Happy Birthday Mary Frances

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was born on this day, a century ago, in Albion, Michigan. When she was three years old her family relocated to Whittier, California where her father edited a local newspaper. California remained a place close to Fisher's heart throughout her life. She would later write that although she was not born a Californian, " I truly think I am one."

She established a love of food early on. In her 1983 book As they were, Fisher reminisces about her first meal at a restaurant when she was six years old: "The small room lighted with candles behind pink lampshades, with incredible expanses of snow-white linen, and a forest of glasses sparkling everywhere...."

While at college at UCLA Mary Frances met Alfred Young Fisher. They married in 1929 and soon left for Dijon, France where Alfred was enrolled in university. Like countless culinary luminaries before and after her, M.F.K Fisher fell in love with France: the language, the culture and the deep appreciation of food. She took cooking lessons, and began to write seriously. After the Fisher's stay in Dijon, M.F.K and Alfred moved back to California where the couple became close friends with Dillwyn "Tim" Parrish. Parrish became something of a mentor to M.F.K and persuaded her to continue writing. Fisher's first book, Serve it forth was published in 1937 by Harper Brothers.

Fisher soon divorced Alfred, married Parrish and the couple moved to Vevey, Switzerland. Together they wrote a romantic novel under the pseudonym Victoria Berne called Touch and go (1939) (NYPL is one of the few libraries in the country that owns this book, and just try to find it online...). The marriage ended shortly thereafter when Parrish - suffering from Brueger's disease - killed himself.

Fisher would marry again, this time to literary agent Donald Friede, and she continued to write voraciously: Consider the oyster (1941), How to cook a wolf (1942), The gastronomical me (1943), Here let us feast (1946), as well as a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The physiology of taste (1949).

Fisher later wrote a column for the New Yorker, as well as a children's book, travelogues and novels.

M.F.K. Fisher died at her home in Glen Ellen, California in 1992.

The Library has a large number of her works, in addition to bibliographies of her other writings in magazines and newspapers. Molly O'Neill, in the Times obituary, refers to a documentary -- called simply M.F.K.-- as a "comprehensive view of Mrs. Fisher." The Library owns this as well, so I know what I'll be doing on my lunch hour today.

Fisher's papers are held at the Schlesinger Library and the finding aid is available online. NYPL also has a number of Fisher biographies in both the branches and the 42nd street building, and I highly recommend Joan Reardon's Poet of the appetites (2004) as a wonderful way to immerse yourself in the rich life of a woman whom W.H. Auden called "America's greatest writer."

Fannie Farmer

Fannie Merritt Farmer, Boston Cooking School’s esteemed graduate, director, and the author of its best-selling cookbook, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, was born on this day in 1857.

Within just a few years of graduating from the Boston Cooking School, Farmer became its director and in that role she revised the school’s previous cookbook, Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book written by her former teacher Mary J. Lincoln in 1883. Farmer's The Boston Cooking- School Cook Book was published by Little Brown in 1896 and was an immediate hit. The book not only cemented Farmer’s reputation as a thorough and creative cook, but also forever labelled her as the “Mother of Level Measurements.” Farmer strongly believed that one could not produce consistent results with vague instructions and her book was the first to insist that measurements be leveled with a knife or spatula. Gone were instructions for heaping tablespoons or scant teaspoons. As Farmer writes “A cupful is measured level. A tablespoon is measured level. A teaspoon is measured level.”

Farmer eventually left the Boston Cooking School in 1902, yet she continued to lecture and write. Her Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent in 1904 was a particularly personal cookbook for Farmer. When she was in high school Fannie was taken ill with a sickness (most likely polio) which not only kept her bedridden for months, but also ruled out any college prospects and left her with a permanent limp. Food and Cookery (the 1912 edition is available in the full-text via Google Books) promotes a healthy diet “from infancy to old age” with the emphasis on nutritional values and digestibility. One glance at the first few pages and one knows Farmer was serious about the subject. In addition to elaborate diagrams of the stomach and intestine, Farmer covers the chemical breakdowns of various foods and also includes tips on making food more palatable to the patient. Farmer wanted others to receive better treatment than she herself had received as a young woman.

Fannie Merritt Farmer died on January 15, 1915.

In addition to the 1896 edition, the Library has a number of facsimiles and later editions of the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, as well as her later writings. We also have Marion Cunningham’s wonderful Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Farmer’s contribution to American cooking cannot be underestimated. Her sophisticated recipes somewhat belie her scientific approach to cooking, which reminds me of my favorite Vermont “Farmer” Christopher Kimball who, to many people, has created something of his own Boston Cooking School via Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen. Something about Boston brings out the precise measurements in people.

For more information on Fannie Farmer, please consult the indispensable Perfection Salad by Laura Shapiro.

Oatmeal Muffins
(These muffins are a favorite of my colleague (and wonderful cook) Jessica Pigza.)
(Adapted from Marion Cunningham’s Fannie Farmer Cookbook)

1 ½ cups flour
2 T. sugar
4 t. baking powder
½ t. salt
½ cup milk
1 egg, well beaten
2 T. butter, melted
1 cup cooked oatmeal

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter the muffin pans. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl stir the milk, egg, and butter into the oatmeal. Stir until well-blended. Combine the two mixture and mix well. Spoon each muffin cup two-thirds full of batter. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out dry when inserted in center.

Rice Griddle Cakes
(from Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cookbook)

2 ½ cups flour
½ cup cold cooked rice
1 T. baking powder
½ t. salt
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ cups milk
1 egg
2 T. melted butter

Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in rice with tips of fingers; add egg well-beaten, milk, and butter. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased hot griddle; cook on one side. When puffed, full of bubbles, and cooked on edges, turn, and cook other side. Serve with butter and maple syrup.

Vincent Price

There's no need to argue that Vincent Price was a fine thespian. I should say that his work in The Tomb of Legia ("I tried to kill a stray cat with a cabbage, and all but made love to the Lady Rowena....") and The Tingler speaks for itself. But many might not realize that Mr. Price was quite the gourmet and also wrote a few cookbooks. The Library has two of his culinary works in our collection, both of which he co-wrote with his wife Mary Price.

A Treasury of Great Recipes is not simply a recipe book, but a celebration of fine dining around the world, something the Price's - no doubt - were very familiar with. Restaurants throughout Europe, Mexico, and the United States are all represented, from Restaurant de la Pyramide in Vienne, France to Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles. The menus of these establishments are printed inside, along with lush color photographs of the dining rooms.

It's so nice (yet rare) to have photographs of restaurant interiors. It's one question I get asked frequently by scholars researching historical restaurants. Yet we sadly have very few restaurant photographs unless images of the interior are part of the menu (La Côte Basque for example), or are included in the Library's extensive postcard collection.




Also in the Price family oeuvre is a five-volume set celebrating our nation's culinary history. Called A National Treasury of Cookery, each volume celebrates a different historical movement of American history and food. From the recipes of Early America (pickled oysters and chicken pudding) to Victorian America (Bonne Femme Soup and Beef Roulade), these quick little volumes feature surprisingly appetizing recipes with beautiful prints and photographs. Any lingering bad memories of cooking in costume at Philipsburg Manor* in grade school have suddenly vanished with the Price's recipe for Roast Duck with Virginia Cornbread Stuffing.

Gâteau Grand Marnier
from Hostellerie de la Poste, Avallon FRANCE
(adapted from A Treasury of Great Recipes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream one cup butter with one cup sugar until pale and fluffy.

Elizabeth David's Cookbook Picks

With all the "Best of 2007" cookbook lists that have come out in the past few months, I was reminded of an article in the London Times from February 1971 that my friend and colleague at the Library, Amy Azzarito, pulled for me. The article lists twenty-seven cookbooks that culinary writer Elizabeth David recommends one have in one's library. The books are broken down into categories such as French and International; English and Scottish; Basic; Levantine and Mediterranean; Oriental; and Reference.

While some of these cookbooks are very familiar (Escoffier, Child, Roden), there are also quite a few I had never heard of. Fortunately, the Library owns most of those listed and I intend to pull them from the stacks and get more acquainted with these writers and their works.

I will list them as David has done in the article.

French & International:
1. Guide to Modern Cookery by Auguste Escoffier (1903)

2. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Child, Beck and Bertholle (1963)

3. Cooking with Pomiane by Edouard de Pomaine (1962)

4. Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery by Jane Grigson (1967)

5. The Constance Spry Cookery Book by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume (1956)

English and Scottish:
6. Food in England by Dorothy Hartley (1954)

7. Good Things in England by Florence White (1932)

8. The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill (1946)

9. Farmhouse Fare by Agricultural Press (1935)

10. The Best of Eliza Acton edited by Elizabeth Ray (1968)

11. Mrs. Beeton's Household Management - facsimile of the original 1861 edition.

12. Jams, Preserves and Home Made Sweets with supplement for Home Freezing (1969)

Basic:
13. The Penguin Cookery Book by Bee Nilson (1952)

14. The Peacock Cookery Book by Betty Valk (1964)

Bread, Cakes and Yeast Cookery:
15. Home Baked by George and Cecilia Scurfield (1956)

16. Talking About Cakes, with an Irish and Scottish Accent by Margaret Bates (1964)

Levantine and Mediterranean:
17. A Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (1968)

18. Home Book of Greek Cookery by Joyce Stubbs (1963)

19. Italian Regional Cooking by Ada Boni (1969)

20. Mrs. Balbir Singh's Indian Cookery Book by Mills and Boon (1961)

Oriental:

21. How to Eat and Cook in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao (1956)

22. South East Asian Food by Rosemary Brissenden (1970)

Reference Books:

23. Larousse Gastronomique, English translation by Paul Hamlyn (1928)

24. Herbs, Spices and Flavourings by Tom Stobart (1970)

25. The Oxford Book of Food Plants (1969)

26. A Garden of Herbs by Eleanour Sinclair Ronde (c.1920)

27. Herb Gardening by Claire Loewenfeld (1964)

Elizabeth David's own works are definitely worth looking through as well, especially her studies on Italian and Mediterranean food. "She was hailed not only as Britain's foremost writer on food and cookery, but as the woman who had transformed the eating habits of middle-class England," writes the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The Library has most, if not all, of her books.

As for the cookbook list above, if any of you are familiar with the more esoteric of these titles, please share your thoughts and perhaps your favorite recipes of the bunch.

Here's to a new year of cooking and reading! Happy 2008!

Meryl as Julia

According to Variety, Meryl Streep is scheduled to play Julia Child in the screen adaptation of Julie Powell's hit blog/book Julie & Julia. Amy Adams is to play Julie Powell, and screenwriter, and food writer, Nora Ephron is on deck to write and direct.

Besides Dan Aykroyd's famous send-up of Ms. Child on Saturday Night Live, I was interested to learn that Maureen Stapleton, best known to many as Ma Kelly in the wholly underrated Johnny Dangerously, played Julia Child on stage in a little-known production called Bon Appetit! put on by the Classic Stage Company in 1991. Writes Mel Gussow of the New York Times, "With an abandon that is characteristically Julia Child, she stages a race between a hand beater and a mixing machine and is caught up in the exercise. As the actress sings and pretends to cook, Todd Sisley accompanies her on the piano, underlining the words with food music. Mr. Hoiby, as composer, reaches his pinnacle when Miss Stapleton beats her imaginary egg whites into stiff shining peaks. At this point, the music ripples." Oooh.

If you can think of any other actors who have played Julia, please share. I personally think Meryl Streep will play her wonderfully. Just by watching her effortlessly crack eggs in The Hours, one can tell that Meryl knows her way around a kitchen.

Peg Bracken

Peg Bracken, author of the famous I Hate to Cook Book, died on October 20th in her home in Portland, OR. She was 89.

I Hate To Cook Book, published in 1960, struck a chord with many women who also hated to cook. As of 2003, over 3 million copies of the book have been sold, and it is apparently one of the most successful privately authored cookbooks published (Joy of Cooking is the most successful). Bracken's book opens with "Some women, it is said, like to cook. This book is not for them," and her success is due to that very sentiment. Bracken's humor and wit, was in stark contrast to the tomes of domesticity that had filled the bookshelves of the 1950s. As Jessamyn Neuhaus writes in her excellent book Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking, "Bracken did not ask her readers to try to like cooking if they simply did not. In fact, she urged women not to feel guilty about disliking to cook." In addition to the original I Hate to Cook Book, Bracken also wrote The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book, The I Hate to Cook Book Almanac, and the Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book, along with other domestic humor books.

The I Hate to Cook Book is no longer in print, but yes, we do have a copy here at the Library.

Stayabed Stew
(This is for those days when you're en negligee, en bed, with a murder story and a box of chocolates, or possibly a good case of the flu.)

Mix these things up in a casserole dish that has a tight lid.

2lbs. stewing beef, cubed
1 can of little tiny peas*
1/2 cupful sliced carrots
2 chopped onions
1/2 t. salt, dash of pepper
1 can cream of tomato soup, thinned with 1/2 can water (or celery or mushroom soup thinned likewise).
1 big raw potato, sliced
Piece of bay leaf*

Put the lid on and put the casserole in a 275 degree F. oven. Now go back to bed. It will cook happily all by itself and be done in 5 hours.

*If you don't like this, leave it out.

Lidia Bastianich

Lidia Bastianich is the Grand Marshal of this year's Columbus Day parade in New York. To celebrate Lidia's culinary legacy check out some of her cookbooks and her vast catalog of online recipes. If you've got i soldi, Lidia's restaurants (Felidia, Becco, and Del Posto) are supposed to be fantastic.

Lidia and I have a date nearly every Sunday*. She's part of the Sunday PBS line-up of cooking shows. The line-up has varied over the years (where is America's Test Kitchen?) but Lidia remains a reliable presence in the 5:30PM slot. Among the things Lidia has taught me: buy a spider skimmer, always toss cheese off the heat, and if the base of your sauce is made with butter, add more butter before serving. If it's made with olive oil, add enough olive oil to make the dish "smile".

I saw Lidia make this dish on her show years ago and I fell for it hard. As a big fan of any type of fish stew, fish sauce, or fish soup, this recipe fits the bill completely. And although it sounds complicated, it's actually quite easy.

Tutti a tavola a mangiare...ching, ching.

Capellini Cooked in Red-Mullet Stew
(adapted from Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen)

5T. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped shallots
1 small leek, white and light green parts only, trimmed, cleaned, and sliced thin
1/3 cup finely chopped celery with leaves
1lb. skin-on red mullet or red snapper fillets
2 cups peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh tomatoes (In the past I have used canned)
2 whole dried peperoncini (I've also used larger amounts of crushed)
1 qt. hot water
1lb. capellini
1/3c. shredded basil
Salt

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide 4-quart braising pan over medium heat. Stir in shallots, leek, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted, about 2 minutes. Push the vegetables to the sides of the pan to make room for the fillets. Slip the fillets into the pan, skin side down, and cook until the skin changes color, about 2 minutes. Flip the fillets over, cook 2 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes and peperoncini. Bring to a quick boil, stirring, and pour in 3 cups of the hot water.

Add the capellini to the pan gradually, stirring them constantly to separate them. (This will become easier as they soften and start to bend.) Don't worry if you break up the fillets as you stir the pasta. Add the remaining water a little at a time as the capellini begin to absorb the liquid in the pan. The goal is to end up with just enough sauce to coat the pasta generously - not a soupy dish - so be careful to add liquid very gradually. Cook, stirring almost constantly to keep the pasta from sticking together, until the pasta is done and glides easily in a creamy sauce, about 5 to 7 minutes. A minute or two before the end of cooking, stir in the basil and the remaining 2T. olive oil. Check the seasoning, adding salt if necessary. Remove the peperoncini peppers and serve the pasta immediately in warm bowls.




* PBS pledge drives are the exceptions.

Claudia Roden

Claudia Roden is the subject of Jane Kramer's wonderful profile in this week's food-themed New Yorker. Roden is an expert in many cuisines and her cookbooks are essentially fail-proof. I use her Book of Middle Eastern Food all the time, as well as the encyclopedic Book of Jewish Food. The latter covers both Ashkenazic and Sephardic cuisine in detail, and is also a wonderful history of Jewish cultures from around the world. Her most recent book, Arabesque, is gorgeous and is a new addition to the Library's collection.

My favorite Roden recipe comes from the Book of Middle Eastern Food, and it couldn't be simpler to make. It's a classic Turkish egg dish called Cilbir. I found a beautiful photograph (and nearly identical recipe) of the dish at Almost Turkish - a food blog of Turkish cuisine.

Cilbir - Turkish Poached Eggs with Yogurt
(adapted from A Book of Middle Eastern Food)
6 eggs
1T. vinegar
Salt
1 1/4 - 2 c. yogurt
4T. butter
1T. paprika

Use fresh eggs. Poach them in the usual way. A good method for poaching eggs is to dip them, still in their shells, in boiling water for a few seconds so as to set a thin layer of the white nearest the shell. This will prevent the egg white from spreading too much. Break each egg into a cup and slide into another pan of boiling water to which a tablespoon of vinegar and some salt have been added. Remove the pan from the heat and leave it, covered, for 4 minutes. Then remove the eggs with a perforated spoon. Do not attempt to poach more than 2 eggs at a time.
Arrange the poached eggs on a hot serving dish.
Beat the yogurt with salt (I add a clove or two of minced garlic as well -RF) and pour some over each egg. Melt the butter and stir in the paprika. Dribble over the yogurt and serve.

Julia Child

Although I'm not one to read too much into coincidence, I would like to point out that Julia Child and I share a birthday: August 15th. So while I was chowing down on hamburgers and buffalo wings, Julia, no doubt, was eating Dover sole in culinary heaven shaking her head at my American ways.

The Library has a large collection of Julia's works, both by and about her, including the very recent biography Julia Child by culinary historian Laura Shapiro. The two-volume set of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (first editions, no less) are available along the shelves in the Main Reading Room, side-by-side with Julia's tome The Way to Cook. My Life in France, Julia's collaboration with her nephew Alex Prud'homme, is also in the stacks and, in my humble (Leo) opinion, is one of the most enjoyable reads of the past few years.

Although the Library doesn't have the DVD set of PBS series The French Chef, a rental is highly recommended. You may not be able to watch all episodes in one sitting, but "The Omelet Show" is worth multiple viewings alone.

There are also some wonderful websites devoted to her life and kitchen, with especially moving tributes following her death in 2004. The Schlesinger Library in Cambridge is the proud holder of her papers, as well as Child's cookbook collection which she donated to the Schlesinger in 1990. In addition to Julia's papers, they also house the papers of Simone Beck and Avis De Voto, who was instrumental in getting Mastering published.

And finally, the Library will have a special event on October 10th called Julia Child in America. The panel will include Molly O'Neill, Dan Barber, Laura Shapiro, and David Kamp. Moderated by Melanie Rehak. Tickets are 15 dollars.

Bon Appetit!

Amy Vanderbilt

"Vanderbilt, Amy." Online Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Amy Vanderbilt, journalist, cookbook author, society personality, and doyenne of etiquette was born July 22, 1908 in Staten Island. She was the first cousin of Cornelius Vanderbilt. After a number of jobs in public relations and magazine work, Vanderbilt was hired in 1940 by Royal Crest Sterling silverware as their etiquette consultant. In 1948 Doubleday hired her to write a book on etiquette. The result was Vanderbilt's 700-page Complete Book of Etiquette which was released in 1952 after five years of research. Vanderbilt's etiquette rules, which emphasised simple kindness, were considered less rigid than Emily Post's earlier works and her book quickly became a standard in the genre. Vanderbilt also published a cookbook titled Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook in 1961. Andy Warhol (credited as Andrew) did illustrations for both books. She died in 1974 after falling from the second floor window of her brownstone in New York .

The Library has a wonderful collection of Vanderbilt's books all available in the general stacks. A 1995 re-release of The Complete Book of Etiquette is also available on the open shelves of the Rose Main Reading Room. Her obituary is available in ProQuest's historical newspapers. According to her New York Times obituary, although Vanderbilt had little patience for very fomalized behavior, there were instances in which she found traditional roles necessary. For example, she apparently refused to use the title Ms. She is quoted as saying, "Ms. is unbearable. Look it up in the dictionary. It means 'manuscript.'"

Nutmeg Cream Sauce for Cauliflower
(adapted from Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook, 1961)

2T. butter
2T. flour
1/8t. pepper
1/2t. salt
1/2t. powdered nutmeg (I'm sure freshly grated would taste even better)
3/4c. milk
1/4c. water from cauliflower kettle
1/4c. buttered crumbs
Extra nutmeg

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour smoothly. Add seasonings and mix until well blended. Stir in milk and cauliflower liquid slowly. Cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. Pour over hot cauliflower in serving dish. Sprinkle with buttered crumbs. Sprinkle with a few grains of nutmeg. Makes 1 cup cream sauce. If mixed with crumbs, makes 1 1/4 cups sauce.

Karen Hess, 1918-2007

Culinary historian Karen Hess died yesterday in Manhattan a week after suffering from a stroke. Eric Asimov wrote a nice obituary is today's Times about her life and work.

She is best known for co-authoring with her husband John Hess on The Taste of America.

The Library also has all her other books, plus an interesting review of Taste of America from the Times when the book came out.

She is also known for her work annotating Mary Randolph's Virigina House-wife Cookbook.