, though, comes from the thoroughly approachable manner in which they are presented. As you read through the instructions, you’ll appreciate that these dishes are not intimidating - the ingredients are readily available and the steps involved are straightforward.

Though it is true that various recipes involve the creation of marinades that benefit from an overnight rest in the refrigerator, there is nothing complicated about them and they are generally quick to prepare offering a simple weeknight dinner option if you’ve whizzed them up the day before.

One other thing I appreciate is the global approach towards the selections. While the Contents page employs the standard organization by primary ingredient (e.g. meat, chicken, fish, vegetables, etc.), the recipes are drawn from culinary traditions around the world. Spices are universal, and Dhruv is showing you simple techniques for using them for maximum flavor.

I still love my other spice books, but this remains the one I reach for first when I’m looking for inspiration.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Secrets of New England Cooking by Ella Shannon Bowles, Dorothy S. Towle (M. Barrows and Company, 1947)

• Serve It Forth by M.F.K. Fisher (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1937)

• Adventures on the Wine Route by Kermit Lynch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988)

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I look forward to your Comments and recommendations. Remember, too, that I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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I want to start off this week by looking at an author who only ever published two cookbooks and never had a lot of visibility to the American public. However, her importance within the nation’s culinary landscape is momentous, and her position amongst U.S. cookbook royalty, is undisputed.

:: Author! Author! ::

Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang (1920 - 2010)

Cecilia was born into a large very wealthy family in Wuxi, Jiangsu, in 1920. Following a move to Peking (Beijing) at the age of four, she was raised in a 52-room converted Ming-era mansion where elaborate formal meals were standard fare. At the age of twenty-two, she escaped the Japanese occupation with one of her sisters by walking for six months to Chongqing where she worked as a Mandarin teacher for the American and Soviet embassies. It was here that she met the man she would marry and settle into a comfortable life in Shanghai.

In 1949, the family fled the Chinese Communist Revolution on the last flight to Tokyo, where they opened a successful restaurant, Forbidden City, to pay the bills. Several years later, she was visiting a sister in San Francisco’s Chinatown and, through a convoluted series of circumstances, ended up opening what would become one of the most important restaurants in America.

Initially, The Mandarin was not popular as she faced a number of challenges from a lack of parking and a liquor license to her speaking Mandarin in a Cantonese environment, as well as discrimination from simply being a woman business owner. All of these issues were suddenly overcome, however, when Vic Bergeron (founder of Trader Vic’s) and Herb Caen (popular local journalist) became regular customers and brought their celebrity friends. In 1968, Cecilia relocated the restaurant to a 300-seat space in Ghirardelli Square where she continued to preside over a steady stream of VIPs until she sold it in 1991. (She also opened a second location in Beverly Hills in 1975 which was subsequently run by her son, Philip, starting in the 1980’s.)

The Mandarin’s significance is that it introduced the country to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine (Sichuan, Hunan, Beijing) at a time when the only Chinese food that was available was an Americanized version of Cantonese served in cookie-cutter dining rooms filled with cartoonish décor depicting an unfamiliar culture. Cecilia’s approach was to evoke the opulence of the palace environment in which she had grown up, wearing lavish gowns and expensive jewelry. The food was exquisite, showcasing culinary wonders previously unknown to Americans.

Her rapidly growing reputation helped introduce her to a raft of important figures in the nascent American food movement, many of whom became lifelong friends and mentors including Chuck Williams (William Sonoma), George Chen, James Beard, Julia Child, Jeremiah Tower, Alice Waters and Marion Cunningham. In turn, she taught them authentic Chinese cooking and served to influence an entire generation. In 1978, Waters and Cunningham joined Cecilia on a months-long tour of Europe’s best restaurants in search of inspiration.

In 1974, she published The Mandarin Way, an autobiography with recipes. In 2007, she wrote a second memoir, The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco, that included many more recipes, as well as a number of details that were deliberately omitted in the first so as not to endanger relatives who remained in mainland China.

Cecilia retired from the business in 1990, spending the next 30 years focusing time on her grandchildren and promoting charitable causes. In 2013, she won a James Beard Foundation Award for lifetime achievement, and in 2016 she stared in a 6-episode PBS series, The Kitchen Wisdom of Cecilia Chiang.

She passed away in 2020 in San Francisco at the age of 100. Following in his mother’s footsteps, her son Philip was a co-founder of the P.F. Chang’s restaurant chain.

Significant publications:

• The Mandarin Way (1974)

• The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco (2007)

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:: Below the Radar ::

Cookbook publishing is a very big world and it can be difficult to see beyond the wealth of titles and authors that we find in bookstores or encounter in the usual places we look, particularly if they are from other countries. In building my collection, I have tried to expand my boundaries and have been rewarded with so many interesting finds. Here is one you may enjoy.

Keith Floyd (1943 - 2009)

Though not so well known in the United States, Keith was a larger than life British culinary institution. Despite lifelong challenges with business finances and periodic serious health issues, he developed a large fan base for both his engaging and idiosyncratic television personality, and his numerous cookbooks combining recipes with international travel.

Following an “unsuccessful” stint in the British army in the mid-60’s, he began to explore opportunities in food preparation. By 1971, he had already acquired three restaurants in Bristol, each of which had financial problems, establishing a pattern that was to be repeated in multiple locations in Britain, France and Thailand in the coming years. However, those initial restaurants led to his first cookbook, Floyd’s Food (1981) and a local radio program which, in turn, provided an opening for his first BBC TV series, Floyd on Fish in 1985. The show was a hit and eventually led to fifteen more with tie-ins to individual cookbooks.

There were several reasons for Keith’s popularity - his engaging manner, the show’s settings in far-flung locales, and the ever-present glass of wine - none of which, by themselves, would have sustained his career had the recipes and food presentation not been first rate. From 1985 to 2001, the series and books took British viewers to France, Ireland, the US, Australia, Spain, Italy, Africa, India, Sweden and other destinations, always taped on location and, usually, with some unexpected twist.

Unfortunately, Keith’s personal life was not as successful as his public one. All four of his marriages ended in divorce, no doubt related to his constant travel. He was both a smoker and a heavy drinker and, beginning in 2002, he suffered repeated strokes and collapses resulting in frequent hospitalization. In 2009, at the age of 65, he experienced a heart attack and died at a hospital in Dorset.

While professional chefs may have viewed him as a “gifted amateur”, the testimonials offered by the culinary world were a strong indication of his impact on the industry as a whole. As for the public, the continued popularity of his 27 cookbooks and reruns of his programs have insured his legacy.

Significant publications:

• Floyd’s Food (1981)

• Floyd on Oz (1992)

• Far Flung Floyd: Keith Floyd’s Guide to South-East Asian Food (1993)

• Floyd on Africa (1996)

• Floyd’s Fjord Feast (1999)

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:: Recommendation ::

Though I have lived in northern Vermont for almost half my life, I grew up in the South where I was instilled with a deep respect for good food and the people that prepare it. Therefore, I was extremely happy when, in 1999, author John Egerton led a distinguished group of historians, writers and food professionals in founding a non-profit organization for the purpose of celebrating and documenting the great diversity of food cultures in the American South. They named it The Southern Foodways Alliance, and it is hosted by The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

From the beginning, the Alliance published a quarterly newsletter, Gravy, showcasing stories from outstanding writers, illustrators and photographers examining the American South through the prism of its food. The publication, which will shortly celebrate its 100^th issue, is available with a membership in the SFA. The organization also posts the Gravy Podcast, produces documentary films, and hosts an annual symposium, all well worth your attention.

But wait - there’s more! From 2002 to 2014, SFA published a biennial collection of the best southern food writing called Cornbread Nation. These seven volumes contain a delicious assortment of short stories, photo essays, poems and oral histories with a scattering of recipes – an absolute joy to read and read again.

Beginning in 2015, SFA shifted the Cornbread format to an annual on-line collection of prose, films, podcasts and speaker presentations. While these are all excellent, I really miss the published volumes that were tailormade for comfy-chair and bedside reading. Seek these out and collect them. You will be so glad you did.

Fun Facts: In the early 1990’s, two organizations were founded that merged to help create the SFA: The Society for the Preservation and Revitalization of Southern Food led by chef/author Edna Lewis (1916-2006) and chef Scott Peacock, and the American Southern Food Institute led by author Jeanne Voltz (1990-2002) and gourmand Terry Ford (1953-2016).

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:: My Favorite Things ::

If I didn’t need to keep the following book close at hand for recipes and cooking inspiration, it would be sitting on a shelf in between my copies of Winnie-the-Pooh and The Giving Tree. It’s a powerful reminder of the importance of small actions presented in a quiet, purposeful manner.

Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal (Abrams Image, 2014)

By Peter Miller

There are at least three purposes behind this book - two are explicit while the third slowly soaks its way into your consciousness as you glide through this slim volume from legendary Seattle bookshop owner Peter Miller.

The first is the most obvious - what Peter describes as a manifesto to make lunch. In this case, lunch is a communal meal, an act performed daily by the staff, setting aside time to break from the business routine and share food with each other. At the appointed hour, the “closed for lunch” sign goes on the door, and everyone congregates in the break room. The responsibility is divided amongst them for providing each day’s meal. The shop has followed this practice for most of the past 35 years and, occasionally, even a frequent patron joins the gathering. In a perfect case of leading-by-example, Peter cogently describes a process that simply makes sense, and will leave you wondering why not if you don’t already.

Secondly, this is a cookbook. The recipes are drawn from those they’ve served at the shop, while the books chapters organize them in several ways: meals that can be made on the spot with limited facilities, dishes that are made at home and brought in, and seasonal variations on those themes. There is even a section that lays out daily suggestions for a two-week period. The recipes are sophisticated in flavor yet uncomplicated in execution, focusing on seasonally appropriate and readily available ingredients. They dine well at the shop.

While the first two objectives above address the “Practice” from the title, the third leans into the “Art”, persuasively making the case for embracing a lifestyle centered on the pleasures of enjoying healthy, fresh food amidst the daily bustle. The benefits are physical, mental and social and, to repurpose an old marketing slogan - it provides the pause that refreshes.

One final note - the beautiful photography is by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton. Frankly, that alone would have pulled me in.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles by James Beard (Arcade Publishing, 1994)

• A Bon Vivant’s Cookbook by William Templeton Veach, Helen Evans Brown (Little, Brown and Company, 1965)

• Here Let Us Feast by M.F.K. Fisher (The Viking Press, 1946)

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I look forward to your Comments and recommendations. Remember, too, that I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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:: Let’s Play Categories - Italian Cuisine ::

Over the last three posts, I have highlighted a mere thirteen titles that were selected to illustrate the progression of Italian cuisine as it first developed a national identity, subsequently establishing a foothold in America and Britain. Obviously, these barely scratch the surface of the exceptional titles that have been published over the period. Of the, literally, thousands available on the subject, I have collected a number from authors I enjoy reading and whose work has taught us how to appreciate and replicate in our own kitchens.

I am going to list some of those I find either significant (admittedly a term open to interpretation) or simply enjoyable, and I encourage you to add others that speak to you in the Comments.

• General Titles

  • Italian Family Cooking - Edward Giobbi (1971)

    • Admired by both James Beard and Craig Claiborne for culinary talents reflecting his Ligurian roots, his recipes and writing embody the mantra of simple but elegant. Equally famous as an artist and an author, his cookbooks derive their inspiration from a long life of family meals. Though now retired from writing at the age of 99, his legacy includes the award-winning farm-to-table benchmark Pleasures of the Good Earth (1991).

  • The Food of Italy - Waverley Root (1971)

    • Before there was Anthony Bourdain, there was Waverley Root. His writing on food was both expansive and authoritative, whether applied to Italy, France or America. A recipe for pasta may well be accompanied by ruminations on the origins of the ingredients, culinary details of the region, and historical or literary references to the dish. Enjoy the ride!

  • The Fine Art of Italian Cooking - Guiliano Bugialli (1977)

    • Universally recognized as one of Italy’s foremost cooking teachers, Guiliano’s cookbooks were always authoritative yet reader-friendly, earning him three James Beard awards over the course of his career. This was his first (updated and expanded in 2005) and remains his masterwork.

  • Honey from a Weed - Patience Gray (1986)

    • Though not limited to Italy, these reflections on mid-20th century life in the Mediterranean region explore the intimate connections between food and locale with a poetic sensibility, as much admired today as when it was first released.

  • Gastronomy of Italy - Anna Del Conte (1988)

    • An instant classic when first published, this encyclopedia of Italian cuisine was updated and expanded in 2004. It includes a tour of 16 regions and their specialties with recipes, an explanation of terms and techniques, plus an overview of Italian wines. A multiple award-winner, it remains a relevant reference in contemporary kitchens.

  • The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews (I & II) - Edda Servi Machlin (1981 & 1992)

    • Across two volumes (plus a third on sweets in 1999), Edda Machlin captured the daily life and home cooking of a community with a rich cultural history that no longer exists. Her works document recipes that rarely appeared in cookbooks before becoming part of mainstream Italian cuisine.

  • Italian Cuisine: Basic Cooking Techniques - Tony May (1990 & 2001)

    • From the time it was first published as a guide for professional chefs, this self-published volume has been used as a textbook in cooking schools across America. The second edition (2001) was fully revised as a more user-friendly version for home kitchens. Though Tony (birth name Antonio Magliulo) passed away in 2022 at the age of 84, he will be best remembered for both his wonderful NYC restaurants and his singular devotion to promoting Italian fine dining as being culinarily comparable to French haute cuisine.

  • Passione: The Italian Cookbook - Gennaro Contaldo (2003)

    • Though Gennaro has subsequently published a number of excellent cookbooks (and made dozens of television appearances), this was his first. Named for his London restaurant, the simple (i.e. non-chefy) dishes reflect his native Amalfitan style of cooking delivered with his trademark enthusiasm.

  • Made in Italy - Food & Stories - Giorgio Locatelli (Fourth Estate, 2006)

    • Though he recently closed (after 23 years) his much-lauded Michelin-starred London restaurant, Locanda Locatelli, Giorgio remains the face of Italy for many British. In this massive and beautifully composed cookbook, he weaves together stories from his life as a chef with wonderfully expressive presentations of ingredients and recipes to create a love letter to his Italian roots. Even if you were to never cook from it, it is an absolute joy to read (but you should cook from it.)

  • Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food - John Dickie (2008)

    • British historian John Dickie unveils the heritage of the world’s most beloved Italian foods by tracing their origins across centuries to the individual cities from which they came. Along the way, he dispels many long-held myths with a compelling mix of academic analysis and vivid storytelling. By the end of the book, you’ll agree with the assessment of The Times, London - “if we are what we eat, who wouldn’t want to be Italian”.

  • Adventures of an Italian Food Lover - Faith Heller Willinger (2007)

    • Few authors have spent as much of their career exploring the culinary culture of a country as Faith Willinger. Fewer still, have the writing chops to effectively express the sheer pleasures to be found in every aspect of Italian cuisine from winemaking and food markets to local ingredients and techniques. By the last page you’ll be ready to pack your bags.

  • The Country Cooking of Italy - Colman Andrews (2011)

    • Any collaboration between Colman Andrews and Christopher Hirsheimer is guaranteed to produce colorful storytelling supported by brilliant photography, and this volume is no exception. Wonderful reading!

  • Saveur: Italian Comfort Food - James Oseland (2015)

    • After contributing for ten years as a writer for Saveur magazine, James became editor-in-chief in 2006. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Coleman Andrews, he oversaw publication of four cookbooks, maintaining (and often exceeding) the high standards for which they were known. This is one of their best.

• Regional Titles

  • The Food of Southern Italy - Carlo Middione (1987)

    • For almost 30 years, Carlo championed Southern Italian food from his fondly remembered neighborhood restaurant on Fillmore in San Francisco, Vivande Porta Via. The youngest of 13 children and a second-generation Sicilian-American, he learned his way around a kitchen from his parents, both culinary professionals. Though passing away in 2022 at the age of 86, he never lost the enthusiasm that can be felt across every page.

  • The Good Food of Italy: Region by Region - Claudia Roden (1990)

    • Best known for her culinary explorations of Middle Eastern food, her intensive research into the local cooking of each region enabled her to write one of the most approachable books on the subject. Updated and expanded in 2014.

  • Bitter Almonds - Maria Grammatico (1994)

    • In this extraordinary memoire, Maria Grammatico records for the first time detailed recipes of almost four dozen unique Sicilian pastries traditionally handcrafted in a cloistered convent in the town of Erice. Her personal story is as captivating as that of the vanishing craft.

  • La Cucina Siciliana di Gangivecchio - Wanda & Giovanna Tornabene (1996)

    • Since 1978, this mother/daughter duo have operated a restaurant in a 14th century Benedictine monastery in a remote Sicilian mountainside town. The recipes have been handed down through generations and collected in this engaging cookbook. Prepare to be dazzled.

  • Flavors of Puglia - Nancy Harmon Jenkins (1997)

    • At the time this was published, so little had been written about the region’s food that the first edition was allowed to quickly go out of print, a lapse that was corrected in 2006. Since then, a number of authors have visited the same subject, but none with the same degree of charm and passion.

  • Regional Foods of Northern Italy - Marlena de Blasi (1997)

  • Regional Foods of Southern Italy - Marlena de Blasi (1999)

    • Though best known as the American author of a series of books documenting her life in Italy after she and her Italian husband moved to the Tuscan countryside, her first two publications were well-researched cookbooks that explored regional foods from the perspective of a chef. Today, she leads culinary tours of Tuscany and Umbria.

  • Food of Naples and Campania - Guiliano Bugialli (2003)

    • It is difficult to choose just one of Guiliano’s regional cookbooks to showcase, but I’ve selected this one because the region receives a bit less exposure than some. They are all wonderful to read and the recipes are thoroughly researched and tested, so it is impossible to go wrong.

  • Twelve: A Tuscan Cook Book - Tessa Kiros (2003)

    • Tessa Kiros travels to wonderful places and writes beautiful cookbooks about them. Thanks to making her home in Italy, it is a frequent inspiration, and this title in particular is a wonderful example of her art.

  • Florentine: The True Cuisine of Florence - Emiko Davies (2016)

    • With an ancestry from Japan and growing up in both China and Australia, Emiko might seem an unlikely source of culinary expertise on Tuscany. But following an encounter with Pellegrini Artusi’s Art of Eating Well, she moved to Florence and immersed herself in the regional food culture. Today, she runs a cooking school and wine bar with her sommelier husband, and is rightfully recognized as an expert in the cuisine.

  • Tasting Rome - Katie Parla, Kristina Gill (2016)

    • By combining an exploration of the Roman food scene with a cultural guide and personal stories, these two ex-pats have beautifully captured the culinary landscape of the Eternal City. Recipes include flavorful classics, street food and those from the frequently overlooked minority communities of cucina ebraica romanesca and cucina tripolina, as well as traditional offal dishes from the quinto quarto. Kristina’s intimate photographs create the impression of a travel journal from the trip you’ve dreamt of taking.

  • Venetian Republic - Nino Zoccali (2019)

    • With a history dating to the 9th century, the Republic of Venice (officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice or La Serenissima) extended its domain at various times across portions of Istria, the Dalmatian Coast, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Crete and Cyprus. All of these regions and cultures influenced the republic’s cuisine, and Nino Zoccali has written an engaging cookbook tracing much of this culinary journey.

  • Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking - Russell Norman (2018)

    • For a very different perspective of Venice, Russell has focused on a year’s worth of authentic Venetian comfort food, far from the tourist restaurants. The recipes reflect the seasonal availability of produce in the market stalls that serve the city’s residents as they prepare family dishes handed down through generations. Woven into the narrative are stories of neighborhoods, local personalities and the hidden places that bring the city to life.

  • Friuli Food and Wine - Bobby Stuckey, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, Meredith Erickson (2020)

    • Divided into three sections - Land, Sea and Mountain - this marvelous book explores the great diversity of grapes and their relationship with the cuisine of the Friuli region of northeastern-most Italy. Bounded on the north by Austria and the east by Slovenia, the region’s food reflects centuries of exposure to the spice trade through the port of Trieste, combined with Slavic, Croatian and Austro-Hungarian influences. This confluence has created a culinary culture that is simple yet bursting with flavors.

  • Cucina di Amalfi - Ursula Ferrigno (2023)

    • A prolific author with more than 18 titles to her credit, Ursula turned to her family’s traditional region of the Amalfi coast for this recent title. Home to the world’s most celebrated lemons, the local cuisine boasts an embarrassment of culinary riches centered around vegetables, but also geographically situated to offer a wide array of fish and seafood. Here, food is the second religion.

• Ingredients & Techniques

  • Cooking from an Italian Garden - Paola Scaravelli (1984)

    • There is a not-insignificant history of vegetarianism in Italy (notably documented in Italian by Enrico Alliata, the Duke of Salaparuta, in 1930) that is well served by this marvelous title. The recipes reflect generations of kitchen craft and are delivered straight from the author’s backyard garden.

  • Verdura: Vegetables Italian Style - Viana la Place (1991)

    • Since it was first released in 1991, Verdura has been republished multiple times as so many cooks have made it into their vegetable bible. Though some of the produce that seemed exotic to American homes at the time is now commonly available in local groceries, the recipes and guides remain timeless.

  • The Classic Pasta Cookbook - Giuliano Hazan (1993)

    • A born teacher (with, perhaps, a bit of inspiration from his mother, Marcella), Giuliano made his own mark on the culinary map with his first cookbook, tackling a subject he loved. Numerous books have been published on the topic since then, but few are as simple and straightforward in their step-by-step instruction.

  • The Italian Baker - Carol Field (1985)

    • Designated by the James Beard Foundation as an “indispensable baking book”, this title remains the benchmark on the subject. Carol’s additional cookbooks on various aspects of Italian cuisine have earned numerous awards, as well as recognition from the Italian government when she was named a Knight of the Order of Merit.

  • Zuppa! Soups from the Italian Countryside - Anne Bianchi (1996)

    • All of Anne’s books on Tuscan food are well worth collecting, but her exploration of the hearty homemade soups of the region has been the go-to reference for cooks for almost 30 years.

  • Italy al Dente: Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, Polenta, Soup - Biba Caggiano (1998)

    • Raised in Bologna and, later, in the heart of Little Italy in New York, Biba became a local legend for her cooking classes and eponymous restaurant in Sacramento. Of all her cookbooks, this one best exemplifies the soul of Italian home cooking. Forget the shelf - keep this one on the counter.

  • Enoteca: Simple, Delicious Recipes in the Italian Wine Bar Tradition - Joyce Goldstein (2001)

    • When Italians aren’t home, they can frequently be found meeting friends and hanging out in an enoteca, a local wine bar. Of course, where there is wine there is going to be food, and Joyce is the perfect author to discover the traditions and recipes for these light snacks and simple dishes.

  • Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy - Judith Barrett (2004)

    • Beans are as integral to Italian culinary culture as pasta and rice. Years after authoring the definitive guide to risotto, Judith turned her attention to the myriad ways in which beans are incorporated into every aspect of the cuisine. In addition to recipes, she includes a guide to on-line resources for hard-to-find ingredients.

  • The Four Seasons of Pasta - Nancy Harmon Jenkins (2015)

    • Co-authored with her daughter, Chef Sara Jenkins, Nancy draws upon years of life in Rome, Florence and a Tuscan olive farm to translate classic Italian dishes into simple preparations for the American kitchen using seasonal ingredients from supermarkets and farmstands.

  • Aperitivo: The Cocktail Culture of Italy - Marisa Huff (2016)

  • Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs - Brad Thomas Parsons (2016)

    • OK, I couldn’t choose between these two because they are both excellent examinations of the adult beverage ecosphere in Italian culture. True, there are lots of books on the subject, but I’m particularly fond of these. Marissa’s bona fides are well earned from the vantage point of her home in Padua, while Brad’s scholarship is authoritative and engaging.

A brief note of explanation - despite having obvious roots in Italy, the familial dishes with hundreds of years of history behind them changed as waves of immigrants faced challenging conditions in America. A combination of limited financial resources and a lack of availability for traditional ingredients forced them to adapt, and new culinary customs were born. Though initially resistant, the general public gradually came to embrace the delicious results, demanding them in their restaurants and recreating them in their own kitchens. Today, pizza, pasta and pepperoni are all as American as apple pie… but still quite different from the old country.

• Italian-American Cuisine

  • We Called it Macaroni: An American Heritage of Southern Italian Cooking - Nancy Verde Barr (1990)

    • Another superb title from the Knopf Cooks America series, this captures the food and experiences of the author’s ancestors as they settled in the Northeast and adjusted to a foreign land. Nancy brings to these recipes the same meticulous attention to detail that marked the eighteen years of her professional partnership with Julia Child, serving as her executive chef and assisting with TV productions and cookbook development.

  • Italian Immigrant Cooking - Elodia Rigante (1996)

    • How did Italian cooking become Italian-American? Elodia takes you back to the period in the early 20th century when her parents joined hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen as they adjusted to life in a new homeland. These recipes tell the story of the transition from the Old World as they adapted to a different way of life. Thankfully, that journey was not just a one-way street and this food is the proof. Nonna would approve.

  • The Italian American Cookbook: A Feast of Food from a Great American Cooking Tradition - John & Galina Mariani (2000)

    • For over 40 years, John Mariani has been one of the preeminent food writers in America, documenting where and what we eat for an extensive list of publications including Saveur, Wine Spectator, GQ and Esquire, as well as his own influential books. In 1990, he edited Tony May’s Italian Cuisine, adopted as the textbook for the subject at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). This time out, he partners with his wife to examine the hybrid cuisine crafted out of necessity by the waves of Italian immigrants as they adjusted to the culinary environment of their new home.

  • Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen - Lidia Bastianich (2002)

    • In a departure from her usual focus on the traditional cooking of the old country, Lidia turns her attention to the Americanized family cuisine she found when she first came to this country. Here, in exploring the classic dishes created by early immigrants, she reintroduces them using authentic ingredients unavailable at the time. Her personal stories and masterful instruction make this both a pleasure to read and follow in the kitchen.

  • Italian American: Red Sauce Classics and New Essentials - Angie Rito & Scott Tacinelli (2021)

    • While these recipes originated in their beloved NYC restaurant Don Angie, the husband & wife couple behind them are squarely targeting home cooks. Using classic Italian-American dishes are their starting point, they continue that adoption process by introducing new ingredients, creating exciting interpretations of this traditional family fare. They make a strong argument for a from-scratch approach.

  • Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American - Ian MacAllen (2023)

    • Ian MacAllen has written an entertaining and authoritative sociocultural history documenting the evolution of Italian-American cuisine from the immigrant’s cucina povera into a national staple. What could have been a dull scholarly text becomes a fascinating read presenting well-researched facts with the charm of a born storyteller. This is history at its most delicious.

Some Authors to Appreciate

• Anna Del Conte

  • At the age of 101 this year, she is no longer writing but, wow, what a legacy. Every book she has written is worthy of adding to your library. The following quote from Nigella Lawson sums up her career better than anything I could say:

Her prose is considered and understated, her erudition illuminating yet underplayed. Above all, she understands that food has a context—historical, social, creative—but that this is nothing if recipes don’t work. She is eminently reliable, the trustiest, most inspiring teacher. Every paragraph she writes is shot through with her sensibility, which mixes wryness, intellectual rigor and practical commonsense.

• Pamela Sheldon Johns

  • With almost twenty cookbooks to her credit, this American-born Italian resident approaches Italian cuisine with a cook’s eye, focusing first on the ingredients for inspiration. Reading her series of titles on elemental Italian products - Balsamico!, Parmigiano!, Gelato! and others - can be as rewarding as taking one of the food workshops she conducts in regions across the country and from her home in Tuscany.

• Lorenza De’Medici

  • Thoroughly researched, lavishly illustrated and unapologetically upper class in scope, Lorenza’s cookbooks remain a pleasure to read as one might a travel memoire. Beneath the posh patina (yes, those Medici’s) was a reliance on fresh-from-the-market ingredients and a serious effort to adapt the country’s historical heritage to the practical realities of contemporary cuisine. Her passing in 2024 at the age of 97 was a deep loss for Italian gastronomy.

• Katie Parla

  • Though initially focused on the food and culture of Rome, Katie has branched out over the course of some 35 books she has either written, edited or contributed to, encompassing various regions and products of Italy. Between television host, podcaster, travel guide and recipe columnist for a variety of international publishers, she remains a culinary force to reckon with.

• Fred Plotkin

  • As well known for his knowledge of opera and classical music as for his mastery of all things Italian, Fred is the go-to expert on culture and cuisine that other experts turn to for the final word. His book Italy for the Gourmet Traveler (1996) was, and remains, the most complete gastronomic guide to the country including information on 504 cities and towns. His cookbooks, as well, are models of insightful advice and clear detailed instruction.

• Rachel Roddy

  • Born and raised in Britain with intentions of a career in the theater, Rachel moved to Italy in her 30’s, working as a waitress in order to better learn the language. In 2008, she began writing a blog, Rachel Eats, which led to a weekly column back home in The Guardian. She now lives with her partner and son, moving between homes in Sicily and Rome, while writing award-winning books on the cuisines of both. She is something special.

• Marc Vetri

  • While I tend to avoid (or, at least, tread lightly around) cookbooks by renowned chefs, there are exceptions to every tenet, and I’m pleased to make them with Marc’s. Eschewing a culinary school education for immersive apprenticeships in Italy, he is recognized as one of the most authoritative voices in the field, with exceptional works on mastering bread, pizza and pasta and exploring the fundamentals of rustic, homestyle cuisine. Pay attention to this voice - he’s the real deal.

- All photos courtesy of Freepik

OK, now it’s your turn. After four weeks of an immersive dip into Italian cuisine, what books or authors are your favorites? Are they missing from those I’ve highlighted? Who do you rely on in the kitchen or just read for pleasure? Let me know in the Comments.

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:: My Favorite Things ::

One of the themes of this Substack is that cookbooks are every bit as much for reading as they are for use in the kitchen, and this is a great example. While my mother used it as a guide for cooking, I find the writing thoroughly entertaining. I think you will, as well.

Helen Corbitt Cooks for Company (Houghton Mifflin, 1974)

By Helen Corbitt

From the late 1940’s through the 1960’s - the golden era of home entertainment in America - Helen Corbitt was every bit as well-known a culinary figure as Julia Child would become in the 70’s and 80’s. In addition to authoring several very popular cookbooks, she was a frequent columnist, lecturer and cooking instructor, as well as having served for almost 20 years as the Director of Restaurants for Neiman-Marcus. Her notoriety established her as one of the country’s foremost authorities on entertaining, and this book helped confirm that.

Offering menus and recipes for dozens of occasions, the book is a veritable time capsule of the era in which boomer’s parents appreciated her advice on everything, from whether a luncheon would be seated or a buffet, to selecting the perfect punch for receptions and teas. One of the things that helps this particular book stand apart is that it came onto the scene at a point where social mores were beginning to relax - the old rules of entertainment were not being blindly followed - and the introduction of foreign dishes added a patina of sophistication to festive gatherings.

Helen was never one to take herself too seriously and was perfectly capable of holding her own within the generally male-dominated world of commercial cuisine. While readers today will find many of the recipes dated or menu suggestions positively retro, the author’s writing is clever, personable and as entertaining as when it was first published. Helen Corbitt is an acquaintance worth making.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Come Into the Garden, Cook by Constance Spry (J. M. Dent and Sons, Limited, 1946)

• Floyd’s Food by Keith Floyd (Absolute Press, 1981)

• The Observer Guide to European Cookery by Jane Grigson (Michael Joseph Limited, 1983)

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I look forward to your Comments and recommendations. Remember, too, that I am always happy to assist you in acquiring a copy of any book I’ve mentioned or that you are seeking.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

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In this, the third of four posts on the propagation of Italian cuisine, I want to touch on the British experience. Given the relatively close distance of London to Milan (25% closer than New York to Chicago), you might think Italian culinary influence would have seeped in sooner than occurred in the U.S., but you would be mistaken.

:: Cookbook History 101 - for the British ::

The birth of the modern country of Italy in 1861 may have coincided with the second half of the British imperial century (1815-1914), but it’s culinary traditions remained virtually unknown to the English. The publication of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (also in 1861) met with great success, selling nearly two million copies in the first seven years to a nascent middle class, while providing instructions and recipes for meals with which the average homemaker could commonly identify… which was not Italian.

The upper classes, on the other hand, were most familiar with a cuisine based on French techniques and referenced in French terminology, as was true amongst wealthy aristocrats across much of western Europe. It would be a while before the vibrant and soulful elements of Italian food culture would have an impact on the British Isles.

• Janet Ross - Leaves from our Tuscan Kitchen (1899) (Atheneum, 1974)

Born in 1842 into a well-connected British family, Janet grew up surrounded by many of England’s leading intellectual and literary figures. After marrying at the age of 18, she and her husband moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where they lived until relocating to Florence, Italy, in 1867. In 1888 they acquired the Villa de Poggio Gherardo outside Florence where she would continue to live until she passed away in 1927. Janet was a prolific author having published thirteen books and written for numerous literary journals with extensive visibility back in England.

Throughout her life at Poggio Gherardo, the kitchen was run by Chef Guiseppi Volpi who taught her all about Tuscan cooking and its reliance on fresh vegetables, a concept largely unfamiliar to Edwardian England. Janet dutifully wrote down Chef Volpi’s recipes and published them as Leaves from our Tuscan Kitchen in 1899. The work was well received back in Britain, and might have had a greater impact on culinary habits had the ups and downs of two world wars not intervened. Nonetheless, it provided a window into a culinary lifestyle that was potentially achievable, going through eleven editions up until 1936.

In 1973, Janet’s great-grandnephew, Michael Waterfield, revisited the book, updating the recipes for a new generation, with the first American edition published the following year. While it found an immediate audience with a burgeoning vegetarian culture, it has maintained its appeal as a practical guide in the farm-to-table arena.

On a personal note, I want to give a shoutout to the manner in which the recipes are formatted. Rather than grouping the ingredients at the beginning, each page is divided vertically with instructions on the left and ingredients listed on the right as they are needed. The ingredients are printed in red text so as to stand out, making it very easy to see them all at a glance when evaluating the recipe. Though unlikely to change the current standard, I wouldn’t mind seeing more cookbooks take this approach.

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• Elizabeth David - Italian Food (John Lehmann, ltd., 1954)

You can make a pretty good argument that all serious food writing in England can trace its origins to the publication of Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950), offering readers an enticing view of their European neighbors’ kitchens and dining habits. But it was her third book, Italian Food (1954), that really began to make waves. Elizabeth spent months traveling in Italy to research recipes, and the results, combined with her descriptive prose, were unlike anything British cooks had seen before. The opening chapter on “The Italian store cupboard” discussed ingredients and techniques with which the public was largely unfamiliar… but they wanted to learn.

By the mid-1950’s, the availability of her books in inexpensive paperback editions enabled them to reach a large and admiring audience. Within 20 years, she was being hailed as not only Britain’s foremost writer on food and cookery, but the woman who had “transformed the eating habits of middle-class England.” Though the remainder of her works addressed the culinary cultures of France and other Mediterranean regions (as well as British historical traditions), she is recognized for opening the door to an understanding and appreciation of Italian cuisine, even if that would be years in the making.

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• Anna Del Conte - Portrait of Pasta (Paddington Press, 1976)

Born and raised in Italy, Anna moved to England in 1949 at the age of 24 to learn English, later marrying and raising a family. For two decades she endured a cuisine that was “not something you discussed, but that you ate”. She was further appalled by the public’s general perception of Italian food as little more than macaroni & cheese and canned ravioli. In 1976 at the age of 51, she wrote her first cookery book, Portrait of Pasta, acknowledged today as being instrumental in changing the country’s perception of the Italian staple.

Anna followed Portrait with adaptations of Marcella Hazan’s first two books, Classic Italian and More Classic Italian, but her reputation as an author and British “doyenne of Italian cooking” was ensured by her subsequent books which have won numerous awards for her attention to detail and ability to imbue her writing with an approachable sensibility.

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• Ruth Rogers/Rose Gray - The River Café Cook Book (Ebury Press, 1995)

In 1987, Ruth Rogers and her business partner Rose Gray opened a restaurant in Hammersmith, London on the banks of the Thames, appropriately named The River Café. Initially functioning as the employee canteen to feed the staff at Rogers’ husband’s architecture firm, it quickly developed a reputation for serving excellent seasonal Italian fare with an intense focus on quality and technique. In 1995, they published their first book, The River Café Cook Book. In 1998, they received their first Michelin star and have held it ever since.

If you don’t live near London or have never been to the Café, then their cookbooks are the perfect gateway to recreating much of their menu at home. Given that so many of England’s top chefs have spent time in the Café’s kitchen over the past 39 years, it may seem unlikely to expect home cooks to serve these dishes, but therein lies the secret - the food is simplicity itself. You may well not have a giant pink woodburning pizza oven at your disposal, but you likely have everything else you’ll need at hand (and your oven will do just fine.) Unpretentious dishes created with basic techniques, using the freshest possible ingredients and accompanied by a pleasant glass of wine - that is the River Café ethos.

Rose Gray sadly passed away from cancer in 2010, but Ruth has maintained the consistent level of excellence that made the Café into the legendary institution it is. Over that time, thirteen cookbooks have been published, but the simple approach and comfortable vibe have remained from the beginning. This is a book for generations to follow.

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• Valentina Harris - The Italian Regional Cookbook (Lorenz Books, 2017)

As one of the most respected experts on Italian food and culture, Valentina has published over 50 books during the past several decades including a series of titles on individual regions. Finally, that series has been brought together into one single authoritative volume which may well be considered her masterwork.

Born and raised in Rome, Valentina’s journey towards a long culinary career started at the age of six with lessons from the family chef. At the age of 19, she moved to London where she built a solid reputation as a private chef before publishing her first book eight years later, the award-winning Perfect Pasta (1984). And she hasn’t stopped writing since. Two books in particular - Recipes from an Italian Farmhouse (1989) and Risotto! Risotto! (1999 / updated 2017) - showcased her cooking skills and teaching talents in translating Italian culture to an English audience.

In addition to leading cooking classes at a number of culinary schools in and around London, she conducts bespoke tours and wine tastings throughout Italy. She also serves as President of the London chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier, the first chapter outside of North America. Valentina is a true British treasure.

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:: Below the Radar ::

We’ll close out our look at Italian cuisine next week, but for now I want to shift direction and bring to your attention an authorship duo that may likely be new to you if you don’t live in the U.K. or have ready access to BBC Four. I love coming across culinary talent beyond the confines of our local bookstores.

The Fabulous Baker Brothers (Headline, 2012)

By Tom and Henry Herbert

The Herbert’s, a.k.a. The Fabulous Baker Brothers, seem like a too-good-to-be-true story, but they are the real deal. Growing up in Gloucestershire in southwest England as the fifth generation behind the Hobbs House Bakery, their futures seemed predestined. However, Henry decided that, since his older brother Tom displayed talent working with bread, he would focus on becoming a chef specializing in butchery. They both set about developing their careers and, several years on, the butcher shop next door to the family bakery became available and Henry moved in. Now, they work and cook side by side and, since 2012, the British public follow their story on The Fabulous Baker Brothers television series.

Thanks to hard work and dedication in producing wonderful food products, the brothers have grown their business to four retail locations, a cookery school and a number of charitable operations. Along the way, they have published two cookbooks - The Fabulous Baker Brothers (2012) focused on baked goods, and Glorious British Grub (2013) revitalizing traditional British fare with contemporary twists. If you’ve seen them on TV, know that their books are just as much fun to read. If not, don’t let that stop you.

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:: My Favorite Things ::

As usual, I like to close the week by sharing one of my personal treasures in the hope it might become one of yours.

Vegetarian Gothic (Stackpole Books, 1975)

By Mo Willett

For those of us of a certain age who survived the tofu and rice cake obsessions of enlightened flower-children and back-to-the-earth communal kitchens of the 60’s (memories of which can cause even the most open-minded of us to cringe at the mention of an organic sprout or a natural carob creation), one of the last things we would want to peruse is a 50-year old hand-lettered vegetarian ode incorporating nuts and seeds into our daily meals. I get it, believe me.

And yet, all is not as it might seem. Published in 1975 to document the recipes crafted by Mo Willett and her friends at their restaurant, Krishna’s Kitchen, in rural Cismont, Virginia, the contents are well worth your investigation. Yes, there is more than a smattering of counter culture philosophy (”Eat when hungry… feast when joyful… fast to get high… and sing of love all the time.”), but what sets this apart from other tomes of its ilk are solid recipes that display a firm grasp of flavor principles and a good degree of culinary skill. Admittedly, this is not the second coming of the Moosewood Collective which was making waves in Ithaca around this same time, but it should also not be consigned to the lost archives of hash brownie has-been’s. There is substance here, and it deserves to be remembered and cooked. Not everything is a winner, but there are definitely pleasures to be found.

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:: Recent Additions to My Collection ::

• Cooking with Wine by Nell Heaton (Faber & Faber, 1950)

• The Working Girl Must Eat by Hazel Young (Little, Brown and Company, 1941)

• Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners by Elizabeth O. Hiller (N. K. Fairbank Company, 1915)

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Thank you for reading. If you would like to continue with me on this journey, please subscribe for free. There are so many great cookbooks I want to share and I want to learn from you and your experiences. I look forward to your comments and recommendations.

- - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”