Does Obesity = Hunger
Hunger related problems now occurring in one of the nation’s capitals of obesity, South Bronx, from Sunday’s NYTimes. Expect more to come if the cheapest food remains the most harmful food available. ()
Cheever Bio Wins NBCC Award
Congrats to my dear friend Blake Bailey, whose
bio of John Cheever, won best bio of 2009 from the National Book Critics Circle on Thursday.
I mentioned this bio when it came out. It’s fabulous, highly recommended. Blake also wrote a bio of Richard Yates, which is every bit as good, if not better. I have no doubt his Charles Jackson bio (
which he talks about on the WSJ blog) will be the same, even if
Jackson is all but forgotten. ()
Michael Symon and I At Jo-Beth Legacy Thurs at 7
Michael Symon and I will be at
Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Legacy Thursday from 7 to 9. He no-doubt wants help flogging
that damned book of his. I’ll be out front selling out of my van. If it’s good enough for Bourdain, it’s good enough for me. ()
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Two things I haven’t seen mentioned:
Found: Julia Child’s Amazing “The Way to Cook” did teach me how to cook: it shows you, for example, how to sautée a chicken, then three or four variations. it’s what allowed me to make the jump out of recipes.
Seeking: a good vegetable book that will allow me to go to the farmer’s market, buy what ever looks & tastes good, then cook it. I’ve bought several vegetable books and they are all too short and incomplete. I need the flavor profile and technique approach here… I love meat, but they have been better served in cookbooks than veggies.
on thinking over your question, i realized that my favorite books to cook from are not even cookbooks. i couldn’t live without my copies of home cooking and more home cooking by laurie colwin or cooking for mr. latte by amanda hesser.
I agree with Tracey..flavor combinations. I have over 300 cookbooks..I love my cookbooks. I consider myself to be a decent home cook. I do wonder sometimes if this flavor will enhance that flavor..or screw it all up. I try it..sometimes it works.
I like the idea of a book of side dishes too..I don’t want a complicated side dish..just a really good one.
JoP and Melly: I’d highly recommend “Culinary Artistry”. It has pages and pages of tables of flavor combinations for composing a dish and composing a menu. Very dry, no recipes, but exactly what you are looking for and incredibly handy. There’s another part to the book too, something about stories of chefs or meditations on the craft. i don’t know, I haven’t read it, I just bought it for the flavor tables and have usually been very happy with the results.
I’d love to see a cookbook in which each recipe teaches or reinforces a technique, with the recipes grouped by technique. This could be a good learning tool.
I’d like to see/buy a cookbook that takes a whole-meal view, not just a list of side recipes that go with a protein. I have a huge hole in my knowledge about preparing whole meals, specifically the following:
1) Conceptually, which side dishes (pre-dinner drinks/appetisers/veggies/starches/salads) work best with the main dish
2) Timing of multiple, especially for enteraining. Which menu choices can be held (and how) to get hot, perfectly done food to guests on time.
3) Prep – what techniques can be used at home for early preparation, holding food, which foods hold well, and heating up.
I haven’t seen this, but would love to. Thanks.
I would love to see a cook book that consisted of whole foods (nothing processed; no cheese, bacon, etc) with healthy (as in good for you not portion size) calorie counts. I’m always hearing and reading that I should have a diet of whole grains, fruits, vegatables, beans, and nuts. It would be fantastic to have a cookbook that had these types of recipes that are tasty and easy(ish)! I’d like to give a shout out to Heidi from 101cookbooks.com for leading me to this site!
Flavor combinations. That’s what I need most help with. Lack of knowledge about flavors is one of the reasons I can’t cook without a book. If I have a piece of meat or a fish or anything, how do I figure out what herbs / spices / other ingredients will complement it?
How flavors work together — I think that’s what I need to know in order to learn the rest. I’m not finding discussion of this topic in the resources I have. Does it exist somewhere?
Ach – sorry about the double post! Typepad is having a pissy moment!
Ideas for a cookbook…..easy. “How to cook and impress” Do different menus and recipes for different types of guests. One set shopping list and detailed recipe (w\idiot proof pictures) for “the inlaws are coming over”, “my husband just invited 10 guys over to watch the game”….or my favorite, “Having a dinner party, and one friend is a Vegan”.
Make it humorous and I will be the first to buy it…or send me a signed copy.
It would make some money and answer alot of peoples questions and insecurities.
All my best,
Tracey Kent Andreis
Bob:
Or you need Skawtie there – one-armed or not, he should get everyone shushed into nervous submission (!)
Bob:
Or you need Skawtie there – one-armed or not, he should get everyone shushed into nervous submission (!)
Bob delG:
You don’t need a book. You need a hockey mask and chainsaw.
I learned technique from James Beard’s Theory and Practice book — and the cookbook I use most for everyday stuff is Patricia Wells Bistro Cooking — ever recipe is easy, it works, and tastes great. I have a whole bookshelf of others that I love — some to read, some for specific recipes — but if the house burned down, it’d be PW I’d buy a new copy of first (although it would be terrible to lose all those recipes I’ve cut out and stuck in the PW).
Bob, if you do remove the valves, don’t forget to hide them.
I just started reading a book called Fish Forever, by Paul Johnson (owner of Monterey Fish Market and fish supplier to Alice Waters and Thomas Keller, to name a couple.) It tells what type of fish are safe to eat, what fishing and farming locations are safe to buy fish from, and a lot of useful info about fish in general.
Michael, write a book like this for land based foods like livestock and vegetables.
Click one of MR’s Amazon book links on the left and search for “fish forever” so MR gets a cookie credit referral for it.
Bob, you’re a paesano – use the Big Italian Wooden Spoon. If that fails, come back up to your ancestral turf, Brooklyn. I’ll feed you (!)
I think it might be interesting to see variations on mediocre American recipes. Like what you did with the Chicken Caeser Salad. Introduce each recipe how it is prepared the traditional, boring way. Then offer ways to improve it.
One of my favorite conceptual cook books is from Ming Tsai. Each chapter starts with a master recipe, and then he shows you how to use it in multiple ways.
Because I am often only cooking for two (my wife and I), and recipes are usually for 4, I either have to reduce everything or prepare too much food. With the master recipe approach I don’t mind making “too much” because I know I will use it for more than one meal.
The other element I look for is pictures, pictures, pictures. And I want the picture to match the actual recipe, not some food porn version. When you made Kung Pao Chicken on this website you had good pictures at almost every step. That was perfect. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing a picture of the recipe I am making and notice details that are not in the recipe.
Obviously pictures add to the cost of the book, especially by adding pages. If that does create a barrier to using them, why not create a website companion with the pictures?
Mr. Ruhlman,
Let me add my vote to a technique book. I have thought recently that while any good home cooking tastes great, what makes it seem ’special’ (above and beyond the fact that it was made at home with love and respect) is presentation and technique. It makes food “go to eleven”.
What I think I’d like to see is a culinary school basics education pared down for home use. And for a twist, there would be follow-ups for what to do with scraps and leftovers from your ‘training’. For example: I am currently fascinated with turning potatoes. I can imagine that at a culinary academy, there would be piles of ‘taters around to turn and something to do with them after I did it. At home, I don’t really have that luxury. So after the book’s lesson on making my tubers ‘anglaise’, there would be a recipe for the turned potatoes themselves AND a recipe for the trimmings.
I would also like to see a reference guide to butchering. Showing the basics of where the cuts are on the animal, what they are best used for, how best cooked, what to ask for at the butcher’s, what else to ask them for if they don’t recognize the name of the cut you first asked for, etc. (Something to sell as a sister book to Charcuterie, perhaps)
Ooh, great idea on the butchery book, EHLindner. I’d buy that in a second. You can pick up bits and pieces from a number of cookbooks (the Niman Ranch cookbook and the River Cottage Meat book come to mind), but I’d love a home guide to butchering, even if I’d probably never break down a half a cow or something, I’d like to see how it’s done and where the cuts come from. With REAL pictures please, not just the butcher cartoon map showing the primal cuts.
In the meantime, EH, you may look for an old book called “Cutting Up In the Kitchen” which basically teaches you how to buy large primal/sub-primal cuts (say, Beef Shoulder Clod, bone-in whole pork loin, or a whole chicken) and break them down into the individual cuts. The emphasis is mostly on frugality (get a whole chicken for the cost of the boneless skinless breasts, cut cheaper roasts into steaks, etc.), but the author also tells you how to cook the various cuts too.
An ingredients to menu cookbook. For example, you bought cilantro, rosemary, radishes, pea greens, bone-in pork spare ribs, ground beef, figs, heirloom tomatoes, squash blossoms, feta, and shallots at the farmers market. Here are three entree/sides possibilities for your meal: for when you have alot of time/for friends over/for a wednesday when there’s under an hour to cook and eat etc.
I want a cookbook that teaches me how to keep one or both of my kids from copping an attitude at dinner.
It should also include information that will tell me how to prevent my wife from taking sides and yelling at me as I’m trying to eat. Finally, it should also have fool proof recipes for getting everyone to help with cleaning up or failing that, preventing my son from practicing his trumpet while I clean up.
An observation about cookbooks in my kitchen: some of the old basics (Fannie Farmer, Joy of Cooking) became a lot more valuable as my own skills improved. No recipe for scones, say, will get you want you want if they can’t also convey what it feels like to mix the dough just so. Once you learn it, all the recipes for scones work better.
I really enjoy the cookbooks that have anecdotes from the authors (on top of good recipes). Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Bo Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef was really entertaining (lots of interesting history and particularly funny anecdotes of a European cook riffing on American recipes). The French Laundry and Bouchon cookbooks. David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. Think Like a Chef from Tom Colicchio was an interesting read (though I read the library’s copy and didn’t keep it long enough to do any recipes) — it was more an approach to the kitchen than an approach to a list of recipes.
Cookbooks with good anecdote and bad recipes, though (where “bad” can mean anything from “not to my taste” to “too damn complicated — I’m in a hurry” to “too narrow topically”), means the cookbook doesn’t last long.
(“Too narrow topically” of course does not apply to The Perfect Scoop, since good ice cream trumps all other concerns.)
Bob delGrosso
You don’t need a cookbook for that, but a big cleaver works wonders I’ve found.
As for the trumpet, remove the valves, they unscrew at the bottom for cleaning.
Bob delGrosso
You don’t need a cookbook for that, but a big cleaver works wonders I’ve found.
As for the trumpet, remove the valves, they unscrew at the bottom for cleaning.
Two cookbooks that I find myself reaching for time and again are The Cook’s Companion 2 by Stephanie Alexander and The Silver Spoon (translated) by Phaidon Press. They’re huge, but primarily organized alphabetically by ingredient. The Alexander book (Austrailian) is great as there are a few anecdotes and she always starts off with info about each ingredient and a list of what flavors (she feels or are classic combos) with said ingredient. Probably the best $60 I’ve spent on a cookbook and I have close to 500 of them.
I second all of the above recommendations for a solid offal cookbook. Henderson’s book is nice, but is very light. More than once I’ve come home with a piece of offal not covered in it only to have to go searching on the internet for recipes of varying quality. I’d love it if you wrote a book organized by animal (cow, veal, pig, lamb, chicken are essential; fish, duck, goat, rabbit and other game would be nice for added color). Start with the animal, then think of every part of that animal that you can, then find at least one recipe for each. Cover everything from “common” offal like liver, to esoteric things like chicken knees, to the truly scary/reviling (penis, brains, etc.).
Even more important than the individual recipes, would be a thorough discussion of each piece of offal, covering key things that the home cook probably doesn’t know, such as:
-how to tell if it has gone bad (since much offal is very perishable, yet can also smell bad when it’s perfectly good)
-proper texture (before and after cooking)
-approximate size/weight (people might not realize a recipe calling for “one beef heart” will feed more people than a recipe for 8 lamb kidneys)
-what it is supposed to taste like
-how to tell when it’s done
-why you cook it a certain way (e.g. to break down tough tissue, render out fat, cook out impurities, etc.) and what other ways might work.
-how to adapt into other recipes
-common flavor pairings
-If you like this, you might also like…
Move the charcuterie principles more into other foods than meat, like the lemon confit and marinated olives (but don’t leave meat out).
Divide the recipes by the ones that take days, the ones that take weeks, and the ones that take months to complete.
Hrmm. Thats a big question.
Thinking back over the books I have most enjoyed, and the books I most use….
Not always the same thing. I’ve been home cooking for 15 years, and I still find myself at a loos, occasionally, re the basics.
So, somehting like the Larousse, but that is actually readable, covering tyhe basics that you have to master, and providing practical recipes to allow you to practice and then extend those basics.
The basics being cooking techniques, but also prep. Everything from how to chop an onion, to how to keep pork cool while mincing for sausages, to the best way to rehydrate dried porcini.
Theres a Carluccio book I use quite often. Its arranged by type of food, the intro section is as long as the recipe section. Each ingredient to be treated is listed alphabetically, with a paragraph or three given over to selection – at the shop, preparation, and guidelines about how to use it, and what it works with. The later recipes give practice, and provide some ideas for extending, once you’ve mastered the basics.
Heston Blumenthal does something interesting in In search of perfection. He picks twelve recipes, and takes them apart minutely, explaining each one minutely as he picks it apart beneath the microscope of his gastronomic intelligence. The what how and precise why of each thing. And then he improves them. He dissects his failed experiments, so he reader can learn from his mistakes. He gets it nearly right, and then explains why nearly is not enough. And then he gets it right.
Yeah. Thats it. Its easy to write down a recipe for someone to follow. It’s a different thing to teach someone to cook with intelligence.
I want a book that teaches me to cook, and then, and only then, teaches me to cok with intelligemnce.
I think a book in the tradition of Charcuterie would be great. The suggestion of working something out with Chris Cosentino sounds intriguing. Maybe a book on old American food. (Not the 40s-80s). Finding primary sources for that might be difficult. Maybe something in Spain, the Basque, delving into the world of tapas. I also liked the suggestion someone else made of doing a book with Alice Waters. It’d be a great way to unite the hippies and the hardcore badass cooks.
For those of you asking for a fundamentals book: Please wait for Ruhlman’s new book, “Elements of Cooking”. He can’t write the same book every time.
I think a book in the tradition of Charcuterie would be great. The suggestion of working something out with Chris Cosentino sounds intriguing. Maybe a book on old American food. (Not the 40s-80s). Finding primary sources for that might be difficult. Maybe something in Spain, the Basque, delving into the world of tapas. I also liked the suggestion someone else made of doing a book with Alice Waters. It’d be a great way to unite the hippies and the hardcore badass cooks.
For those of you asking for a fundamentals book: Please wait for Ruhlman’s new book, “Elements of Cooking”. He can’t write the same book every time.
All bacon, all the time.
Or a game book, I like venison, partridge, etc, but don’t see very many recipes for them.
“Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was such an influential book for me – I really wish that someone would take that format and use it for other cuisines – Italian, Asian, Spanish/Latin…
And speaking of Alice Waters, organic produce and sustainability, from today’s NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html?th&emc=th
There is a video link to this page further down.
I used the URL field to link to my cookbook collection. When I think of new cookbooks lately I think of what I’m missing. I don’t have any cookbooks covering the nation of Bhutan. I’m sure they have some fabulous food there. Although I have quite a few on Africa, I’m sure I don’t have enough. The same goes for Central Asia. There are still nomadic people there, and I’m sure they eat something. I want to know how to cook it!
What I want most out of a cookbook is background and authenticity. I don’t want to read about how they changed the recipes to suit American tastes. I want the actual recipe. A tablespoon of vegetable oil and a pork tenderloin is not a substitute for pork belly. If the recipe calls for letting the food sit unrefrigerated for a week until yellow-brown bubbles start coming out of then, then that sounds great to me. Don’t change it.
I’ve found that anthropologists write fabulous cookbooks. They get so involved in documenting the entire process that they produce very authoritative recipes. The Joy Of Cooking might tell me how to gut a squirrel in general, but a technical paper on the dietary input of an isolated village in Oaxaca will be quite specific about everything.
As of this hour, here are two Amazon rankings to consider:
Ruhlman’s “Essentials” — #6,297
Aunt Sandy’s “Fauxmoir” — #712,929
A good chunk of readers commented on how they would like a cookbook that contained formulas that would help them put together meals. I second that, but it also makes me want to revisit Pam Anderson’s “How to Cook without a Book.” It is a basic formula type book on how to put meals together, but very wordy. The wordiness cancels it out as a quick reference (it’s still a good book).
I would like to see a “Pam Anderson” book without the wordiness. Pure formula in a “cheat-sheet,” plug-in-play type format that has a list of ingredients and then the formula (A+B+C=D). Just plug the ingredients and cook away.
I don’t collect cookbooks anymore. It’s much easier to look up a recipe you want to make on the internet rather than sift through a dust collection of cookbooks. I would think featuring requested recipes on your website would work — and it’s gonna get more hits than another cookbook…
Greg Turner’s comments that are first in line with this thread are right on the mark. As a cooking demonstrator, these are the topics that I’m constantly being asked for more details about. Culinary building blocks and how to blend flavors are a two of my cooking passions/pet projects and later this winter, we’re working with a local library to develop a series of courses on these topics. Even with a library of more than 500 cookbooks, there still hasn’t been a book that’s “the one” and stands out above the rest.
Oh, and as a resident of Peoria, IL, Martin’s comments in the Publishers Weekly article were kind of funny. The only free-range chickens I’ve ever found around here were the ones we butchered at my grandmother’s farm when I was a girl. (They were tasty.)
I’ve really enjoyed reading all of the posts here. One thing that really fascinates me about cookbooks is how they’re organized. Two cookbooks could contain exactly the same information, but depending on organization, one could be immensely more useful than the other. One cookbook that drives this home to me is Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean by Ana Sortun. As the title suggests, the recipes are organized by spices, and it really helps you to become familiar with the building blocks of a cuisine that is unfamiliar to lots of folks.
I’d like to see more weekly meal planning cookbooks! Maybe give a month-long plan or something in your book, balancing different proteins each day.
I like books about cooking that explain why certain meals have evolved in various cultures. Are you familiar with john thorne? In one of his books he takes the premise that almost every culture has a chicken/rice dish and that social conditions affect the cooking methods and ingredients.(poor countries get poor quality chickens and learn how to produce flavor with technique, etc.)
A book that can induce thought about how to combine food and preparation, and show the fundamentals of technique and why different techniques affect final taste, that is a book that I would find useful.
If Sandra Lee’s and Michael Ruhlman’s book signing dates overlap in any city, do we get to go over to her gig and pelt her with processed food (in OR out of its box/can) en masse, after we’ve bought Ruhlman’s book? (Pelting her with a book like Ruhlman’s would be pointless. Right over her gin-saturated head.)
Thanks for asking! As one of the most cookbook-obsessed people in the country, I am happy to respond. In no particular order:
- An encyclopedic reference on fish with recipes. Peterson’s is eleven years old and Bittman’s is thirteen. I haven’t yet seen Paul Johnson’s, so I’m not sure if it fills the gap. It would need to cover fish from both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
- A book on Central and South American cuisines.
- A DVD on boning, filleting, etc.
- A book on food presentation for home cooks. I don’t mean horrible nautical-themed napkins, but what can I do besides put three heaps on the plate?
- Ideas and recipes for portable lunches and bento boxes.
- A good book on things that can be prepared in advance.
- A book of main dish salads.
- A book on dim sum.
- A discussion of how to compose a recipe: I go to the store, I find something exciting, but without my hundreds of cookbooks in pocket, how do I know what to do with it? Or, I have a refrigerator laden with ingredients from other recipes — what do I do with it all?
- A discussion of what makes a complete meal. There are so many possibilities with flavors, textures, colors, temperatures, etc. that I always wonder how much is enough. I randomly pair recipes together and it doesn’t always work — even when the individual dishes are great. If I want to make something like a fatty duck, do I balance the flavors within the dish by using fruit/olives or do I balance the dish with its accompaniments?
- Recipes for one, and especially, what I then do with the rest of the bunch of carrots, the rest of the carton of cream, etc.
- There is serious deficit in the DVD department unless I want to watch Rachel Ray re-runs (ugh).
Please remember that a great index is essential. Ingredients need to find their way into the index, not just recipe titles.
Also, I live in Colorado so I depend on the Internet sources for a lot of ingredients. I love trying new and obscure foods, but please help me find them.
My favorite cookbooks are those by Patricia Wells and Deborah Madison because their recipes are so reliably good. All hits, no misses. I trust those two enough to try a recipe for the first time on guests.
Things I am permanently done with: pasta, bread, and big desserts. I am not afraid of fat.
If you really want to appeal to the masses and sell books to more than just foodie followers, you need to do thirty-minute meals, chicken recipes, and slowcooker recipes. I’m of the foodie persuasion and don’t own a slowcooker, but I can tell you that all the other women at work put EVERYTHING in the crockpot. Everything.
Wow — so Ruhlman’s book comes out in November, the same day as…. wait for it…. Sandra Lee’s memoir, “Made From Scratch” comes out. Lest you think I’m kidding, check Amazon. Gosh, I hope your book tour dates don’t overlap with hers here in DC… I’d hate to have to choose between the two of you. >snerk<
Kansas City Rube
A lot of steel bowls, a meat grinder (the Kitchen Aide attachment works well), and a sausage stuffer.
If you want to do smoked sausage you need a hot smoker, although some grills can do this.
Dry cure requires a rodent/cat/dog/spouse proof hanging box in a cool (below 60) well venelated space.
Having just received the official “Twinkie Cookbook” for my birthday, I’m not sure there’s anything I could possibly suggest that would top it… who knew you could make Twinkie Lasagne?
Very late in chiming in here but I’d like to echo and elaborate on one of the comments upthread–the call for an updated compendium of American Cookery.
James Beard’s book by that name is now some 35 years out of date but, structurally, it had a lot going for it. That is, you may recall that Beard frequently gave a basic recipe and then ran riffs off of it. Those riffs were, variously, historical, regional, or ingredient based.
Much could be done with something like Fish Soups and Stews that captured those of the West Coast, the Louisiana basin, the Northeast. Or that elaborated variations on apple pie or crisp. Or, presented both a classic corned beef hash and a contemporary lobster hash.
And while Beard didn’t do much in the way of technique in that book that doesn’t mean you couldn’t. It can’t be assumed any more that the home cook will know how to process those great things that we’re routinely “put up” around the country–chili sauces, strawberry-rhubarb jams, etc etc
I’d buy it.
Hi again. Uh, don’t know why my email address shows up in that last post or how to remove it. Also, there’s a typo in the URL. Any way to edit comments? (URL correct on this post.)
Ruhlman,
While I adore food porn, what turns me on most is great writing and storytelling. Context helps in stimulating the readers imagination to inspire them to envision diverse uses for and variations on a recipe. Facing pages with photo and story on one side and ingredients and recipe on the other? Genre and ingredient focuses cookbooks abound. How about Ruhlminations?
I write a cookbook review blog called Gastronobooks, and I have to say that many of these comments reflect my own. One of the most important factors for me when I review a cookbook is whether or not the cookbook needs to be written. Is there already something out there that does what this book is doing, but possibly better? Yes? Then why was it written? There are so many useless, boring cookbooks out there that simply show you the same things over and over again. On the other hand, maybe the cookbook brings something new to the table in terms of style of writing, methodology, diet (low fat, low salt, etc.) or appearance (in the case of the high res. color photo cookbooks, I suppose). What I think is missing from the cookbook industry are these different approaches for getting people to the same (or similar) place. If I want you to make the same meatloaf as I am, there’s going to be a variety of ways to get there as well as a variety of ways of getting you to get there. We need different paths to greatness, not rehashes of Junior League recipes.
I plan on asking for charcuterie for my birthday. What equipment will I need to pull off these techniques?
I write a cookbook review blog called Gastronobooks, and I have to say that many of these comments reflect my own. One of the most important factors for me when I review a cookbook is whether or not the cookbook needs to be written. Is there already something out there that does what this book is doing, but possibly better? Yes? Then why was it written? There are so many useless, boring cookbooks out there that simply show you the same things over and over again. On the other hand, maybe the cookbook brings something new to the table in terms of style of writing, methodology, diet (low fat, low salt, etc.) or appearance (in the case of the high res. color photo cookbooks, I suppose). What I think is missing from the cookbook industry are these different approaches for getting people to the same (or similar) place. If I want you to make the same meatloaf as I am, there’s going to be a variety of ways to get there as well as a variety of ways of getting you to get there. We need different paths to greatness, not rehashes of Junior League recipes.
PS, Michael:
I am very intrigued by your new book, Elements of Cooking (for the home kitchen) – it sounds like it might be McGee, broken down for us home cooks? (November 6, people, November 6 – pre-order at Barnes & Noble).
OK, there’s my shill for the day.
Sorry I missed this posting initially. this is an interesting topic. I would say if you asked me, I would like to see a cookbook filled with original recipes. Go to places and pick a hand full of recipes indigenous to the area that everyone eats regularly. Like here in America, it might be a classic hamburger, or hotdog. Tell us a little about why the region eats this, what history brought this to be a staple of the diet. I am not lucky enough to be able to travel and try these things. This way I could possibly experiment in my own kitchen (assuming I could get my hands on the ingredients), and taste the things that make each region great.
Aside from Bittman’s “…Everything” and occasional internet searches I’ve learned what I know about cooking (many other amateurs consider me a fine home cook, but I’m no expert) from TV via PBS and Food. Because Alton and Julia have provided me with such great fundamentals I’m capable of riffing on almost any ingredients. In short, I don’t use cookbooks, but I occasionally read them.
The question is how to engage the coming generation of home cooks, those raised on TV and etc. While still putting some profit into the publishing company. The answer, when the question is framed thusly, is of course comic books. There are plenty of life-realisitc artists in the field already, Ruhlman can write, knows cooking procedure and is familiar with visual metaphore. I think its a natural. Do each issue with a guest chef providing basic, but classy (or not) recipes for an entire meal. Advertisers would be a no-brainer, there’d be plenty of room for sidebars or just supllemental pieces in the back. They could be given away in grocery stores, put online and pimped through the nose. And, when you had them in the kitchen (because there’d be a page with the recipes in classic format) you wouldn’t feel bad about spilling sauce on them, they’d be light enough to clip, magnet or otherwise hang from the cabinets. And you could roll it up to smash bugs, or chase peekers and tasters out of the way with.
I think this addresses all the common complaints about cookbooks, bulky, hard to use en media res and expensive. What’s more, if you don’t want to pay graphic artists it could be done with photo illustration. The possibilities are endless(ish.)
Making store-bought items with real ingredients (butter and cane) instead of hydrudgery and scorn syrup. Pointing out what’s in “100% whole wheat” bread & cereal – as opposed to the authentic 100% whole grains (not “contains 100% whole grains”) and making your own. List of suppliers would thrill.
And Put Harvey and Gary back to work. Illustrate, maybe even have a story.
I second Tags on talking to Alice Waters, and getting the whole background info on not just sustainability and the sustainability purveyors, but the whole evolution of Chez Panisse, etc. Yes, I know it’s been done (sort of) before, but since Waters basically changed not only American cuisine and they way we eat, but going forward, how we eat globally in European-centric cuisines. Given the impetus of global warming, I think it now more important than ever that the impact of Waters and the Berkley crowd on food, eating and food production be revisited. In your hands, Rule-man, I think the subject would be not only fresh and timely, but would make people think – as much as Omnivore’s Dilemma, but hopefully without as depressing them as much.
A comment well above, by Mark, opts for Charcutiere II. I would second that with more on dry curing and smoking.
I spent the weekend tearing the north room of my basement apart so I can build a dry cure box, two full sheets long, and as deep as a full sheet, against the north wall.
Include addresses of people who will sell you a whole fresh ham suitable for hanging.
I use Charcutiere a lot, especially in the fall. I probably made 60 lbs of sausage last year and hung an 18 lb fresh ham.
I will be making the terrine/pate you made in Cleveland in a few weeks and somebody mentioned in the cafeteria this AM that the Browns won.
More cookbooks with smaller serving sizes. I think I own all of the cookbooks in my B&N that involve cooking for one or two. And as half of a couple with no kids [or plans there of] I often feel like the forgotten demographic of cookbook artists. Sure, I could scale down already 4-friendly recipies, [I'm custom to the 1/8 cup and 1/16 cup measurements that are not in the sets I own.] but I’d like more cookbooks for the singetons and coupletons out there! [Plus - they make GREAT newlywed gifts!]
Add in there a love for good vegetable-loaded recipes that AREN’T all salads and you’ve got a fan for life!
Wow, go away for a couple of days and come back to one pasionate subject! As one who has been taught in the trade, cookbooks have been very important to both the quality and diversity of the food I serve and to my own developement as a baker and a chef. I am always looking for higher quality information…in fact I preordred your next book, ruhlman…so off you go! I’m glad to see so many people out there ready for what you have to offer…looks like your in the right line of work!
Question… is the cookbook you’re working on, The Elements of Cooking, due to be published on October 30th (which I’ve already preordered, btw) or something else?…
Honestly? I think you already wrote it. Charcuterie is a bible in my home. But off the top of my head? How about some fundamental serious cooking like making cheese, baking seriously good bread, something along those lines? Grass roots style cooking interests me a lot.
Michael;
You know Id really like to see a cookbook that gets away from whats new, and whats hot and focuses on some of the classics. More specificly classic American Cuisine. Not to soapbox but I think we are loosing the sense of American Cuisine in this country. I think we need to get people focused on regional and local classics again, not reinvented not reconstructed but the classics as they are meant to be.
Though this idea would probably come off as old and dusty, Id still like to see some love and care put into it.
The two cookbooks I go to the most are Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and The New Making of a Cook by Madeline Kamman.
But the two cookbooks I have that always surprise about how useful they are are the Dean & Deluca cookbook and the Julia Child and Jacques Pepin cookbook. I think I like D&D b/c the collection is so wide ranging and there’s an attempt to capture authentic recipes. The gumbo recipes and the goulash recipe are my favorite. It’s the only book I have that captures goulash from Budapest. The JC and JP cookbook is fantastic b/c you get the dueling viewpoints of a professional chef and a home cook. The pictures are great and the side bars are wonderfully instructive. The world could actually use another cookbook like it that helped show other techniques and discussed the differences between home and professional cooks that didn’t dumb it down too much.
That said thinking of you why not do something like Hot, Sour Salty, Sweet and get a nice budget to go travel somewhere exotic, get nice photographs and authentic but not unreachable recipes?
Guess I’m entirely out of whack as the best books I’ve read lately are Stealing Buddah’s Dinner by Bich Nguyen and Ludwig Bemmelmans hotel splendide books (OK, because of Bourdain’s recommendation in Nasty Bits). In terms of more traditional cookbooks, I’ve been following the podcasts (NPR Splendid Table) to Sally Schneider and blogs to 101 Cookbooks Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural cooking. Neither are food network or travel channel, but both have found a way to promote their work and catch my attention.
Why not get Harvey and Gary another payday? If you’re doing fundamentals, doesn’t it make sense to illustrate them? Having so much Cleveland talent in one place couldn’t hurt, either, at least for PR purposes.
A poor man’s guide to fine foods. How to make fancy pants dishes that look & taste amazing but don’t require a millionaire’s checkbook. For example, I used a single mushroom to flavor a dish last week. The shroom was all of $2-$3 when purchased, but I had never even considered purchasing a mushroom that rings in at $29.99/lb. It had never (DUH!) occurred to me that I could flavor something and change the dynamic of taste with just one good mushroom. I had become so intimidated by the price, I thought an ingredient like that would not jibe with my student budget. More people would buy/try crazy ingredients if they realized said ingredients were actually within their reach.
Amazing brainstorm session, Ruhlman!This has been a good read. Just puttin’ in my two cents as long as you’re asking…
As the owner of a cookbook store, I’ve been fascinated to read and reread what people here would like in a cookbook. All day, my wife and I answer the questions of people seeking certain types of cookbooks and I’d have to say that alot of what people here say they want already exists. So I guess this shows that in many cases, even with all of the tools out there for finding books, unless a book’s title states exactly what a user seeks, it’s hard for them to know if it fits their needs. Some suggestions for some seekers above:
Sides? Deboarah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.
Cooking with your adolescent children? any of Jamie Oliver’s books.
Offal? Fergus Henderson’s Whole Beast or Stephane Reynaud’s Pork and Sons are a good start, even if a beef-centric book is still lacking.
Global street food? Good idea for a book – but Anissa Helou’s Mediterranean Street Food is a pleasurable start.
Ruhlman’s book will be very welcome in the techniques section, where it will join Pepin’s Complete Techniques, Shirley O’Connor’s CookWise, Anne Willan’s La Varenne Pratique and others (Anne Willan’s The Good Cook is a helpful bridge, by the way, between techniques and recipes).
It’s a tribute to our customers and Portland (Maine)’s food scene, that our bestsellers don’t reflect much of what is said in the PW article that started this discussion. Our bestsellers over the past five months (in descending sales order) are: Herve This’ Molecular Gastronomy, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Meat Book, Martin Picard’s Au Pied de Cochon Margaret Hathaway’s Year of the Goat, Marco Pierre White’s Devil in the Kitchen, Nancy Jenkins’ Cucina del Sole, and Fergus Henderson’s Whole Beast. Portland cooks real food!
A cookbook I’d like to see? Something that fills the gap between Ferran Adria’s El Bulli books and This’ Molecular Gastronomy – aggressive contemporary technique, but with a focus on flavors and ingredients. We’ll have to wait for Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz, or perhaps Portland’s own Rob Evans to pull that one off.
What about a cookbook that wasn’t about recipies but about how to take a common ingredient, say a chicken breast or sea scallops, and then has a chapter on that ingredient that shows various preparation methods and other ingredient combinations influenced by different cultures (i.e. Greek, Italian, Thai, etc.)? This would give the cook inspiration for creating dishes without the same old 1/2 teaspoon of this and 6 oz. of that.
While sitting here this morning, hung-over, it reminded me what would be mandatory in any cookbook.
Table-scaping!!
Why the hell wasn’t this already mentioned???
I want everything that the editors and publicists in the Publisher’s Weekly article believe doesn’t work or sell.
I want esoteric. I want to know what the average home cook in Cambodia or Belgium might make for dinner. I don’t want the americanized version or interpretation of this made with supermarket peanut butter and ground beef. I don’t care at all about color photos. I don’t care whether the author is a celebrity or not, or if they have their own restaurant in New York. I don’t care to know how to make a truffled tower of turbot with microgreens just because someone who’s been on the Food Network says I should be interested in it.
But, that’s just me.
-RB
It would seem that many responders want great tasting meals from fresh ingredients that can be made with little fuss after work.
My goal for now is to be able to broil/grill/pan fry/saute something with some spices and herbs, adding a simple sauce perhaps. Even I can see that producing such things shouldn’t require a cookbook, but for me, it does becuase I don’t yet have an grip on what spices/herbs/sauce go well with a particular meat/fish/etc.
I’ve searched high and low for books that meet my needs and have come up nearly empty. Cookbooks seem to fall into maybe 3 categories….the Rachel Ray/Sandra Lee/community cookbooks, chef/restaurant cookbooks, and special interest/ethnic books. For general purpose cooking, special interest cookbooks can be nixed. Most home cooks discount chef cookbooks as too difficult and don’t even give them a look (although now that I’ve gotten into that category a bit, I can see that conclusion is often incorrect. Very simple but awesome dishes can be found in these). So most home cooks resort to the Ray/Lee/community books because they don’t know where else to turn. Home cooks settle for mediocre results because at least it gets something on the table.
I’ve finally learned that I don’t have to settle for mediocre, but the path to something better is not easy. Learning and trying and failing and succeeding is a joy. But it’s become a full-time avocation–time that many home cooks simply don’t have.
“Le Cordon Bleu at Home” is interesting book. It’s a series of 90 cooking lessons, each lesson constisting of 3 or 4 dishes–an entree, a side or two, maybe a dessert. Each lesson addresses techniques/methods. It starts with relatively easy dishes, and progresses to more difficult ones. Wonderful concept. I would be thrilled to find a book that applied this concept of lessons at a more elementary level with easy-to find, mainstream ingredients. This would be my weekend cooking cookbook. I would welcome the structure that such a book would provide.
Ruhlman: I would love to see you build upon Charcuterie. Hands down it’s the best source of techniques on curing, smoking, and preserving, and I turn to it often for both the technique descriptions and recipes. For example, my husband and I made your garlic sage-brined pork chops last night (for probably the 10th time!), and we’ve concluded that we’ve mastered the brined, grilled chop now.
I would appreciate the same in-depth approach on other ways to cook meat -whether it’s organized by fundamental technique or part of the animal. I’ve had this thought a lot lately after frequenting my local Halal butcher, where you can get the most beautiful cuts of lamb, goat and veal (also beef and chicken). A cookbook focused on what cooking methods work best for different cuts of meat would be one that I’d buy…almost a detailed guide on how to navigate the butcher case, prep the meat, and then prepare it. Personally, I think the prep part is really overlooked…I’m just as interested to know the right way to season (should I brine, should I salt the meat?) as I am the fundamental steps of braising, etc.
I like cookbooks with quick and easy meals. If I see anything with too many ingredients I generally don’t bother making it.
thx daphne, that was me that said what you quoted.
Real street food and not some chef’s take on it. And don’t be afraid of a dish taking time. I want a real recipes for pan bagnat, socca, Italian beef sandwiches, banana roti, Japanese style kimchi, southern catfish and spaghetti. I read food travel books and watch the shows and see something great, that I can’t find in any cookbook. Mexican border food, which is what I make, is very hard to find in a book. Most Mexican books are interior Mexico, which is good but very different. I’ve yet to find a homemade chorizo recipe that tastes like what I buy at the Mexican grocery and gives that great red grease. I hate cookbooks that say you can cook beans, stoneground grits or polenta in 20 minutes. You can’t, it takes hours, but its not a lot of attention and you can hold it if your meal or guests are late. Why are cookbooks afraid to say that? I love the Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid books and Jim Peyton’s mexican books.
Wow! Guess you really kicked the anthill eh?
I find so many comments above applicable to my own situation, and I sense each of us is at differing skill stages, so, I guess it goes to the audience you want to address and of course, scope. Tough call.
Since, technique seems to be a recurrent theme in the thread, and yes, those classic books have been mentioned, many are dated mostly by technology, not technique. What I’m suggesting here is why not take the best of Pepin and make that into a multimedia show? Put it on a website! A section for technique, another section for recipes a section for this and that. After all, as mentioned above, how many (self included) have cook books that they’ve barely thumbed through? (Oh and BTW, Website – Yes, maybe you could also accomodate us with some Ruhlman humor as well).
The website idea doesn’t have to reinvent what’s being done on other sites, but it can be your own style/take on any given subject. I should, I think, be instructive in tone a la Alton Brown.
And while you’re at it, whether book or website, please also take into consideration that some/many of us here in the flyover territories of Topeka, Kansas or Resume Speed, Iowa have trouble finding the sometimes esoteric ingredients for recipes you’d find in French Laundry or even Les Halles. For those of us who want to elevate what we do in the kitchen, it can be frustrating!
Good luck!
Can you work on a Korean cookbook, please? One that has truly authentic and delicious recipes that have not been watered down. –Other than that, I tend to value cookbooks with at least a modicum of backstory. I don’t need a nonna story for every dish, but I don’t like it when recipes are presented out of thin air without any reasoning behind it. I want to know why it’s different, why it’s worth my time and why you cook it that way? I believe knowing about the process (i do love a brief summary of trials and tribulations)lends for more credibility and makes me more motivated to try that particular version. I think when people invest in a cookbook, they not only want recipes but want to learn the nuances behind choices, whether they be for technical or personally arbitrary reasons. –Along with others, I also think an explanation of how to downsize for two would be great. Most recipes are for six.
I’m looking forward to your new book coming out this fall. Saw it on the Amazon forecast list and it looks very helpful.
I absolutely second what Marce said. Its exactly the type of cookbook I need too. One for the real world I live in.
“For the amateur home cook, there’s either too many ingredients required, too much time and prep involved in making it, equipment or tools required that I don’t have, or a combination of those 3. I get the most use out of a cookbook where the recipes have a few ingredients that I probably already have on hand, supplemented by key ingredients that I can plan to purchase that week. Most home cooks don’t have pantries with absolutely everything at their fingers, all the time. If all I have to buy to make a good meal is maybe some lemons and a chicken because I have the other 4 things, that’s do-able. If I have to skip the saffron because there’s no way I’m buying that, substitute regular raisins because I don’t have both regular and golden, swap out rice for quinoa, swap out regular yellow onions for cippolinis, after a few more swaps and misses it’s not even the same dish and I just go, “well, I don’t have all the shit for that one, I’ll just make something else.”
Most of my home cooking starts with whatever i’ve bought and have on hand, and then me trying to figure out a way to prepare and combine what I’ve got to make it tasty. If I know we need some meat and I take down italian sausage from the freezer, what do I do with it? I had intentions the last 2 days of preparing the recipe on the back of my box of polenta which included sausage, but I don’t have 3 of the ingredients and nothing to swap and I keep forgetting to stop at the store just to buy those things, so by the time I get home and am hungry and tired, we just say fuck it and go out. Meanwhile the sausage is languishing, and will either be hurriedly cooked and probably eaten plain/without a recipe, with the polenta going unused still, or I won’t get to it and I’ll throw it out.
When I was learning to cook, one of the best cookbooks I had featured different cooking purposes and methods in sidebars next to the meal. Like if you could make it in the microwave (horror!), it had a picture of a microwave and the cooking time, so you knew right away if that was where you wanted to start. Some of my faves were “cook once, eat twice,” which provided enough for leftovers or the original recipe PLUS a tasty way to use the leftovers in another meal. It provided full menus for holiday meals and helped me to understand timing when preparing several dishes, which is the hardest thing to get, I think. It also broke down the nutritional guidelines, which was very helpful. The negative was that the recipes relied too much on processed food; canned soups and such, which I don’t like so I quit using the book as I got further and further away from processed foods. It didn’t try to be fancy, it just helped you put good food on the table for your family every single night, including special occasions. No foie, no home sausage making in my tiny apartment, no chutneys or saffron, just easy to make and very tasty food.
I’d love to have another cookbook like that which was grouped by what you have on hand but NOT using processed foods at all, though those could be listed as subs if you don’t have the real thing on hand (such as canned chix broth, I know, the horror, but I use it in my stuffing every Thanksgiving and it’s always the dish that gets the most raves). Like, you could divide it into sections as a normal, traditional cookbook (meat, veg, etc.) but it would offer a “key” in the sidelines that gave you a clue whether or not you could or should even start making the recipe, offering good substitutions you might have on hand.
Maybe there’d be a picture of a chicken. And then it would say, if you don’t have chicken, you can use THIS or THAT instead. Then it would have total prep time and cook time. THEN I would be able to pick what recipe to look at, knowing that I had a chicken and 60 minutes to devote, start to finish. Almost like a tour guide – if you have 1 day, go here. If you have 2 days, go here and here. Then, in the actual recipe, it would offer substitutions that you could make if you didn’t have the particular item on hand, or things that you could easily leave out that wouldn’t change the dish that much. Like this:
1/4 c. raisins (or not, if you don’t have them on hand, or sub chopped dates)
I would use the shit out of a cookbook like that.”
I tend to buy three types of cookbooks:
- technique/reference/science books: Pepin, McGee, Childs, and so on. I want to know what actually happening, why it works, things that will be applicable across all the cooking I do.
- books whose recipes I think I can trust, and for the most part when I say this I’m talking about baking and/or preserving. This is why I buy books from the Cooks Illustrated folks, why I bought Charcuterie, books of cheesemaking, Reinhart’s book on bread baking, that sort of thing.
- books where I may never make a single recipe in the book, or very few, but where the recipes are creative/ingenious/amazingly presented, and meticulously photographed, or come with great narrative. These are the books I look to for ideas and inspiration when I cook, and include a very wide range, from “Biker Billy Cooks With Fire” to “The French Laundry Cookbook.”
The vast majority of what I buy falls into the last category, mostly because it’s very, very hard to qualify for that “trust” thing in the middle, and because the “classics” in the first category seem to be pretty widely recognized and on my shelf.
That doesn’t get into the non-cookbook-but-still-food-related category, like Bourdain’s books or Kurlansky’s “Cod” and “Salt”, or even Pepin’s biographical stuff, which I also read a good bit of.
Except when I’m baking, where I stick to recipes, most of what I cook is improvisational (I think I’m hardly alone there, either.) So I buy books that help me do that. The technique stuff gives me the mechanics, and all the rest is inspiration, which counts for a lot.
I’d say your instincts have resulted in your books pretty good fit for my tastes, since I’ve actually bought all of your cooking related books so far. There isn’t a title from you in that first “techniques” category yet, if you want to go for the trifecta.
Ruhlman,
I’m glad to hear that you’re working on a fundamentals cookbook. As a 24 year old who largely taught myself to cook (I’m an amateur, not a pro), I’ve come to appreciate that the way my generation has learned to feed itself is radically different from the way all previous generations have — and that this calls for a very different kind of cookbook than is frequently seen. In particular, I would note three changes in home cooking:
1) People aren’t learning at their mother’s or grandmothers knee. Sure, I helped my (working) mother make cookies at Christmas-time, but I really started to cook for myself when I was in college and without anyone teaching me. Rather, a lot of basic technique I picked up from the Food Network. While television offers one way to transmit this knowledge, the fact that I had to turn to such media to learn basic techniques suggests that there is a niche to be filled where a generation ago there was not.
2) Recipes proliferate on the internet, and particularly with Web 2.0, they can be reviewed, modified, and rated by the mass public (epicurious, etc). In many ways this has made the old-style cookbook irrelevant. One doesn’t need to know recipes — one needs to know the techniques to execute those recipes. I think this is why Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has so much draw amongst my friends. He only provides a couple of actual recipes for each food product, but does tell you how to do something with nearly everything. Similarly for this reason I’m a big fan of Colicchio’s “Think like a Chef.” He builds upon basic techniques, and suggests how to work various flavors and product combinations with those techniques.
3) Straight men are the new home cook. While men have long dominated the restaurant industry, the majority of home cooking has traditionally fallen to women in our society, with men relegated to the grill. I think this may be changing. Amongst my group of friends in grad school, almost all of the guys cook and are avid about it. Part of this may be the particular socio-economic demographic which I inhabit, but its a trend I suspect will broaden in coming years. This leaves open yet another niche for cookbook writers: food that is masculine and doesn’t treat its male readers like idiots (“A Man, a Can, and a Plan”)
My purpose isn’t to suggest that you write a specifically male cookbook, or a young person’s cookbook, or an internet cookbook, or to replicate any of the titles that I have listed above. However, I think that all of these social trends stress the importance of a high quality fundamentals/techniques cookbook that is meant for beginning chefs that aspire to be something greater — not just would be restaurant cooks (like Pepin’s books) or people who identify as cooking idiots.
In that spirit, let me offer a few features that might work for at least my demographic:
– Suggested variations (like Bittman’s “with minimal effort” section in his “The Minimalist cooks at home.” These provide ideas of what flavors work together and how to elaborate with the same basic technique without requiring a whole separate recipe, and allow readers to learn even when they are not making that specific recipe. In particular it would be helpful to know how certain substitutions or additions make a recipe more like one region of cooking versus another.
– Integrated web content. Lots of textbook publishers have integrated web content, and the same could be done with a cookbook — especially to appeal to the web-2.0-saavy consumer. This could involve video demos (very helpful to learn, say, how to quarter a chicken) and comment feedback for the recipes in the book (like epicurious.com)
– The story behind the recipe. Because recipes of all sorts are available online, the real added value that I find in cook books or cooking magazines is not the what but the why. In an era where many people go to farmer’s markets to find heirloom tomatoes and restaurants list the farm from whence their grassfed beef came, consumers these days seem to want to know the story behind the recipe. As a writer, this also would seem to be your competitive advantage. So if you’re giving technique, share with us how the Basques differ from the Catalonians or the Vietnamese from the Thai. Let us know how (and why) certain flavor combinations are associated with certain areas. In short, give us a cookbook that teaches us as readers and cooks how food can tell a story of a particular place, people and time.
Oh, and let me edit my previous post… it’s not a “lost art”… it’s a “lost craft”, right?
I bought Ramsay’s Sunday Lunch, the UK edition, and haven’t had a problem translating amounts or ingredients – I love it and am definitely in the market for more of his books. What I really like most about it though is that it includes entire meals; appetizer, main course, veggies and dessert. I’m working FT plus feeding a family of five and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to try and put things together creatively – it’s nice to just look at a full menu, plan my shopping and git’er done. Would definitely tend to prefer cookbooks that offered meal sets or plans.
I do have cookbooks like LesHalles, Tru, FL, Michel Richard, Jean Georges, etc., and I do cook from them, I haven’t found them that daunting as far as ingredients and equipment goes, I just skip things that you can’t get in WI – like specialty veal cuts (can you believe it!! cow country!!) and seafood, but it takes a bit more effort to pull a meal plan together.
I love the story books, but I realize those aren’t big sellers. One of my favorite old cookbooks is Eating Together by Lillian Hellman and Peter Feibleman (1984) which included reminiscences and recipes from both authors.
whatever topic you choose I hope you’ll include lots of stories. you’re a superb storyteller and I yearn for more.
Ruhlman, whatever you do, I hope it includes good stories. I’m glad to know you’re working on a fundamentals book — it’s a lost art. I think my mother’s generation is the last one that learned how to cook from their mothers. We Boomers and Xers went off to college and didn’t necessarily follow the same “setting up housekeeping” patterns as our parents did, thus and we missed out on the basics. Before my grandmother died, she wrote down a lot of her techniques and methods — none of them recipes… just the hows and whys of the way she cooked. Why you don’t mix certain ingredients with others; how to balance ingredients for baking, or making a roux; how things should smell as they change in temperature… It’s one of my most treasured possessions.
Learning the hows and whys from a writer like you would be accessible, smart, comfortable and familiar… and I’d be first in line the day that book came out.
Michael,
In response to your question about ruining a dish with one addition. A technique can be wrong as well. I was following Tony’s stock recipe for the first time and my oven is obviously on the hot side.
He wisely said no black, but did not indicate a time on the roasting of the marrow bones. I messed up both and proceeded to make inedible stock after a day and a half of hard work.
As my daughter said, it smelled like death. And I embarrasingly agreed.
So many of the recipes I cook come from the internet, specifically, Epicurious. I’m one of those people who says, “I’m in the mood for x.” Then I go to Epicurious, search for a recipe and then maybe look at a couple of other recipes and combine them to make my own. I probably do that half the time. Then about 25% of the time, I’ll go to a cookbook and cook something specifically because it sounds good (stuck on Super Natural Cooking right now), and the other 25% I go to a book because I want to learn a new technique or want to do something rather complicated (French Laundry or Charcuterie come to mind for that).
I love a book that has a “tone”, and some story or a particular voice. Super Natural Cooking, Les Halles, French Laundry, all of these do that for me. I have Sauces, and I’ve yet to do anything from it because it’s so sterile, much like say, the Joy of Cooking.
And cooking exciting, interesting food for one or two, that would be fantastic as well.
Re: recipes I’ve ruined. I can’t remember the exact recipes (since I wanted to forget ‘em!) but I ruined an improvised sauce for sauteed chicken by adding tarragon (or too much tarragon). I was making the sauce and it was good, but needed “something”. And I thought “Aha, chicken and tarragon are yummo together!” (Forgetting that I wasn’t adding tarragon to just the chicken but to everything in the sauce.) It should have worked – except it didn’t and I didn’t have a clue WHY.
I thought it may have been one herb-over-the-line-Sweet-Jesus since I love to play with herbs. And, okayokayokayokay – I have known to a tad heavy-handed with ‘em. But I don’t even know if certain herbs shouldn’t be mixed and, if so, what those might be.
I’ve also discovered, contrary to a firmly held former belief, that not every dish is enhanced with the addition of lemon juice.
I use recipes as a starting off point but after that I find myself just blindly adding particular flavors that I like. Would be terrific to have a cookbook with some great flavor combo basics and WHY they work together – with recipes that use those flavors in different ways and textures and incorporate other ingredient flavor elements.
And another section on which flavor combos don’t work and why.
Hopefully, that makes sense!
In thinking about a new cookbook I remember taking a 5 day cooking class and the instructor framed each day’s lessons around a technique, such as braising, then we made recipes that required that type of cooking method. Perhaps a book that focuses on some basic cooking techniques, followed by recipes. Once you master braising, roasting, sauteeing, then you can take what you have in the pantry and fly with it.
Seriously, anything you put out there…I will buy it!
My vote goes to fundamentals as well, including a section on what to have in your pantry and spice collection.
Interesting. No one has yet called for you to do a cookbook on baking. Good. I’d rather have a cookbook with a really good seafood section (I’ve yet to find a decent seafood cookbook.) and a “fifth quarter” section.
Michael,
I 30th the motion for a fundamentals cookbook, and I’d like it to have a large seafood section. Interestingly, I’m comfortable making bouillibaise, (when I have time and funds)but not so comfortable cooking whole fish or even filets. I worry about overcooking and have decent cookware and knives — not that my cutting skills are fabulous — but no specialty items like a fish poacher.
With regard to another of your posts, I hope you hear from Tony soon. You invite him to your city and into your home, introduce him to Harvey Pekar and then so little. I hope he wasn’t felled by some of the food he was exposed to on the last Top Chef episode.
Ruhlman: You could write a cookbook filled with “recipe portraits.”
Interview a set of people that would have a fairly broad appeal (athletes, musicians, doctors, lawyers, politicians, whomever you wish), ask each one of them for a recipe that embodies them or their background, and then publish these recipes in a collection.
Obviously, it would not be a cookbook of your recipes.
Your skills as a journalist would render recipe portraits of others. Interesting others.
I must admit, this idea stems from the “Feedback” section that’s on the last page of every edition of _Bon_Appetit_, where you can read the results of the editors’ interview with a famous person about their culinary interests and favorites.
Basically, a “recipe portrait” collection would be a variation and expansion of the “Feedback” theme.
Ruhlman:
Yes, I pretty much feel the same way about recipes, too. I typically use them for ideas, rather than to just follow them by rote. On the other hand, yeast-based dough recipes are very exacting. My baking and pastry instructors were very clear on the matter – B&P is not meant to be “guess-timated”. The measurement of ingredients must be precise or you can ruin a dough or cake.
Since you’re doing a fundamentals cookbook, I hope you have a good section on stocks, soups and sauces. That’s pretty much my specialty.
ruhlman: i’m working on a fundamental techniques cookbook
YAY! Sign me & skawt up for a copy.
can you name an example of an improvised dish that you ruined with one ingredient
Burning the garlic. A great way to ruin anything.
skawt, I have professional training too and i can’t get enough of the fundamentals. you can keep getting deeper into them. i find recipes boring.
There’s a small, cool book called The Basics, first published in Denmark or thereabouts. It’s impossible to find, say, custard if you wanted to but it’s a great book to browse through:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933633182/ref=nosim/ruhlmancom
and here’s the link to the combined edition of pepin’s classics La Technique and La Methode:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579121659/ref=nosim/ruhlmancom
Eileen from OH, interesting idea and comment–can you name an example of an improvised dish that you ruined with one ingredient?
I love cookbooks. I have too many, including some I’ve only leafed through and have never cracked open again. There are cookbooks I read for the stories – some actually written in between the recipes, others written between the lines. I mostly pick these up at yard sales and if they are 50- or 60-years old (or more) so much the better! I don’t tend to cook from these because they are so far removed from my reality (although the chapters on how to manage your maids are priceless).
But the cookbooks I use and love have some things in common. The ones I like best have time estimates for the recipes, even better when there are separate prep and cooking times. I cook from multiple books at once and having help making things all finish up at the same time is useful.
The size of the type needs to be such that when I prop the book up on the counter, I don’t have to lean in really close to decipher the measurements.
I don’t mind buying one or two special ingredients for a new meal. But if I feel I have to go on a safari to track down at specialty shops a whole basketful of stuff I’ve never used before and don’t know if I even like – I’m skipping that recipe.
I am all for learning the basics, but if a recipe I am trying to use calls for me to flip back and forth in the book when incorporating a “basic” into the current recipe – that’s terribly inconvenient and I end up having to write out at least the list of ingredients & quantities in order to get through the recipe with the book still intact.
What I would love is a book that helps you to develop new dishes of your own. I get creative and whip up something new – only to discover that one ingredient spoils it all. I’d love something that discusses flavors/ingredients that work together (and those that don’t!) and how to develop/build a recipe. Could include recipes as well, or basic combos that can serve as a foundation for a dish.
How about a cookbook called “Ouch!” riddled with common mistakes which are then corrected in detail.
Ruhlman:
Fundamentals are absolutely necessary. Don’t let my comments get in the way; I have professional training and know the fundamentals; I also have a slew of textbooks from school, as well as my notebooks, that cover pretty much all of the basics (and advanced skills as well).
That being said, just because *I* have these things doesn’t mean everyone else does. And to make these skills accessible to regular folks that just want to be able to cook decent food without having to go to school for a year to learn how would be very welcome, I’m sure.
I know you could pull it off. The market is pretty desperate for such books, especially when there’s so much drivel out there to stack it against.