If armchair travel is the most simple solution for wanderlust, it just might follow that armchair cooking is the salvation for an expanding waistline or elevated cholesterol.
Despite a cookbook collection that threatens to crowd out the edible goods in my pantry, I’m loathe to open up any of that valuable real estate by thinning the herd.
Grandfathered onto the shelves is my very first cookbook, a wedding-shower gift titled IDA BAILEY ALLEN’S STEP-BY-STEP PICTURE COOKBOOK, hot off the presses in 1952. An age-crisped Hallmark card signed by the ladies of my parents’ Sunday school class still marks Pepper Steak Oriental, one of the few recipes I can reflect on without cringing.
I had attributed my new spouse’s steady weight-gain to skills I learned from Mrs. Allen until he admitted some years later that he’d kept body and soul together thanks to the Air Force mess hall across the base from our married housing barracks.
More battered (and splattered) is the book that has earned its pride of place, my 1965 edition FANNIE FARMER COOKBOOK. Belatedly, I figured out that old Ida wasn’t the ideal mentor for this never-ever cook!
Growing up in a three-generation household, my job was to either (a) peel the potatoes or (b) chop the slaw if I got under foot in the kitchen. Getting in my hour’s piano practice was a more palatable choice.
By the time I had two daughters, I would leave Fannie Farmer open to a given recipe, with a note for one daughter or the other to please make this or that, and make myself scarce. They both became superb cooks, but the learning curve was mitigated by a wonderful little Italian restaurant within walking distance.
Consider the potato salad #2 daughter produced with a flourish one evening. It wasn’t until we’d discovered unexpected resistance from said potatoes, that it was obvious she’d skimmed over the instruction to cook the potatoes. With a jut of her 14-year-old chin, she declared, “I like my potato salad crunchy!”
Such is the stuff of family legends.
Thanks to entire TV channels and savvy booksellers, the market for cookbooks is expanding as fast as America’s collective waistline. Their read-ability is the reason I keep adding more.
A primer for anyone moving to the true deep south from away , is BEING DEAD IS NO EXCUSE, a little chuckle of a how-to on dealing with the ineluctable. No fewer than six formulas for pimiento cheese fall under the heading of southern pate, the paste that holds the South together.
My copy of Southern writer John Egerton’s SIDE ORDERS recalls a long-ago Reynolds Homestead program as he teamed up with (then) Director David Britt to demonstrate an antique beaten-biscuit machine. An ample supply of the results were enjoyed with every Southernism from persimmon preserves to the above ubiquitous cheese. Egerton went on to pen the award winning SPEAK NOW AGAINST THE DAY.
No cookbook shelf would be complete without the countless secret recipes , per Junior League, church circle, and countless other fund-raising collections. (Imagine the ways-and-means committee’s debate over which of a dozen broccoli casserole recipes to publish—and understand the white flag inherent in printing all 15!)
Arm-chair cooking meets arm-chair travel in treasured publications like RECIPES FROM RUGBY. Within its 44-pages are copies of hand-written recipes dating back to the founding of Historic Rugby, Tenn., in the late 19th Century. Cow Heel Jelly or Suet Pudding might be just the ticket to think on if you’re tempted to whip up some of Aunt Adelaide’s Cookies or a batch of Sally Lunn.
If you’ve ever overnighted with us, you’ve gotten the whole orientation talk—including what to do in case of fire: grab all of the 3×5 file boxes from the kitchen drawer just under the phone you’ve just used to call 911. Forget the watches and rings, those five boxes hold the collective favorite foods, show-off dishes, and kitchen expertise of five generations from both sides of the wedding aisle. A pity they don’t lend themselves to armchair reading—a metal recipe box will never replace a book.
