Cookbook Mania—In Reverse

I once was an adventurous cook, eager to try out new recipes, learn new techniques.

Apr 17, 2023

People who read porn are probably not ever going to do the things they read about. I read cookbooks in that same fashion. It’s certainly enjoyable to read a recipe for Riz à la L’Impératrice or Veau Prince Orloff, but I am never going to attempt either dish. Still, it’s entertaining to read how someone else did it. Especially if there are pictures—engaging pictures are essential to cookbook-porn.

book shelf overloaded with books

The old shelf

When I first moved into this big house, I was delighted to have shelves in the kitchen just for cookbooks where I proudly placed my much-used volumes, perhaps eight of them. But over time—that is to say, the decades I have lived here—those shelves began to sag as I heedlessly stuffed volumes on top of other volumes, perhaps seventy-five in all, along with assorted caches of the now-vanished Gourmet mag and the still-extant Bon Appetit.

Recently, an amigo of mine noted that the whole apparatus was not merely overladen, but groaning, maybe even dangerous. He offered to make me new shelves that could better support the weight. I gulped at the task of actually dealing with so many books, with shelves that had never been dusted, but this was an opportunity to cull through, to peel off what I didn’t need or read or want. But what to do with them? Happily, a friend of Brendan’s, Anna Mortimer, who is herself a fine cook, shares my passion for cookbooks. Knowing that these books were going to someone I admired, who shared my enthusiasms gave me new incentive.

I tried to be guided by circumstance.

old student's notebookAs the books came down, weird stuff emerged, packets of seeds from springs long past, one of Bear’s 7th grade assignments, a box of golf balls (!) a strange apparatus for tracing patterns on fabric (?). A cardboard “log cabin” Brendan made in the 5th grade collapsed upon the touch. Dust flew everywhere.

As for the actual books, I tried to be guided by circumstance. That is to say, I once was an adventurous cook, eager to try out new techniques and recipes. Now, occasionally, I bestir myself creating an inventive meal for friends, but for the most part, I noodle along (pun intended) on my own. When the lads and their families visit, I go into a great flurry of cooking, but it’s revisiting memory, not an adventure requiring recipes.

Some choices were difficult. Some not.

In culling cookbooks I returned to eras in my writing life. My novel Cosette (HarperCollins, 1996) which followed the fortunes of Jean Valjean’s daughter from Les Misérables required extensive reading. After all, characters have to eat. Being a Francophile in general, I bought and read well into the 19th century and beyond, into the 20th century, cookbooks about French chefs, French cafés, their cuisine and ambience. I could almost believe myself to be in a Parisian café sipping an aperitif amid scintillating company, even if I read alone with a Diet Coke.

A prominent theme in American Cookery (2006, St. Martin’s Press) was the way that uprooted people carry their old recipes in their heads and hearts and adapt them to new, sometimes hostile circumstances. In the years I worked on that novel, I went wonky-bonky buying cookbooks, delighted to be able to do so and write them off as a legitimate expense. Some of these I kept, especially hard-to-find gems, like The Cowboy Cookbook (gift of my sister) and the richly historical reprint (and translation) of Encarnacion’s Kitchen documenting early California cuisine.

Some choices were difficult. Some not. I was astonished at the number of cookbooks I have dedicated to Elvis’s culinary tastes and heritage, recipes I used for Elvis parties. (See blogpost “Now You Know What I Do for an Encore.”) There were many books, gorgeous works of art all on their own, quite apart from any recipes, Monet’s Table and Dining With the Impressionists, Tuscany: the Beautiful Cookbook, really too beautiful ever to be actually used in a messy kitchen. I parted with easily with these, knowing that Anna will love them.

Unlike writing, cooking is immediate and ephemeral.

One of the very first cookbooks I owned was Julia Child’s, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I, a gift from my parents when I first returned to California from the East Coast. That was the year I was determined to learn how to write well and cook well. This was not accidental timing. Writing and cooking might both be performance arts in the sense that the writer needs readers (and an editor, a copyeditor, a proofer, and a publisher) but the cook only needs someone hungry. To write well, that’s a path filled with brutal doubt; any rewards might be years, sometimes decades in coming. In cooking, everything is immediate! Ephemeral, true, but immediate! And even if the dish is Not So Great, if you keep on hand a lot of dry pasta, good olive oil, herbs and a bunch of green onions, you can always feed people something decent. Wine helps too.

Volume I stays with me; Volume II goes to Anna.

Julia Child’s Volume I is dog-eared, much splattered, lots of scribbled notes on the pages, and the sturdy binding slowly giving up its threads. Volume II (which I bought a few years later) begins with a daunting chapter on breads. I opened to that chapter and read on, but I never once cooked from it. (It did, however, give me a phrase which I constantly invoke as a teacher : Il faut mettez la main ala la pâté or, translated into writerly terms, You Must Put Your Hand to the Dough and Work it Fearlessly If You Want to Achieve Anything Worthwhile.) Volume I stays with me; Volume II goes to Anna.

I read cookbooks imaginatively, as a way to travel without passport or jet lag. No surprise then that numerically my shelves swarmed with titles dedicated to Italian cooking, Mexican cooking, French and Middle Eastern which pretty much sums up my tastes and enthusiasms. Knowing I may never again travel to Italy or Mexico or France, or even once go to the Eastern Mediterranean/ Middle East where my Armenian ancestors had their roots, I still gave most of those books to Anna. I even parted with a battered old paperback Mexican cookbook, a gift from decades ago inscribed to me “with love and lust.” I tore out that page.

cookbooks set up between pots of geraniums

The new shelves reflect new priorities, books and games for grandkids on the first shelf. Among the few cookbooks I kept are volumes I’m never likely to find again. An enormous 1961 English edition of the famous Larousse Gastronomique (1099 pages). No one actually reads Larousse Gastronomique, though you certainly could open it anywhere and prepare to be fascinated. The legendary Escoffier first began this work, but died before it was published in 1938.

I kept the equally hefty, immersive reprint of the 1859 Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1112 pages) Somewhere I even have a biography of the sad, short life and posthumous afterlife of Isabella Beeton, the most famous name in 19th century cookery.

I kept the ponderous 1971 edition of Gourmet Menu Cookbook (652 pages) with its stiff color photos of food that looks petrified. I once created an exquisite, difficult clarified beet soup from this volume for the man who would one day become my husband. He ate it without complaint only later telling me he loathed beets. Still does.

The beautiful new shelves reflect new priorities.

I kept the books where the prose delighted me as much as any of the recipes—some even more than the recipes—books by the tart, snappish British writer, Elizabeth David, by Alice B. Toklas, and an Anthony Bourdain I didn’t even know I owned. (There were a lot of books I didn’t know I owned.) I kept most of the historical cookbooks, works I may need in future. I kept some sentimental battered books, just because I remembered the fun of first using them. I kept an Armenian cookbook, gift of my Parisian cousin, written in French which I can read, sort of. A rare copy of Toscana in Bocca, written in Italian, which I cannot read at all.

More cookbooks still lurk around this house, tucked into obscure corners probably upstairs somewhere. If I were truly ambitious, truly serious about shedding all this print-and-page, I’d seek them out as well. But I won’t. In fact, I’m hoping Anna comes soon. I don’t want to rethink my choices.

11 Comments

  1. Pam

    I was immediately transported to the wonderful space that is your kitchen! And the nostalgia that washed over me upon seeing that picture of those dangerous/wonderful shelves! Not surprised at the little surprises that popped up as you culled your collection.
    xxoo

    Reply
  2. Marian

    Lovely! I have a similar although smaller cookbook problem. Do you think Anna might be interested in about a dozen South Asian cookbooks? It’s take out for me these days.

    Reply
    • Muriel Dance

      I too cooked my way through mastering the Art of French cooking volume one about the same time you did. Another way our lives connect.

      Reply
  3. LINDA QUINBY LAMBERT

    I bet all of us who love to cook and collect stacks of old and new. One of my favorites is a 1912 spine-cracked, watermarked, brown and bent volume called THE WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK…”containing cooking, toilet and household recipes, menus, dinner-giving, table etiquette, care of the sick, health suggestions, facts worth knowing etc.” All by Hugo Ziemann, Steward of the White House and Mrs. F.L. Gillette. I can barely get past the title page to read the following 619 pages and their recipes for mutton and neck of veal and cayenne cheese straws.

    Reply
  4. Patty Stephenson

    Seeing the pictures of the bookshelves reminds me of some wonderful hours spent with you in your kitchen – along with a bottle (or two) of lovely wine. 🙂

    Reply
  5. Katherine Bird

    Laura…I loved this piece. I still have American Cookery and my old copy of Southen Comfort Cooking passed on to me from my sister in law! Recipe memories, food histories and wine! Loved this! Thank You! Katherine

    Reply
  6. linda morrow

    Ah…. your kitchen and the wonderful times our writing group met there. I would have loved to watch this culling process along with the surprises it unearthed and the dust motes flying! Makes me think about my collection of children’s literature. Can’t bare to part with it or even reduce it, but who will ever want it?

    Reply
  7. Judy Shantz

    Laura – I love this post. I, too, am a collector of books, magazines and news clippings about cooking. I look rapturously at a new recipe or cookbook, positive that I can create the same culinary wonders. Alas, I often seem to be an imperfect technician. Does that deter me? Never!

    But, like you, I have had to cull. A few years ago I steeled my resolve and donated, to a young aspiring cook, my 20 plus years’ collection of Cuisine and Gourmet magazines. Still, my old Boston Cooking School cook book (from which I’ve never cooked anything) and my Julia Childs The Way to Cook, will still be on my shelves when I am long gone.

    Reply
  8. Cindy Hazen

    Beautiful. I’m sitting next to boxes of cookbooks destined for the library’s book sale. I have many more on my shelves to comb through, but I insist on going through each carefully and scanning any recipes I don’t want to part with – even if they are untested. Like you, I could rethink my choices.

    Reply
  9. Victoria Doerper

    This journey through your cookbooks is hilarious and poignant and inspiring. I can’t tell you how many cookbooks groan on our shelves, including a copy of Laurousse Gastonomique. And of course Julia’s two books. And so many more, including John’s. So many memories in those pages and in those meals, both real and imagined. Brava to you for culling and gifting. And for your generous sharing of those most memorable stories, conversations, and meals.

    Reply
  10. Shannon Hager

    I find this an interesting piece because I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s book At Home, a short history of private life. He makes several references to Mrs. Isabella Beeton’s book Book of Household Management, the same one Laura writes about here and the same one pictured. There is also a short reference to Auguste Escoffier who kind of sounds like the same person Laura mentions.

    That strange apparatus used for tracing patters on fabric- is it round like with points on it like the “Setting Icon” on a phone? With a handle and it spins? It’s called a tracing wheel and I’ve used it lots of times and still have one or two around the house, including one with an agate handle.

    I certainly enjoyed this piece.

    Reply

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laura kalpakian

The Random Reader

I am a passionate reader. Always have been.

As a kid, and later as a university student, I followed a ritual on going to the library. After I’d selected the books I needed, I always chose one more, a random book that had nothing to do with what I was researching, or even perhaps what I was interested in. I plucked it from the shelf, and checked it out.

Admittedly, these were not math books or science books, fields in which I have no talent and little interest. They were (and are) all sorts of history, fiction, memoirs, collections of letters or journals, old cookbooks, biographies, some lit crit, the usual suspects. Some of these random titles flowered into unlooked-for enthusiasms. Many were books I later bought just have them nearby.

So the Random Reader is just that: books plucked from the shelves, randomly revisited, re-assessed.

Read On

 

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