cookbook obsession #1

Like a lot of people who love to cook we are obsessed with cookbooks. Luckily our public libraries are staffed by incredible people who buy amazing books we check out weekly. If we like them we buy them. On the flip side we love collecting vintage cookbooks. They offer insight into past dining habits, ingredients, preparation and most important are a trip back into nostalgia to a time we missed. With that said, we will be posting on a regular basis our new finds and treasures.

Our newest obsession is the cookbook author Beverlee Sias. We got her The chicken cookbook 1969 A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc. Cranbury, New Jersey online for $5. Yes cheap cookbooks a fairly safe addiction. (Note: go for the cheap ones since they will get messed up in the kitchen anyway. Don’t waste your money getting a mint condition first edition for $40 when a perfectly good one is there for $5)

We make a lot of chicken and have even pondered getting a chicken coop for eggs. We have a customer in San Jose who showed us the coop he made and it is quite impressive! Anyhow, this book is loaded with every imaginable recipe to do with chicken. We first made her Chicken in Lime Juice and it was incredible. Unlike many books of the 1960s and earlier she calls for fresh ingredients and was well learned in cooking styles from around the world. We highly recommend you buy this book. Our appreciation for Beverlee has led to a brief investigation to who she is. We know she was born in San Francisco, was half Spanish, and was a wompatrol in the National Ski Patrol System.

This explains her The skier’s cookbook which we also had to buy.

We aren’t too sure if she is still around but would love to know. She apparently lived in Mt. Shasta and had a son who was into ski racing at a young age. The books is full of info on ski maneuvers, working on the slopes and food especially delicious for hungry skiers.

This book evokes images from Après-ski outings of the 1950-1960s when people still had wood skis, and wore the most glamorous attire.

A book from around the same time is Peg Bracken’s The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book 1960 Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

Since we love to cook we just had to buy a book with a title like this. Peg is one funny gal. While the recipes are very traditional American fare centered on using as many frozen and canned ingredients (she hates wasting time in the kitchen) many substitutions can be made with fresh. But the copy is hilarious and can be read like a book.

Here is an excerpt from the back of the book:

Some women, it is said, like to cook.
This book is not for them.
This book is for those of us who hate to, have learned, through hard experience, that some activities become no less painful through repetition: childbearing, paying taxes, cooking. This book is for those of us who want to fold our big dishwater hands around a dry Martini instead of a wet flounder, come the end of a long day.

The book turns out to have been a collaboration among friends and has great illustrations by Hilary Knight.

Another fun thing to collect is the publications put out by certain food societies – usually associated with a specific industry. We picked up “Bananas…how to serve them” from The Home Economics Department of the Fruit Dispatch Company, Pier 3 North River, New York, N.Y. 1940 since we love bananas. It is a pamphlet with the most hideous food photographs common at that time, but kooky copy and some appealing recipes like the Banana Pecan Ice Cream – we like the variation with Peanut Brittle in it.
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Moving on, another love is historical cookbooks, such as Soup Through the Ages: A Culinary History with Period Recipes by Victoria R. Rumble 2009 McFarland & Company, Inc. Chuck full of archival photographs and recipes, we have yet to tackle anything from the book.

It is also full of great photos like this group of people in a Victory Garden:

There is a downside of surrounding yourself with recipes and books: overload. Some days when we are deciding what to make for lunch or dinner (we almost never eat out which probably explains why we are both so slim) we have simply no excuse to be at a loss what to make. But with so many choices at our fingertips, we sometimes just pick up some organic ground turkey thigh meat and make marinated burgers with a salad. When this happens I always feel so dumb since we could have made something new. But when you are exhausted, falling back on spontaneous creations or standbys is common. We do however, cook from these books just about every day for at least one meal. Doing a lot of cooking from books also shows how few recipes are actually any good. They usually need tweaking.

Another historical book we picked up this week is The City Tavern Cookbook: Recipes from the Birthplace of American Cuisine by Walter Staib with Paul Bauer 2009, Running Press Book Publishers.

This establishment in Philadelphia opened in 1772 and the book is a collection of classic and updated recipes full of interesting historical tidbits. We just got it and haven’t tried anything yet. We are intrigued by Ben Franklin’s beer recipe:

Eric is currently getting close to finishing Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York by William Grimes 2009 North Point Press.

We highly recommend reading this book. The research done by Mr. Grimes is astonishing and the education you will get from reading this book is equal to a semester in college. While it is a big book, and it can progress more slowly than a mystery novel, we suggest you give it a shot. One of the early lessons of the book which is repeated in “The City Tavern” is just how abundant and popular oysters were to early American diners living near sea water. Now Eric loves oysters of any kind and Phineas sticks to them fried, so hearing about all the inventive ways they were prepared simply makes our mouths water.

Speaking of delicious, we have been happy so far with Organic Marin: Recipes from land to table by Tim Porter & Farina Wong Kingsley and produced by Marin Magazine. 2008 Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC.

We have tried the Vegetables on Quinoa with Miso-Ginger Sauce (pg. 72) and it was fantastic!

OK. That is about half the books we have cracked open in the past week from libraries and online purchases. More to come soon.