The Joy of Cooking is encyclopedic, but very bland.
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Louis Cohen
Living la vida loca at N37° 43' 7.9" W122° 8' 42.8"
"Max Hauser" > wrote in message
...
> (Re-recommending a trouble-making classic)
>
> "Affluence, airplanes and highways destroyed good food in this country; we
> want it to be easy and supersized," said Anthony Bourdain of _Kitchen
> Confidential_ (quoted in a recent Portland _Tribune;_ the country he means
> is the US). "Most people think a potato tastes like a Pringle. And who
> remembers what a truffle tastes like? What people know now is truffle
> oil --
> the ketchup of the upper class."
>
>
> In a contrasting view of the history here, for around 30 years in print
> the
> Hesses have argued, or demonstrated, that the books of Fannie Farmer and
> the Romabauers spearheaded the decline of good food in the US, half a
> century before Affluence, Airplanes and Highways. (The bland nationwide
> brands and convenience foods after the second world war were just the
> coup-de-grace). Ideas heralded as innovations in US cooking in the last
> couple of decades emerge, in the Hesses' documentation, as rediscovery of
> principles common in past centuries, but lost, in America. (By the way,
> to
> take in vain the names of Fannie Farmer and the _Joy of Cooking_ sits
> badly
> with some people who grew up with these books, but they might want to
> check
> the Hesses' arguments for themselves. Discomfiture can spur discovery.)
> _The Taste of America_ was received by some US food professionals as
> important, even a landmark, when published.
>
> As for ketchup, here are the Hesses in 1977. (These samples are typical
> of
> the book.)
>
> "The most popular cookbook of the nineteenth century first appeared in
> Philadelphia in 1837. It was _Directions for Cookery,_ by Eliza Leslie,
> which in our view ranks with Mrs. Randolph's _Virginia Housewife_ as one
> of
> the two best all-American cookbooks ever written. James Beard, be it
> said,
> has rendered a service in making Miss Leslie better known to modern cooks.
> Why does he say, however, when he quotes one of her recipes for scalloped
> tomatoes, that it is "a very good one even now"? He surely does not mean
> "even now when tomatoes are no longer fit to eat," so presumably he means
> "even now when cooking has become sophisticated." In truth, American
> cooking
> reached its highest level in the second quarter of the nineteenth century,
> with Miss Leslie as its guide. From then on, it was downhill all the way.
>
> "Miss Leslie was sufficiently sophisticated to have written _Domestic
> French
> Cookery_ (1832), which she described as a translation. But her classic
> _Directions for Cookery_ is thoroughly American. It shares with earlier
> cookbooks a concern for quality that now seems almost alien, and abounds
> in
> such critical assessments as remarks [quoted] on choosing catfish, and
> "The
> Portuguese pork, which is fed on chestnuts, is perhaps the finest in the
> world." [On to further examples for the rest of the chapter.]
> . . .
>
> "There are other interesting omens of the approaching decline in our
> cookery. One is the gradual disappearance of the shallot. Even the
> admirable
> Miss Leslie makes only rare use of it, and after her, it virtually
> disappeared from American cookbooks for a century -- a great pity. Out own
> hypothesis is that the pervasive flavor of the tomato drove out the
> shallot
> as bad money drives out good. Supporting this is the fact that the great
> majority of ketchups that characterized early American cooking was
> gradually
> replaced by the ubiquitous tomato ketchup. Miss Leslie, in 1837, published
> recipes for eight kinds: anchovy (two), lobster, oyster, walnut, mushroom,
> lemon -- and tomato. (Be it noted again, there was no sugar in any of
> them.)
> Anyone familiar with Chinese cooking will recognize the original source of
> ketchups, but they came to us from England. (the Oxford English Dictionary
> says the word apparently derives from the Amoy Chinese kétsiap, meaning
> brine of pickled fish. The Malay kechap [bar over the e], often given as
> the
> source, may be from the Chinese as well.) Until about 1850, when an
> American
> recipe called for ketchup, it most likely meant mushroom, walnut, or
> oyster.
> These interesting condiments did continue for some decades, because Miss
> Leslie's works continued to be best sellers. [To at least 58 editions by
> 1881, acc. to Bitting's standard bibliography -- MH]
>
> "Her lobster ketchup ..." [on and on with details].
>
> John L. Hess and Karen Hess, _The Taste of America_ (1977, ISBN
> 0670693766;
> current 2000 reprint edition with new notes, ISBN 0252068750).
>
>
> -- Max Hauser
>
>
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