Venus Rising

Food for SoulIssue: Gemini 09 - The Summer Reading Issue

Two Great Cookbooks to Check out This Summer

The Joy of Cooking is a classic cookbook that was first published in 1931. It just celebrated its 75^th anniversary with a new and updated anniversary edition. From its beginning to modern day, this book is indispensable in the kitchen. Its practical definitions of food, blueprints for entertaining and directions for cooking are an immeasurable reference for cooks and non-cooks alike. Get your hands on an older edition and you have a great read. Early additions were filled with guidelines for being the perfect yet practical stereotypical housewife of the time. Four pages instruct readers about formal entertainment, from planning a stately multi-course menu to properly setting the table and service of the meal. Practicality runs through these editions with instructions on such things as canning, preserving, shopping and making your own…of almost everything.  Cuts of meat are described and illustrated, as is kneading bread dough and separating eggs.  Each chapter begins with an in depth discussion about the contents therein.  In Brunch, Lunch, and Supper Dishes in my Mom’s 1964 edition, the authors, Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, proclaim “How we’d love to judge a competition of housewives, each turning out her native meat pastry!”  Whether it be the chapter entitled Canapés and Tea Sandwiches or Stuffings, Dressings, Farces or Forcemeat each lets the reader into a old world of etiquette and industriousness.

Now playing on a radio station near you is National Public Radio Weekend Edition’s The Splendid Table. The creators of the show have a cookbook too called “How to Eat Supper” in which the duo producers endeavor to cross market the famous radio show. Whether you like the show or not, the book is a foodie’s feast. The recipes all use common ingredients and are relatively easy to make, as in they are intended for tonight’s supper, not dinner two days from now. Along with the recipes however, the book contains stories, prose, quotes, tidbits and tips about food, eating and life. 

When you are feeling less than industrious this summer, and the hottest non-fiction doesn’t draw you in, sit down with a good thick cookbook and notice how your summer reading can not only take you away, but it can enlighten you and spark inspiration. You may be stirred to reenact the scenes played out in the pages or it may drive you to cultivate gardens of impressive produce. Better still, let a good cookbook jettison you to other countries without ever leaving your lawn chair.