Summer time and the living is easy

Summer Cooking

by Elizabeth David

Penguin Books 1955

It's high summer in Michigan now and it's time for my annual reading of Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking. I don't remember when I first started reading it in the summer, but it has become a small ritual of the season. Sometimes I read one or more of the others in my Penguin box set: French Country Cooking, French Provincial Cooking, Italian Food or Mediterranean Food; the latter is just as timely for the season with its emphasis on warm weather crops.

But Summer Cooking is a must each year as the days get a little too warm and the threat of too much produce becomes more real. It's a slim book so it doesn't take long and it's packed with ideas on how to make the most of summer eating. Not necessarily cooking, because one of the book's strengths is David's recognition that although summer is bountiful in terms of produce, we often don't feel like cooking with a lot of heat or fussing over complicated recipes. Simpler is better in the summer and many of her recipes are ideas for salads and cold plates.

The more I read David the more I wonder at her food. Given that when she wrote these  England was barely past WWII and had only just begun to end rationing, her books must have been like a fever-dream to UK eaters. Not only did David draw on foreign cuisines, she called for ingredients that were neither in vogue or readily available to her readers including such modern staples as olive oil, red peppers, and zucchini.

Yet somehow she doesn't come off as snooty or contrived. Rather than causing anger at food that is hard to obtain, she inspired generations to reach higher. And if you couldn't get bottarga or fresh anchovies, then you could use her same focused approach on the ingredients you did have. In David's world a good cook stops complaining about what she can or cannot get and uses what is good to make something worth eating.

Summer Cooking is all over the map culinarily-speaking. Perhaps that is one of the reasons it still seems fresh. The flavors are bold, with liberal use of herbs and acids. There is an emphasis on seasonal vegetables which is useful, as well as advice that still holds up today on how to cook when on vacation. Perhaps that is because many of today's summer cottages still have kitchens equipped from the 50s.

I use this book more for ideas than for recipes. I have made some and adapted some so thoroughly that they look nothing like hers although in my head I still think of them as a Elizabeth David recipes. Take her tonnato sauce for example. For years, every summer I make this once or twice and eat it on top of green beans and/or sliced tomatoes. Traditionally tonnato is a tuna-based mayonnaise sauce that you pour over cooked veal and let chill. I'm sure that is good, but I've never bothered with the veal roast. It just sounded like it would be good as a dip/sauce for veggies so I made it.

I think I make it from David's recipe but in looking it over for this post I realize I have drifted far off course. I don't measure it anymore either, just add everything to taste. I think David would approve, but she was known for her opinionated voice, so perhaps not unconditionally.

If tonnato sauce intrigues you, feel free to play with mine:

1 5oz can of chunk light tuna (note not albacore--you want the mushy stuff for this)

2 Tbs of mayonnaise

1 lemon--you'll need ½ to all of the juice

1 Tbs water

1 Tbs olive oil

½ tsp of anchovy paste

fresh pepper. Salt if needed

Puree all ingredients in a blender. Serve with cooked green beans, tomatoes from the garden and/or hard-boiled eggs.

In contrast, here is what David's recipe says:

"Make a good cupful of mayonnaise with 2 yolks of eggs, olive oil and lemon juice. Pound or sieve about 2 oz. of best quality-tunny fish in oil, and add this to the mayonnaise."

So where did I get the rest of mine? Perhaps an amalgamation of other recipes, perhaps I stole it from Marcella Hazan? More research will be needed.

The saddest cookbook in the world?

The Golden Age Cookbook: The Key to Happier and Healthier Golden Years

By Phyllis MacDonald Doubleday & Company 1961.

Don't bother opening me. I'll just bring you down.

Just in case the recent hint of Spring in the air was cheering you all up, The Golden Age Cookbook is here to bring you back down. From the gray-blue cover with its sad wheat ring to its mildly condescending tone this book just screams "Give up!" Well, actually, it more whispers in a despairing tone: "just give…up." While I believe the designer was aiming for dignified, the result 40 years later is just depressing.

According to the jacket copy, this is the first cookbook designed for older people. If that is the case, I applaud MacDonald for seeing a need and tying to fulfill it. Cookbooks for special diets and special populations are now a popular niche, but I can imagine that at some point they would have been innovative. A Kirkus Review entry from the time points out that the book serves a real need. But at least today we acknowledge that people with special needs still have full lives.

MacDonald begins with a list of do's and don'ts--helpfully reproduced on the back cover. The first one is the tip that sold me on the book: "Have at least one hot food at every meal." This made me laugh and shudder at the same time. And a reaction like that means I need to own that book!

As for the recipes, they are a mix of convenience foods and simple cooked meals. Considering the 1961 vintage, the use of canned soups and the like is actually restrained and perhaps realistic, in that it allows for its readers to purchase parts of their meals.

This is clearly a dietician's book obsessed with nutrients over flavor, but its woefully inadequate seasonings (there is little called for besides salt, pepper, paprika, and dried parsley) are also a function of its time and place--America before the ethnic food boom, before hippies and back-to-the-land (at least the 60s version) and before Julia Child had us all hooked on something better than Dried Beef Sandwiches and Baked Stuffed Franks.

Some gems:

Surprise Tomato Meatballs with Steamed Rice The surprise is a can of V8!

Deviled Ham French Toast I admit I am both repelled by and drawn to this idea.

Oyster Milk Toast Evaporated milk, canned oysters and toast.

Escalloped Macaroni and Tuna Tuna, noodles, cream of celery soup, pimento and American cheese. There's just something about tuna in these older books that makes my skin crawl. And I like tuna!

Cooking in a science fiction universe

Serve it Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey

Edited by Anne McCaffrey and John Gregory Betancourt

Warner Books, 1996

In honor of a great book group discussion of John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar*, I pulled out this gem. A recent purchase, I was immediately drawn into the conceit of a community cookbook by science fiction and fantasy writers. First thing I noticed in the introduction is that there is a previous volume! Cooking Out of This World, also edited by McCaffrey, was published in 1973 as a mass-market paperback. It was reprinted in 1992 in trade paper. The original is running in the $25 range, depending on condition, which isn't bad, but, alas, nowhere near the $400 figure McCaffrey quotes.

From what I gather, Serve it Forth uses the same approach as Cooking Out of This World: letting the writers submit whatever recipes they wanted with whatever formatting or style they chose. It makes for amusing and eclectic reading, though perhaps not good cooking.

There are some unifying themes. Cats feature prominently in the biographical head notes, as does a penchant for rural living.  There are seven recipes for chili! McCaffrey begins her introduction by noting the need for cheap and fast recipes for writers trying to produce work when the money is tight, so perhaps the chili is understandable, along with other casseroles, meatloaves, etc.

Although published in 1996, most of the contributors had been cooking for years, so their food reflects more of a '60-'70s aesthetic. Salt, sugar, and cholesterol were the bugaboo of the times, so there is more than usual mention of artificial sweeteners and no-fat products. There is ethnic cuisine, but little attempt at authenticity and those that do call for "exotic" ingredients do so with a cheerful "if you can find it."

The fun of the book is in the quirky recipe representations, rather than the food. Many of the anecdotes are longer than the recipes. There is wonderful poem by Terry A. Garey called "Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes." There is a frightfully grim pair of recipes from Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon (Food and Food 2) that succinctly captures the mindset of people who clearly never think about food.

While I saw a few recipes with potential, in general, I was more horrified and amused than tempted to cook. For example, I will not be making:

Catalina Chicken

It's a whole chicken put in a crockpot with Catalina salad dressing. That's it. Shudder.

Tuna Lasagna

It's a regular American lasagna--pasta, ricotta, tomato sauce, cheese--and canned tuna. Why God, why?

Twenty-Four-Hour Fruit Salad

Vanilla pudding mix, whipped topping, canned oranges and pineapple, grapes and mini-marshmallows. I won't make it, but I won't deny snagging a bite or two of this type of thing at potlucks.

I might make:

Basque Potatoes with Wine

Potatoes, garlic, onion, crisped up with parsley and white wine. What's not to like? and I do love potatoes.

Chili Rellenos Zero-Gravity Quiche

Made with a masa harina crust. The filling is eggs, canned chiles, fresh jalapeno and cheese. Sounds like an easy brunch or supper dish.

So while definitely an entertaining book, not one I can recommend for the food.

*Oh yes! John Brunner is represented with two recipes: Lamb Sapphire, a mild Indian style curry, and Bacon Roly-Poly, a savory steamed pudding.