Recipe Details: Too Much or Too Little?

It started out innocently enough. The gravy for the roast looked a little thin, so I reached for a packet of gravy mix to bulk it up a bit. The directions on the packet yielded this sentence:

"Boil 1 cup of water in a saucepan."

"Well, of course, in a saucepan," I muttered darkly. (I'm often guilty of muttering darkly when I cook, especially when confronted with inadequate gravy.) "What else would you boil water in?" A teakettle would work for the boiling part, I suppose, but not so well for the gravy part.

The recipe continued. "Combine gravy mix and cold water in a bowl, using a whisk." Again with the muttering. "Why do they have to specify to use a bowl and a whisk? Do they think I'll sit down on the floor and make mud pies with my fingers?"

In retrospect, I see that my sour attitude that day had less to do with the directions on the package than with my disappointment over my gravy malfunction. Still, it got me to thinking about recipe writing and how it has changed over the years.

In my other life, I write a blog about all things vintage. Once a week, on what I call "Retro Recipe Wednesday," I like to post a recipe from long ago. Sometimes they're great and sometimes they're ghastly, but they always inspire nostalgia.

One problem I run into with these old recipes is their imprecision compared to today's recipes. Not only do they neglect to instruct the cook to use a bowl or a spoon, but they often omit oven temperatures entirely and call for vague measurements like "butter the size of an egg." Would that be a medium, large, or jumbo egg? Chicken or quail?

To be fair, some very old recipes date from before oven-controlled ranges were available. My mom tells me that my grandmother could judge whether a wood-fired oven was ready by sticking her hand inside it to feel the air on her skin. Obviously a "slow" oven felt markedly different from a "quick" one.

I even saw an old cake recipe that listed the ingredients, instructed the reader to mix them together, "and bake." Nothing about the size of the pan. Nothing about the temperature of the oven or the length of time. Just "and bake," with the confident assumption that the reader would know what was needed.

Unless written specifically for the novice cook, older cookbooks assume that the reader knows what is meant by whip, stir, saute, and blanch. Sometimes there is a glossary printed at the back to define these terms, but the general assumption seemed to be that cooks would be familiar with these terms, perhaps learning them from their mothers or from home ec class at school. Today, not only is this level of knowledge not assumed, but neither is the knowledge that one boils water in a pan or mixes ingredients in a bowl.

This got me to wondering what social factors might account for the change. Are recipes now written for latchkey kids learning how to start supper before the rest of the family gets home? Young adults who grew up on fast food and microwave meals while managing to avoid both the home kitchen and the gone-the-way-of-the-dodo home ec class, who are now trying to feed themselves in their tiny apartment kitchens?

I suppose that, like adding salt and pepper "to taste," the amount of detail appreciated in a recipe boils down to personal preference.

What do you think? Have you noticed a change in the way recipes are written over time? If you cook, what level of precision do you like to find in your recipes?

Labor Day, Julia Child and Writers

    After the United States Congress unanimously voted to approve legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday, and President Grover Cleveland  signed it into law in  1894, its purpose  was to celebrate the economic and social contributions of workers.  Today,  Labor Day is mostly associated with the end

of summer and retail sales.

    Typically, Labor Day weekend marks the last  three day, care free weekend before the start of school when families go on picnics, to the beach, barbecue in the back yard, and kids play hard. In the late 1970's when I worked for the Los Angeles Times selling retail advertising, I remember  there was always a big push to sell a Display ad to the department store, grocery market or mom and pop business to promote their special Labor Day Sale. 

    As I was preparing to write my blog for today, knowing it coincided with Labor Day, I gave thought to how writers often look upon their work as a Labor of Love - the hard work, perseverance, and dedication it takes to  write, and sometimes rewrite  a story, poem, memoir, composition, compilation of recipes ,  or essay; the writer is  vulnerable to the ridicule and criticism of others, all while putting  forth effort day after day to hone a craft  that will not only please her or himself, but also be pleasing to others in the way of description, plot, dialogue. Sometimes the writers goal is to educate, to help  broaden another's point of  view; Sometimes the writers purpose  is to make us  laugh, or move one  to tears, or share their own personal story. 

    When most folks think of Julia Child they think of the master of French cooking, a PBS superstar who taught cooking lessons to millions via television,  not Julia Child, the accomplished author. Yet, that is exactly  what she was, a storyteller who had a passion for French cooking,  the author  of  one  of the best selling cook books of all time, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, along with  other popular  titles including, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume Two, From Julia Child's Kitchen, Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, Cooking with Master Chefs and her memoir, My Life in France. 

                                                               

   By all accounts, Julia Child, born Julia  Carolyn McWilliams  in the  idyllic turn of the century  town of Pasadena, California,   August 15, 1912  was a child with  high energy and determination. Traits that would serve her well throughout her life, especially while writing her first book. It took Child  nine years of researching, writing, recipe testing and editing before  Mastering the Art of French Cooking  was finally published in 1961 ,  and not by Houghton Mifflin ,  who sent her a letter rejecting her book  because it was too long, but  by publisher Alfred A. Knopf.  

    And Knopf published only after much back and forth. According to biographer Bob Spritz, author of  Dearie The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, " Getting Knopf to publish it, however, would take considerable effort."

    Today, we can only surmise how lucky Knopf must have felt after their wise decision to publish Child's book led to a best seller.  Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One, and Mastering Volume Two  - taken together, are considered one of the most influential works in American cookbook history. 

    This Labor Day I salute Julia Child,  and all writers who work so tirelessly to pursue  their goal of writing their passion  - a  novel, memoir,  or book of poems - and yes, even a cookbook !


*** For more information about Julia Child visit  http://www.juliachildfoundation.org/

     

    

   

   

    

    

 

French Food and Fiction, Part Two

 Do you know why diets don't work? Neither do I. Diets don't fail, dieters do, so therefore if you don't like failure, for heaven's sake, don't go on a diet.

I credit my mother for my long and tiresome history with dieting, as it was she who would always start with the latest diet book. After she left this world and I had to close up her apartment, there on the night table, right beside her bed was Dr. Phil's book of strategies for weight loss. She would rail against the strictures of these programs, and then get in bed and say, "I have to read about what I get to eat tomorrow." From the eggs, steak and grapefruit of the sixties, to Weight Watchers, to Atkins, to South Beach, to Palm Beach, you name it, she was always game. Not being overweight, ever, and in possession of a healthy body and mind, she was nevertheless always after those elusive ten to fifteen pounds that seem to plague us all. At the same time, she entertained and churned out more meals for guests than I can possibly count. This extended to her family, children and grandchildren and we do not think of her without remembering all those wonderful dinners. As her mother came from a large Irish clan, the tradition of eating food in season and not being too extravagant in any one direction, came into play.

When I worked with Coldwater Creek, the idea of an employee cook book sprang to the mind of the H.R. director who wanted this to happen, but did not want to do it herself. Yours truly here volunteered to head up the project and a labor of love began. I decided that it would be great to celebrate our mother's and grandmother's cherished recipes and put their full names, place of birth and dates alongside those family treasures. Sharing this task with our counterparts  in West Virginia, we gathered a compilation of culinary wisdom entitled, Coldwater Creek Cooks. To this end, I managed to get the best pound cake recipe ever, originating from Kentucky and served with hot butter sauce with a touch of Bourbon. As my son was getting married that year, I thought it would be great to give my future daughter-in-law all the reference material possible from the culture of his maternal line. As my daughter headed off to college and moved from wretched dorm food, to her own apartment, she had her copy as well. How I delighted in those first calls for instruction in basic meals. I am so proud to say that both my children love good  food, eat well and share this bond with me.

Writers who love fine cuisine share a particular place in my heart. When The Pat Conroy Cookbook came out, I raced home with my copy, hot off the press and read it from cover to cover. Tasked with preparing the evening meal for his family when his wife decided to go to law school, he began the challenge in the way most writers do: he went straightaway to his favorite  book store. He picked up a copy of The Escoffier Cookbook and learned the basics of French cooking which always begin with homemade stock.

 My culinary history has a similar origin. As a young adult, living on my own in a stone house in the country, I came down with a nasty bout of pneumonia and moved back home to recover. My mother, working as an interior designer at the time, decided that if I was home all day, I could take on the responsibility of dinner.  In her collection of cookbooks, I found one published by our favorite restaurant in Palm Beach, Florida, called The Petite Marmite. The pictures were so beautiful, and inspiring, that I set out to recreate them. I had to start by making stocks which I have always believed are not only the essence of great dishes, but also of good health. In Conroy's book, he describes his time in Paris and also in Rome, the places where he dined after a hard day of writing The Lords of Discipline and The Prince of Tides. He also peppers his chapters with tales of the region he knows so well: the low country of South Carolina. When Mireille Guiliano created French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, I knew I had found the ultimate book for me. Years ago, in Paris with my mother, we decided to uncover the secret we could see all around us, that being, French women ate the best food in the world and seemed much thinner than their North Americans counterparts. We thought we could just indulge to our heart's content and it would all somehow balance out. Wrong.

You cannot describe the physicality of a character in exact terms. It would read like a medical chart. Your reader will get a better picture by depicting what they eat, how much, how often and how important it is to them.  Do they eat to live, or are they more like me, a person who lives to eat. Are meals, described in terms of grabbing a bite, or set under an arbor in the garden and encompassing most of the afternoon? Is food a necessary chore, or an unbridled passion? Above all, what do they eat for lunch?

From The Pat Conroy Cookbook:

"I write of truffles in the Dordogne Valley in France, cilantro in Bangkok, catfish in Alabama, scuppernong in South Carolina, Chinese food from my years in San Francisco, and white asparagus from the first meal my agent, Julian Bach, took me to in New York City."