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Title: In Pursuit of Flavor (The Virginia Bookshelf) by Edna Lewis, Mary Goodbody, Louisa Jones Waller ISBN: 0-8139-1989-4 Publisher: University of Virginia Press Pub. Date: March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: In Pursuit of Excellence
Comment: It is safe to say that this cookbook is like no other you will find unless it is another by this giant of a chef/instructor. The book is filled with information: how to purchase fish and duck, how to freeze berries-- there are two pages of information on Virginia hams; and, yes, there are recipes too exotic for my simple tastes. For example, I doubt that I'll ever prepare rabbit pate or roast and stuff a suckling pig. Miss Lewis' whiskey cake recipe is from another world, however. The cake is made in a tube pan and has a cup of bourbon in it--and tastes as if it does. (Miss Lewis says that you should never cook with any alcohol you wouldn't drink.) The cake comes out of the oven a beautiful pale yellow color, almost like salt-fired pottery. Dense and moist, it slices like a thick piece of fine cheese. I didn't believe the author when she says that you can listen to the sounds of a cake to know when it's done. I can testify that she is quite right about that. This is a really fine cake. There are lots of other breads and desserts I want to try.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Very Colorful Cookbook
Comment: I had heard of Edna Lewis for many years, so was anxious to see what all the fuss was about. And I was only mildly disappointed. Like M.F.K. Fisher, she has an uncommon appreciation for food and a keen sensitivity to subtleties in flavor. Throughout her cookbook she speaks of preserving flavor, complementing it,& getting the best out of it; and stresses the importance of fresh, organic, high-quality food. In her introduction she says, "I feel fortunate to have been raised at a time when the vegetables from the garden, the fruit from the orchard, and the meat from the smokehouse were all good and pure, unadulterated by chemicals and long-life packaging. As a result, I believe I know how food should taste." And so naturally, by extension, she has alot of particularities and preferences for how she likes things: she prefers Madagascar vanilla to Tahitian, cinnamon from Ceylon, the fall crop of raspberries to the early summer crop, the basil plants with tiny leaves, home-made baking powder to store-bought (she includes the recipe), and she waxes rhapsodic on wild berries: "...but wild things never fail us. They always taste good, which is why if you see only a handful of wild nuts or a cupful of berries, you should pick them. They have a flavor nothing else has. If you transplant a wild plant to the garden it will never taste the same." Etc.,etc. Quite a few recipes are designed for specific, possibly obscure, types of fruits or vegetables-- green gage plums, explorer potatoes, cymling squash, lady apples, Keiffer pears, etc. In the case of the Damsom plum, wild persimmon, and wild strawberry recipes, she allows for substitution with the regular and cultivated versions, but warns that the results will taste different and not as good. She offers a diverse range of hints along the way-- from how to buy a good coconut, to how to learn to listen for the signs when a cake is done.
Edna Lewis is an old Virginian, raised in Freetown, a small farm community founded by her grandfather shortly after his emancipation from slavery. The narratives introducing each food chapter, and the comments that accompany each recipe, are reminiscences from her childhood and insights into southern sensibility, and they are delightful: " Summertime is just nothing without boiled corn on the cob. When I was younger, for dinner, corn would be a separate course, which we would eat after the main part of the meal when the dishes were cleared away. After all, you really can't eat anything else if you are concentrating on corn", and "In the South there's a big stir about how chess pie got its name. Some say it's because when a guest would say 'My, this a good pie, what is it called?' the answer would be 'jes pie'."
The disappointment for me, a near-vegetarian, was not only in the relative paucity of vegetable recipes, but in seeing how heavily she relies on meat in general-- not just as a course in itself, but as a means of deriving flavor in other dishes. She says,"I still use pork shoulder, country ham, bacon, and streak-of-lean to flavor many dishes", and," I wouldn't feel my kitchen was well-stocked if I did not have ham on hand to flavor dishes." A full third of the cookbook is devoted to meat, fish and game. And much of that is not necessarily your ordinary fare-- there are more recipes for rabbit, for instance, than for beef. And quite a bit of quail, pheasant, duck, guinea hen, etc. There's even head cheese, eel (including how to skin them), and squirrel. The squeamish may want to skip this section altogether. She also obtains flavor from the liberal use of fat. I was surprised by how many recipes, even vegetable ones, call for a stick of butter or a cup of heavy cream.
Still and all, this cookbook is a unique treat-- informative, inspiring, and just a pleasure to read. The tomato soup with basil, crispy cornsticks, creamed scallions, and summer berry pudding are all excellent. Of the latter she says, "When I made this for the James Beard Tribute Dinner in New York one year, Mayor Koch had five helpings." Next to try is the chocolate souffle, "one of the recipes for which I am best known."
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Title: Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis ISBN: 0394732154 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 12 May, 1976 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks by Edna Lewis, Scott Peacock ISBN: 0375400354 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Plantation Feasts and Festivities: A Celebration of the Grandes Dames of Virginia Food & Hospitality by Angela Mulloy, Edna Lewis, Shawn Green ISBN: 1570984034 Publisher: Court Wayne Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Lost Recipes : Meals to Share with Friends and Family by Marion Cunningham ISBN: 0375411984 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook : Discover Why the Best Small-Town Restaurant in the South is in Social Circle, Georgia by Jane Stern, Michael Stern ISBN: 1558539913 Publisher: Rutledge Hill Press Pub. Date: 20 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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