Traveling in Space and Time

American Cooking: The Northwest

by Dale Brown and the Editors of Time-Life Books

1970

I recently visited Seattle for a conference, and while most of my food was decent but uninspired hotel cooking, I did have an amazing meal at Bar Sajor. Usually when I travel I manage to find a new cookbook to bring home, but this time I was so busy trying to cram in some sightseeing that I never got to a proper bookstore. I did see some cookbooks in a touristy shop or two, but nothing caught my eye; they were mostly "gifty" books.  

 

The series has pretty covers, but the spines are prone to fading

On returning, I looked over my regional American shelves, but the pickings were slim. In fact only one book could be considered: American Cooking: The Northwest from the venerable Time-Life series Foods of the World.

For the uninitiated, FOW was series of 27 cookbooks that were published by Time-Life between 1968 and the late 70s. Each volume actually came in two parts: a hardback volume that described the topic cuisine (Classic French Cooking, Russian Cooking, etc.) and frequently also functioned as a travelogue, and a smaller, spiral-bound volume that contained just recipes. While the hardbacks included some recipes, the spiral volumes had all the recipes. Both can be found online for sale, though rarely together; the spirals are harder to find.

Library and estate sales are a good source for both kinds; I frequently see the international ones there. I got most of my international spirals in one full swoop at a library sale and have been filling in the bound volumes. Recently I snagged the American Cooking set, which is eight volumes alone! Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the spirals for the American set.

But they're still worthy reading, and The Northwest was enjoyable in its depiction of a large and diverse region. There was a focus on the historical Northwest, particularly the food ways of the pioneers, loggers, and traders of the frontier. Much of the text celebrates the natural bounty of the area with sections on hunting, fishing, and foraging.

While the initial intent of these books may have been educational, this volume, like many of the others, spends more time looking backwards than forwards. Even the interviews with contemporary cooks and food purveyors are pervaded with nostalgia for a disappearing way of life, one that seemed more immediate in the Northwest region.

Forty-five years after initial publication, those ways seem even farther away, and, of course, there is no indication of the massive changes in industry and population that would occur. Yet, there is still a sense of the forest when you visit the Northwest, even in the cities of Seattle and Portland. An acknowledgment perhaps, of the mountains that sandwich the area and its isolation from the east.

What I was aiming for

I tried the following recipe from the Alaska chapter. I like rhubarb and have ready access to it from my mother's garden. The rhubarb plants came with the farmhouse she bought 40 years ago--she occasionally divides or moves them, and they just keep coming back year after year. The one disadvantage of this old-fashioned rhubarb is that it is more green than pink. So, my ring lacked the rosy hue of the original. In fact, it was a distinctly unappetizing shade of what I will call "slug".

But as my stepfather said, "There's nothing wrong with the taste." And the taste is good--a clean sweet taste, refreshingly cold, and excellent with some whipped cream. I think if I made it again, however, I would scant the sugar by a couple of tablespoons to give it a more sour edge.

Rhubarb Ring

Adapted from American Cooking: The Northwest

2 pounds rhubarb, cut into ½ inch pieces, about 4 cups

1 cup sugar

1 ½ cups water

2 packets unflavored gelatin

Combine the rhubarb, sugar and 1 cup of water in a non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer until rhubarb us tender but still intact. The original recipe suggests 10 minutes. I found it only took about 5 minutes, and my rhubarb was not very intact even then.

Meanwhile sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining ½ cup of water and let it soften, about 4 minutes. Off the heat, stir gelatin into rhubarb mixture and stir until it dissolves completely. Turn into an oil-coated ring mold. Cool to room temperature and then cover and chill at least 3 hours or until firm. Turn out to serve.

The book recommended serving this with strawberries and barely sweetened whipped cream. I think the cream is a good idea, but I'm not a fan of strawberry and rhubarb together. In the end, we just ate it with some Readi-Whip.

If you are brave, scroll down for a photo comparison.

Reality

There's gold in them there hills!

I've never been lucky with mushroom hunting. Like all Michiganders I am familiar with morels and the lore around them. I keep a sharp eye out when walking in the spring and have gone out once or twice to find some but to no avail.

Always prized and usually elusive, morels are the stuff of legend--the serendipitous glade full of morels found while walking; the secret spots that produce year after year; injunctions about preferred habitats and neighbors: dead oaks, old apple orchards, burn patches. In fact there is no logic--just luck. In this way, morel stories remind of me of fish stories---"and it was THIS big."

Over 14 ounces!

But in recent years, my mother has found one or two each spring in her yard and this May we hit the mother lode! We were positively giddy as we picked them--carefully leaving a few to spore out and hopefully come back again next year.

But what to do with them? While always good simply sautéed in butter with salt and pepper, this seemed to call for a greater effort. But it's actually hard to find a good recipe that celebrates the morel without overwhelming them. In fact, it's hard to find recipes at all. Some of my upper Midwest books mentioned them, but most recipes used dried mushrooms. Others were less than forthcoming with details about cooking them. The consensus was simpler is better. In fact, the morel entry in the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery from 1966 basically implied it was insane to do anything but sauté them.

I did check out Kitchen Magic with Mushrooms from the Mycological Society of San Francisco, but the recipes just didn't appeal. But I do like this book. It is utterly charming with little line drawings in the margins and half sheets illustrating each genus. The cover drew my eye at a book sale because it reminds me of the Florentine papers used in book binding. The recipes, which cover many types of mushrooms, run the gamut from simple to complex. Some are a little convoluted as a way to use up mushrooms and justify the hunt, such as Maramisus Cookies, which combines chocolate chip cookie dough, maraschino cherries and fairy-ring mushrooms. Ugh. Others seem quite palatable, including Puffball French Fries.

I must say that the book has not inspired me to go mushrooming beyond the easily identifiable morel and puffball. The book is quite clear that it is not an identification guide, but reading caution after caution, makes me…well…cautious. Not to mention all those British murder mysteries that employ mushrooms.

In the end, I went with a simple and delicious recipe from Molly O'Neill's A Well-Seasoned Appetite: Recipes from an American Kitchen that mixes sautéed morels with cream, pasta and a little cheese. It was magnificent! This book deserves it own entry, so look for that in the future.

Fettuccine with Morels

1 Tbs butter

3 Tbs chopped shallots

½ pound of fresh morels

1 tsp kosher salt

2 Tbs cognac (I used brandy)

¼ c. heavy cream

2 Tbs. grated Parmesan cheese

1 pound dried fettuccine

3 Tbs chopped Italian parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the morels and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the cognac or brandy and let cook off a bit. Add the cream and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Longer won't hurt and may be better as long as you keep the heat low--you want to infuse the cream with all the good morel flavor.

Meanwhile, get the pasta water boiling. Cook fettuccine until al dente. Drain, reserving some liquid, and mix with the morels and cream. Add the cheese and parley, pepper, and salt if needed. Add ¼ to ½ cup of pasta liquid to loosen sauce as needed. Like all pastas--eat it while it is hot and fresh. I finally realized that one of the reasons pasta is traditionally served as a first course is because larger portions cool and congeal too quickly. Serves 4 as a main course.

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I'll close with something I noticed on a trip to New Orleans at the beginning of Carnival season. In making conversation with locals, it seemed natural to ask them where they liked to view parades but I got a weird vibe after asking this. After noticing the hemming and hawing along with the vagueness of the answers I realized, "Oh! That's like asking someone at home where they find their morels. It's simply not done." In fact, even after people move in Michigan they still don't tell their spots (you know who you are!)