Joy to the World

One hundred and thirty-two years ago today, in 1877, Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

What is arguably the most famous cookbook of all time began in 1931, when Rombauer, at fifty-three, self-published her collection of family recipes, calling it The Joy of Cooking.

(Fowl & Game chapter from the 1931 self-published Joy of Cooking)

A few years later while playing bridge at her cousin's house in Indianapolis, Irma met Lawrence Chambers, president of the publishing house Bobbs-Merrill. Chambers admired Rombauer's work, bought Joy of Cooking, and Bobbs-Merrill published the book in 1936.

The book was so successful that Bobbs-Merrill published an enlarged and revised edition in 1943 which Rombauer wrote with her daughter Marion Rombauer-Becker. A third edition of Joy was published three years later in 1946. And in 1951, the first Joy of Cooking edition to credit Marion as co-author was published. Many more mother/daughter revisions followed. In 1997 Irma's grandson, and Marion's son, Ethan Becker, was added to the co-author string, when the All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking was published. Most recently, in 2006, the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Joy of Cooking was released, and so the family tradition continues to this day, forty-seven years after Irma's death.

For a fascinating look at the Rombauer's, I highly recommend Anne Mendelson's wonderful book Stand Facing the Stove. To view older copies of Joy, the New York Public Library is fortunate to have the original 1931 self-published Joy, plus the first edition 1936 Bobbs-Merrill Joy, and many other editions too.

So happy birthday to a woman who truly brought Joy to the World.

David Ferriero's Desert Island Cookbook

Name: David Ferriero

Occupation: Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries

Desert Island Cookbook: The Classic Italian Cookbook
by Marcella Hazan

Why The Classic Italian Cookbook? David explains:

An inspiring, relaxed approach to food preparation, in keeping with the Italian ethos. As she writes in the "Afterthoughts" section of her book:

What people do with food is an act that reveals how they construe the world.... What we find in the cooking of Italy is a serene relationship between man and the sources of his existence, a long-established intimacy between the human and natural orders, a harmonious fusion of man's skills and nature's gifts. The Italian comes to his table with the same open heart with which a child falls into his mother's arms, and with the same easy feeling of being in the right place. (Hazan 393)

For me good cookbooks nurture creativity and experimentation. Hazan's cookbooks do that. Her polenta with gorgonzola and fried polenta recipes lend themselves to experimentation with other ingredients. Her sauces, likewise, encourage experimentation. Among my favorite recipes: chicken livers with sage, roast chicken with rosemary, fennel braised in olive oil, and the pasta dishes -- cappellacci to cappelletti, tortellini to tortelloni!

Chicken Livers with Sage
(from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cookbook)

1 1/2 lb. chicken livers
2 T. finely chopped shallots or onion
2 oz. butter
1 dozen dried sage leaves or a handful of fresh sage
6 T. dry white wine
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper

Examine the livers for any green spots and cut them out. Remove any bits of fat and wash the livers thoroughly in cold water. Dry well on a paper towel.

Sauté the shallots in the butter over medium heat in a frying pan. When they turn pale gold, raise the heat and add the sage leaves and chicken livers. Cook over high heat for just a few minutes, stirring frequently, until the livers lose their raw, red color. Transfer the livers to a warm dish.

Add the wine to the pan and boil briskly until it has almost completely evaporated. Scrape up and loosen any bits of cooking residue. Add any liquid the livers may have released in the dish, and allow it to evaporate.

Return the chicken livers back to the pan, turn them quickly for a few minutes over high heat, add salt and pepper, and then transfer to a warm serving dish.

Japanese Albumen Photographs

Women serving tea

The Japanese hand-colored albumen photographs you see here are just a few in a series available on the Library's Digital Gallery and in the Library's photography collection. The photos, roughly 110 in all, date from the 1890's until the first decade of the 20th century, and include images of Japanese city and landscapes, gardens, shops, and the rituals of every day life.

Liquor store

Fruit store

Tea picking

Gathering shellfish

Tea time

Having a rest (smoking and serving tea)

Jessica Pigza's Desert Island Cookbook

Name: Jessica Pigza

Occupation: Rare Books librarian, Handmade Librarian, and half of the duo behind NYPL's Handmade: Crafternoons!

Desert Island Cookbook: The Cook and the Gardener by Amanda Hesser (1999)

Why The Cook and the Gardener? Jessica explains:

Amanda Hesser’s The Cook and the Gardener is part cookbook and part meditation on four seasons of local growing and cooking (the locale here being Burgundy, France). It’s one of those great cookbooks that are as satisfying to read as they are to cook from.

Produce takes center stage on these pages—both in Hesser’s recipes as well as in her tale of befriending and working with the taciturn gardener Monsieur Milbert throughout the year. And along the way, Hesser also reveals her great respect for those who tend and coax food from the land. Each seasonal chapter includes a variety of dishes that reveal Hesser’s knowledge and wide-ranging curiosities. Her recipes for meats, jams, vegetables, breads, liqueurs, and sorbets never overwhelm or intimidate, and in each she shows her enthusiasm for well prepared foods eaten at their peak.

A few favorite recipes that I return to again and again are for carrots. The delicious Carrot and Bay Leaf Salad possesses an elegance sometimes lacking in carrot salads. Although Hesser doesn’t call for it, I like to splash a tiny bit of white wine vinegar or a squeeze of lemon over the carrots as well before serving, to counter the oil. I’m also a big proponent of her Roasted Carrots with Thyme, as well as the sweet and savory Carrots and Calvados. These, like many recipes in The Cook and the Gardener, offer tasty reminders that you needn’t do much to a vegetable to coax out its flavor.

(photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, American Memory Project)

Favorite Recipes:

Carrots, Three Ways

Roasted Carrots with Thyme

Carrot and Bay Leaf Salad

Carrots and Calvados


Carrots and Calvados (adapted from The Cook and the Gardener):

8 medium carrots, trimmed and peeled
Sea salt
1/4 lb. thickly cut bacon, cut into 1/4 inch strip (lardons)
1/2 c. Calvados
1/2 c. winter stock (beef based stock) or water
1 T. butter
Salt

Bringing a medium saucepan of water (seasoned with salt) to a boil. Add the carrots and boil until just tender on the outside but still crisp in the center, 4-5 minutes. Drain and cut into 1/2 inch diagonal pieces.

Melt the lardons of bacon in a large saute pan over medium-low heat for 5-7 minutes. Brown them on all sides and then remove them to a plate. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the pan, and then return the pan to the stove over medium heat. Add the carrots and toss to coat with the bacon fat. Add the Calvados and increase the heat to high to reduce the liquid to a syrup, about 2 minutes.

Add the stock. Bring to a boil and let it reduce until most of the liquid has evaporated and the carrots are tender all the way through and are beginning to brown lightly, 5-6 minutes. If the carrots are colored but aren't cooked through, add more stock and reduce again. Remove from the heat and add the lardons. Stir in the butter. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve.

Be sure to check out the Handmade: Crafternoons! at the New York Public Library this Saturday, October 10th, from 2-4 pm for an afternoon of knitting with KnitKnit author Sabrina Gschwandtner, and two of the knitters she profiled in her book: Teva Durham, author of Loop-d-Loop and Annie Modesitt, author of Confessions of a Knitting Heretic.

Gourmet

Gourmet Magazine is closing and the news is shocking. Emails are flying, Twitter is aflutter, and the petitions have begun. It will be missed greatly, and I feel for all the Conde Nast employees affected by the foldings.

The good news is that the long and illustrious history of Gourmet lives on, in multiple formats, at the Library.

For starters, those interested in seeing a full run of Gourmet Magazine need only come to the 42nd Street Library and request it.

For electronic access to some of the most recent issues (2008 to the present), any New York State resident with a driver's license, state ID card, or library card can access the Library's subscription to ProQuest Platinum from home or work.

The Library also has hard-copies of the original Gourmet Cookbook (1950-1957) on the open shelves of the main reading room; Gourmet's Guide to Good Eating (1957); Naomi Barry's Gourmet: Paris a table (1971); Margaret Costa's Gourmet: London at table (1971); Gourmet Cookbook (1984); Gourmet's Menus for Contemporary Living (1985); Best of Gourmet from 1986 on; Endless Feasts: sixty years of writing from Gourmet (2002); the yellow Gourmet Cookbook (2004); Remembrance of things Paris: sixty years of writing from Gourmet (2004); and History in a glass: sixty years of wine writing from Gourmet (2006), among others.

So while you may mourn the loss of a monthly subscription, or miss the gorgeous covers at your newsstand, feel free to celebrate Gourmet's legacy at the Library. We keep it so that it never goes away.

W.P.A. Tavern Signs

Now that I've forced you to linger on Duncan Hines' Adventures for longer than is humanly necessary, I'm back! But as you see, I haven't ditched the travel theme entirely. Behold Tavern Signs, a unique and beautiful book filled with the signs of colonial taverns and inns.


Painted by W.P.A. workers, Tavern Signs contains 31 detailed plates, plus notes on the taverns' historical significance, compiled by the Works Projects Administration's Pennsylvania State Wide Museum Extension Project, circa 1943.

The portraits, objects, and symbols featured on tavern signs evolved as a way to identify the taverns for the sizable illiterate population who would frequent the establishments; long before road maps became the norm, tavern signs acted as landmarks on the various post-roads winding through the countryside. According to the introduction in the book, "Not only did the sign of Three Crowns, [...] mean that the traveler was on the correct road to his destination in a distant city or town, but it also cheered him with the anticipated rest, refreshment and jolly companionship after the long rough journey by horse or coach."

Tavern Signs also provides some interesting background on the nomenclature of the various terms used. For example, "tavern" was used mainly in New England and New York State, and usually meant that drinks were available, but not necessarily food or sustenance. "Inn" was used primarily in Pennsylvania, (although many locations avoided it because is was so closely associated with the British) and served both food and drink to its patrons.

Here are some of my favorites from the W.P.A. collection.

General Greene Inn
This inn, which was located in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, became the headquarters for General Greene during the Revolutionary War. Greene is famous in my neck of the woods for having supervised the construction of a fort in Brooklyn, N.Y., built to protect the Continental Army in The Battle of Long Island (which Greene, in fact, missed due to illness). Today that Brooklyn neighborhood is called Fort Greene, and one of its most popular restaurants is called -- you guessed it -- The General Greene.


The Beekman Arms
As a college student in the Hudson Valley, I know The Beekman Arms as the pristine inn and restaurant in Rhinebeck, N.Y. It is one of the places that proud parents go with their graduating offspring for a lovely meal. (My parents took me to Pizzeria Uno for my graduation meal, but I've "gotten over it.") Rhinebeck is one of the oldest settlements in the Hudson Valley, and was populated largely by refugees from the Rhine Valley who were brought to New York by Col. Henry Beekman, whose father held a large land patent. The Beekman Arms is apparently the oldest continuously operated hotel in America, so you can still go to have a cocktail in the cozy bar with all the nearby college students and their parents.


The Spread Eagle

The Spread Eagle was located in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania -- about fourteen miles west of Philadelphia -- and was a favorite stop for mail and accommodations for travelers on the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike. Gradually, more and more houses and businesses were built up around the vicinity of the inn, and the village became known as Sitersville, after the Eagle's landlord John Siter. For more information on the many incarnations of the Spread Eagle, I recommend Julius Sachse's Wayside Inns.

While Tavern Signs is clearly one of the most visually arresting books on tavern signage, it is by no means an exhaustive catalog of every tavern sign in the United States. For that information, I'd start with Helene Smith's Tavern Signs of America: a catalog. Smith catalogs each sign with the name of the tavern, the material and size of the sign, the original location, and the date and the sign painter (if known).

New York is well represented in Smith's catalog, but interestingly Gramercy Tavern is nowhere to be found. Curious.

Adventures in Good Eating

Many thanks to Gourmet Magazine for mentioning the New York Public Library's menu and cookbook collection in Kristin Ohlson's piece "A Culinary Card Catalog." It was wonderful to read about other libraries' culinary collections, and Ohlson rightly points to the Kentucky Library & Museum for their wonderful collection of Duncan Hines memorabilia.

I've been fascinated with Duncan Hines for a while now, ever since I learned that he was more than just a name on a brownie mix.

Duncan Hines was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1880. For the first part of his life Hines worked in public relations and in the production and editing of corporate brochures. These jobs demanded a good deal of traveling and the long road trips -- with very few decent food options -- made Hines (always a food enthusiast) into a discerning road food diner.

In order to find the best places to eat on the road, Hines spent months researching, not only the best tasting spots, but also the cleanest and most affordable restaurants. He filled notebooks with his findings and soon, according to Oxford's American National Biography (ANB), other salesmen began to consult Hines' expert opinion on where to go to eat.

In 1935, in order to satisfy the increasing appetite of salesmen looking for a good meal, Hines published a listing of his favorite spots in thirty states and sent it off as a Christmas greeting. The popularity of that list kept the requests for food recommendations coming in, so Hines published a small brochure called Adventures in Good Eating for $1.50, adding more restaurants to the original list and with short descriptions of the food and ambiance.

Hines' favorite spots tended to be small, family-owned, roadside restaurants where cleanliness was of utmost importance. According to ANB, Hines often entered the restaurant through the back, making sure that the entire kitchen was tidy. If a restaurant was clean, affordable and tasty, it was deemed worthy of being included in Adventures of Good Eating, which was published yearly. Those recommendations then allowed restaurants to post a sign in their window reading "Recommended by Duncan Hines." However, if Hines felt that the restaurant's quality had fallen, he would demand that the sign be taken down.

One restaurant that did meet Hines' approval was Sanders Court and Cafe in Corbin, Kentucky. In the 1939 issue of Adventures... Hines wrote, "A very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great Smokies." Hines lists the sizzling steaks, fried chicken, country ham and hot biscuits as the highlights of the 24-hour cafe.

It's been said that the review and endorsement of Sanders Court and Cafe by Duncan Hines helped the restaurant gain notoriety and led to its subsequent success. I'm sure Colonel Sanders himself was most pleased.