The Art of Simple Food
If you haven’t spent much time in the USA you might not instantly recognise the name Alice Waters. She is held in the same regard as the late and magnificent Julia Child and is a woman that even the iconic Martha Stewart bows to on all things culinary. Alice is as popular as our Delia but with a restaurant base rather than a TV series.
Alice Waters was born in 1944, in New Jersey. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in French Cultural Studies. She trained at the Montessori School in London before spending a year travelling in France.
Alice opened her restaurant Chez Panisse in California in 1971, serving a fixed-price menu that changes daily. The set menu format remains key to Alice's philosophy of serving only seasonal and fresh produce. The upstairs café at Chez Panisse opened in 1980 with an open kitchen, a wood-burning pizza oven, and an à la carte menu. Café Fanny, named after Alice’s daughter, serves breakfast and lunch, and opened 1984.
The Art of Simple Food is a book that has its entire focus on good ingredients, prepared without fuss. Alice starts with the basics but never confuses the reader with complicated cooking methods. It’s truly simple food but that’s not to say it’s bland or uninteresting. The dishes range from family fare to the more exotic Bagna Cauda.
The recipes, although good, solid and mostly familiar, have a Californian flavour that makes The Art of Simple Food an interesting read. It represents the style of food served in Alice’s restaurant and reminds us of trips to the Napa Valley. Quesadillas, Frittata, Pumpkin Pie all help to convince you that this isn’t a reprint of your grandmother’s cookbook.
Among the cake recipes is Cranberry Upside-Down Cake which has a real American feel and will be an ideal Christmas dessert. It’s an alternative to the classic apple Tarte Tatin and has the advantage of being less sweet and a bit more colourful.
Apart from the Californian slant there is plenty here to suggest that Alice Waters paid attention to her time in France. There are several Provencal dishes including the ubiquitous Ratatouille and Nicoise Salad.
The Art of Simple Food is an ideal cookbook for those who want a single volume that covers every aspect of cooking. Nothing is daunting for the novice and there are plenty of new dishes for the more experienced home cook.
The Art of Simple Food
Author: Alice Waters
Published by: Michael Joseph, Penguin
Price: £25.00
ISBN 978-0-718-15438-7
The Farmer’s Wife Baking Cookbook
The Farmer’s wife in question is not actually a farmer’s wife, or should I say she is hundreds of farmer’s wives. Confused? Then I’ll explain. The Farmer’s Wife was a monthly magazine published in Minnesota between 1893 and 1939. I dare say farmers and their families felt often quite isolated in the days before rapid transport, telephone, TV and the internet. This magazine gave the lady of the house a forum for pastimes such as household management, dressmaking, gardening, slaughtering (animals, that is) and cooking.
If you are a lover of historic cookbooks you will be enchanted by this volume. The recipes are family recipes which often give an indication of the roots of those farmers or their interest in faraway places. There are Cornish pasties, Guernsey Gash, Sally Lunn, Southern Apple Dumplings and Raleigh Cake. The farmer’s wife took great pride in her baked goods which were appreciated by husbands and children who all worked hard to make a success of the farm.
Lela Nagri, the editor of The Farmer’s Wife Baking Cookbook, has tampered with the original recipes as little as possible. She has done some helpful conversions from archaic measurements such as gills to ounces but the words of these ladies have been preserved.
The most marvellous illustration of rich and colourful language can be found in the Quick Breads chapter. A contributor from Wisconsin writes “Make a stiffish paste with flour and lard and a pinch of salt, not no baking powder. Wet it up with milk if you got it, water if you ab’n got it....The children so dearly like it, and they say currans be full of the new fangled “vitamines” the Doctors be always ordering, they ought to be good for ‘em. If you get tired of currans you can make a “Figgy” wan fer a change. Figs is just Cornish for raisins”.
The Farmer’s Wife Baking Cookbook isn’t an out-moded recipes book. The cakes and pastries here are good solid fare that will be enjoyed by you and your family in the 21st century just as much as those folks back at the start of the 20th.
There are lots of recipes here that will be familiar to those who have been fortunate enough to find an authentic American diner. Cream Pies are a simple, cheap and delicious dessert and there are several in this book. Favourite Pie dates from 1913 and is a rich apple tart topped with meringue. These might not be exotic but they are authentically American and still worth making.
The Farmer’s Wife Baking Cookbook is probably a book for the more confident cook who already has a feel for baking. It has 300 or so recipes so there are plenty to get your culinary teeth into. I think it’s a winner and a volume that I’ll be using often.
The Farmer’s Wife Baking Cookbook
Editor: Lela Nagri
Published by: Voyageur Press
Price: £9.99
ISBN -13: 978-0-7603-2903-8
The Dean and Deluca Cookbook
Founded in 1977 by Joel Dean, Giorgio DeLuca and Jack Ceglic with the opening of its flagship store in SoHo, New York, Dean & Deluca quickly
grew into a retailer of gourmet and speciality foods, vintage wines and quality
kitchenware, with outlets throughout the United States as well as Japan, Taiwan
and Dubai. Dean & DeLuca products are sold through its 14 shops and cafes in
New York, Washington, D.C., Napa Valley, Charlotte, and Kansas City. It has a
consumer and corporate gift catalogue, and an internet shopping site,
deandeluca.com. Dean & Deluca also market its own-label products to other
retailers and wholesalers throughout the world.David Rosengarten (see my interview with him) has produced this weighty tome of a cookbook to complement Dean & Deluca products. Now, my American audience is leafing through the phone book to find the nearest store or considering an internet purchase. Their store in SoHo, New York, is a must-see for any visiting foodie, but listen, my European readers, this book is packed with lovely deli-type recipes that you can use without buying a trans-Atlantic ticket.
The recipes are international so they will be interesting to anyone with access to a good grocers with a deli section. There are plenty of descriptions about ingredients and histories but I feel that this is more of a recipe book than a food encyclopaedia.
David has a conversational style of writing that is witty and informative. There is a strong North American bias, as you would expect, but the text is relevant to the European reader and there are very few products that would be either unfamiliar or unavailable.
Mussels and Chorizo in Saffron-Garlic Broth is an example of a truly delicious and international recipe but all the ingredients are readily available in the UK High Street. As David Rosengarten is a lover of all thing French (food, that is) he has a good selection of classic French recipes, but he manages to slip in a few good ol’ American favourites like Buffalo Wings and Louisiana Red Beans and Rice.
The Dean & Deluca Cookbook is for the more serious cooks. It doesn’t have a lot of pictures – in fact it has none – but its recipes are broad-based and well-chosen to give balance and interest to this well-written volume.
The Dean and Deluca Cookbook
Author: David Rosengarten
Published by: Ebury
Price: £17.50
ISBN 009186956-0