Cookbooks that Connect

American homecooks have decided to stay home, and they want cookbooks instead of carry-out. They are reaching for friendly books that conjure a warm kitchen filled with the smells of home-cooking. A generation ago cookbooks simply gave readers recipes that made good meals. Now they vie to entertain, befriend, teach, and soothe. With tragedy, fear, uncertainty, and distrust
all around, the world desperately needs this sort of comfort and connection.
The friendliest of cookbooks are those of other cuisines. Ethnic cultures cherish home, food, and family. For them food is a sort of Esperanto, a universal language all people readily speak and understand. They know that the right meal will relax boundaries, loosen tongues, and soften hearts. Americans know it too.
The primal warmth and safety of the kitchen lie beneath the shiny trappings of the best ethnic cookbooks. Their recipes are like love letters from one cook to another, the scribbled gifts from mothers and grandmothers to their descendants. This is true of Interlink Publishing Group’s four new arrivals. Clarissa Hyman’s Cucina Siciliana (1-56656-433-6) and Sarah Woodward’s The Ottoman Kitchen (1-56656-412-3) both benefit from sleek but soothing page design and sun-kissed photos of Sicily, and of Syria and Turkey respectively.
These are well-adjusted cookbooks: uncomplicated, beautiful, and practical. Cucina Sicilana will cast a spell on readers as soon as they open it. Hyman’s recipes like Lamb, Fennel, and Orange Casserole or Sea Bass with Lemon and Black Olives beg cooks to prepare them. In Hyman’s page on “strattu or estratto” she explains how Sicilians make this “blood-red tomato
paste.” They pour a puree of fresh tomatoes on wooden boards to dry for several days under the hot Sicilian sun. Strong Sicilian arms turn the paste as it hardens into an intensely tomato flavored red clay-like substance. Tempting recipes like Stuffed White Zucchini with Pomegranate and Egg Sauce and Fish Kabobs (with a walnut garlic “tarator” sauce) stud Woodward’s Ottoman Kitchen. The photos of homes in central Anatolia and of Bedouin
women and daughters making flatbread are guaranteed to disarm and delight.
Shirley Booth’s Food of Japan (1-56656-394-1) and Margaret Shaida’s The Legendary Cuisine of Persia (1-56656-413-1) may not be as sleek and shiny but they are warm
and practical. Booth’s book might at first seem intimidating but it is a dependable and convenient starter cookbook that with daily use will benefit cooks. Recipes like Sake Braised Sugar Snap Peas and Finger Sushi aren’t difficult for novice cooks. Booth offers lots of detailed information about Japanese ingredients to help cooks unfamiliar with Japan’s cuisine. Shaida’s cookbook reads like the menu from a banquet--that she is cooking. It’s informative and full of simple but unusual recipes like Pomegranate Soup and Chickpea Patties. The desserts, like Saffron Rice Pudding and Sugared Almonds, are enough to make hearts yearn and stomachs rumble.
Ethnic cookbooks, more than any other type, link people. Imagine a cowboy eating curry or a Hoosier preparing baba ganoush. In doing so the cowboy and Hoosier ingest the history and essence of another very different culture-and are transformed. The food works a kind of alchemy that can thaw even the chilliest hearts.
Ian Hemphill is a master of alchemy. His The Spice and Herb Bible, A Cook’s Guide by Australian publisher Robert Rose (0-7788-0042-3) is a must-have companion for those homecooks venturing into ethnic cookery. Hemphill covers more than 100 seasonings in an easy to read format with the kind of detail that makes a foodie’s heart beat faster. The section on cinnamon and cassia is seven pages long complete with processing and storage; history; other common, botanical and family names; names in other languages; flavor group; weight per teaspoon; food complements; what ethnic mixes it is used in; and what other spices it combines well with. Hemphill doesn’t miss a trick. He even includes his favorite recipes with many of the seasonings.
Ken Kawasumi’s The Encyclopedia of Sushi Rolls published by Kodansha (4-88996-076-7) is a technicolor trip into America’s most loved Japanese food. It will delight the sushi lover who can’t stop at a simple Boston roll. The recipes are clear and rich with photos that can make the most difficult rolls possible. The decorative rolls will call out the performance artist in homecooks. With rolls that when cut look like cherry trees, dragonflies, frogs, and elephants, Kawasumi has cleared the way for Americans to have fun with an intimidating Japanese icon.
Callawind’s The Spice is Right, Easy Indian Cooking for Today (1-8965-11-17-1) by Monica Bhide is a friendly addition to a busy cook’s ethnic kitchen. The chapter titles (and website food information links) reflect Bhide’s spirit: An Indian Super Bowl Party, The Boss is Coming, and Some Like it Hot. That Bhide is serious about Indian food shows in her recipes. These are dishes that she, a busy working mom, cooks repeatedly for husband and friends. Though at first this
book seems small, it shines large with chatty recipes that are simple, much lower in fat than traditional Indian food, and highly flavorful. This cookbook will appeal to the busy thirty-something crowd with recipes like Tamarind Chutney, Yogurt Curry with Lentil Dumplings, and Shrimp in Coconut Milk. They are both sophisticated and easy to prepare.
Although Sally James’s I.A.C.P. award winning Fresh and Healthy, 100 Fabulous Heart Healthy Recipes published by Ten Speed Press (1-58008-392-7) and Berkshire House Publishers’s Adirondack Cuisine (1-58157-056-2) by Vanderstigchel and Birkel aren’t strictly ethnic, they are filled with the spirit and influence of other cultures. James’s dishes aren’t as dreary and drab as many low-fat/health cookbooks. Instead they bubble and shine with innovative ethnic touches. This is a refreshing, colorful cookbook that couples style with comfort food. With recipes like Spring Roll-wrapped Ocean Trout; Thai-cured Lamb and Noodle Salad; Ricotta, Pinenut and Couscous Frittatta; and the genius Pineapple and Mint Sushi cooks won’t even have to admit to anyone they’re healthy.
Adirondack Cuisine demonstrates the way a new regional cuisine can be born when the many ethnic influences of an area fuse. Homecooks will warm to the Native American, New England and other cultural influences that blend with the hearty regional bounty of the Adirondacks. Dishes like Maple Glazed Venison Loin with Potato Rosti, Redskin Irish Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Asparagus and Corned Beef Morsels, and Toasted Fennel and Porcini-Dusted Lamb Chop may sound complicated but are not. This cookbook is friendly and
festive, a little brash, and full of big flavor. Readers who want to charm and captivate guests will find it indispensable.
Two small ethnic cookbooks that deserve mention are Lerner Publications Company’s Cooking the Thai Way (0-8225-0608-4) by Supenn Harrison and Judy Monroe and Cooking the Indian Way (0-8225-4110-6) by Vijay Madavan. They are books that parents could use to introduce children to other cuisines. The books offer an introduction to the people, traditions, seasonings and holidays of the culture. Recipes are simple and limited to about two dozen.
Sometimes there is an urge to use a famous restaurant’s cookbook for ethnicity of flavor. One is Dickie Brennan’s Palace Cafe: The Flavor of New Orleans (published by Dickie Brennan & Co.; 1-9317757-00-3). A fleur-de-lis of a recipe is one for Reveillon, a traditional Creole entree. The production of Palace Cafe was co-produced by Favorite Recipes Press, a company that facilitates the publishing of cookbooks for nonprofit organizations, companies, and individuals. If one’s New Orleans palate is still unslaked, the recipes in Harvard Common Press’s Eula Mae’s Cajun Kitchen: Cooking Through the Seasons on Avery Island (1-55832-240-X) by Eula Mae Dore and Marcelle R. Bienvenur should quench. Perched in the Mississippi river only 140 miles away as the egret flies, is the island home of Tabasco sauce and a triple tiered tradition of French, African and Caribbean flavors. Eula Mae is stirring through the seasons.
Ethnic cookbooks mentor cooks in much the same way foreign exchange programs
support students. They share food, family, history, and memories. Ethnic food has rooted deeply into the American diet. Although Americans are less eager to travel after September eleventh, their melting pot passion for the flavors of other places remains unabated. America may try to slow the wave of immigration but the invasion of ethnic cooking cannot be stopped. It
knits cultures and people in a way nothing else can.