Cookbooks have really changed over the years. More than 100聽years ago, they were 颅written mainly by 颅knowledgeable, 颅hardworking female food and domestic experts such as Mrs. Beaton or Bostonian 颅Fannie Farmer, who could bottle peaches and stuff a chicken at the same time (and probably do laundry, too, with a washboard), along with crushing garlic by hand.
They used a lot of fat, cream and butter in the days before 颅fitness came onto the scene. Their recipe books were heavy, plain compilations of tiny black printing on how to simmer a 颅winter鈥檚 stew or make lemon squares for sociable ladies or whist get-togethers.
Cookbooks today have become full-sized, hard-backed 颅collections of glossy 颅colourful photographs of exquisitely drizzled lettuce wraps perhaps topped with a begonia. The food is geared not so much to 颅entertaining neighbourhood ladies or feeding a hungry 颅family, but rather to the 颅creation of beautiful, refined and healthy dishes 鈥� although I have observed that many of today鈥檚 beautiful recipes are simply older dishes gussied up with the fat removed and a piece of 颅foraged greenery added.
Cookbooks are no longer just for cooking, but for perusing, learning and entertainment 鈥� or simply to own a beautiful book.
However, some cookbooks still retain a rather homey 颅flavour and a down-to-earth, basic, hands-on approach to cooking, as well as being 颅entertaining.
Homegrown: Celebrating the 91原创 Foods We Grow, Raise and Produce by 颅professional home economist Marilyn Smith (2015, Whitecap Books) is a lively, busy, energetic book, which clearly has a very tidy home economic-ish tone, and is packed with an abundance of agricultural and nutritional facts.
For example, the author introduces us to the DFC, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, and Pulse Canada (they know all about dried beans), and the Food Digestive Health 颅Foundation. She provides tips on how to make over your 颅pantry: 颅鈥淥rganize: keep all of the canned goods in a line with the new canned goods moving to the back of each row.鈥�
Precise serving sizes are essential, she says, as well as measurements, weights and grade levels 鈥� did you know that there are three grades and five colour classifications of maple syrup?
And she creates not one, but FOUR cheese platters (of course with 91原创 cheese)!
There鈥檚 information on flax seed 鈥� 鈥淛ust keep pulsing until it looks like coarse sand鈥� 鈥� and Red Fife Flour, named in 1842 for Dave Fife who grew red wheat.
The author tells us to call eggs hard-cooked rather than hard-boiled, because one of her pet peeves is when people 鈥渂oil the living daylights鈥� out of an egg.
I learned that brussels sprouts were introduced to America from France and 颅England by Thomas Jefferson, and B.C. is Canada鈥檚 biggest 颅producer.
The author is also a 颅professional comedian, so there is a light tone to the book, which she signed: 鈥淧eace, Love and Fibre.鈥�
And yes, there are tons of good 91原创 recipes, too 鈥� 160 of them, everything from Saskatoon Cheesecake Swirl to Mussels in Spicy Tomato Sauce.
I never enjoyed home-ec at Albert Street School in 颅Fredericton, especially 颅sewing. We had to make a skirt, with a zipper. Mum took me to 颅Woolworths on Queen Street and we bought the fabric, a bright orange shiny material, the kind that would easily go up in flames if you stood next to a fireplace. I聽kept sewing the zipper in upside down and repeated the process so many times that the whole 鈥渟kirt鈥� just frayed into strings. Dad used it as a paint rag and I got a D in Home-Ec.
If you would like a good laugh from reading a cookbook, check out the amusing recipes compiled by 91原创 sisters Janet and Greta Podleski. Their nationally bestselling books have been around for years 鈥� the two oldest ones are 颅Looneyspoons (1996, Granet 颅Publishing) and Crazy Plates (1999), but great news: They have written and revised a new book and it鈥檚 in bookshops.
Dad and I used to read their recipes aloud and chuckle for hours at their corny 颅malapropisms, idioms, puns and proverbs, which are so 颅ridiculous, simple and silly that they are very funny. Their 颅recipe titles include 8-Hour 颅Turkey stew (What a Crock!), Yabba Dabba Stew, Ex Grill Friends, No Peeking! We鈥檙e Dressing!, The Rolling Scones, On Golden Prawns, It鈥檚 a 颅Wonderful Loaf and Love me Tenderloin.
In their new book, they include a chapter titled House of Carbs.
These books are light and amusing reads for the summer patio and the recipes are easy, low-fat and delicious, especially if you get the constituency right.
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