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Books on my Reading ListWinter is not over yet and it's never too late to curl up with a good read. Many of you already know that any book that is on food and culture is going to wind up on my shelves. Finding time to enjoy what lies between the covers is another matter. Fortunately for me, doing research for this weekly column invites some serious digging, often with a pile of twenty some tomes piled around my computer desk. A frequent result of these little forays into unread material is that I get hooked on the research and not the writing. I actually fantasize being locked in my library for years with some mysterious unknown source shoving food under the door when I ring a bell. The shock that awakens me from this reverie is the realization that I would be unable to experiment with all the recipes, having no kitchen in the library. This week, I want to share four books on food and culture with you. Two of them are chocked full of recipes and ideas while the third offers some interesting insight into our shared evolution with food plants and the fourth provides an eye-opener into the world of a substance that comprises over 80% of our planets surface and our own bodies; water. Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine by Joseph E. Dabney is a book no household interested in regional Appalachia culture and food should be without. John Egerton, in his inspired forward writes…"To be sure, this is a cookbook, and most of the talk is about food - or over it, at the table - but it is much more than that. It's about characters like whiskey-maker Theodore (Thee) King of Gum Log, Georgia, and Simmie Free of Tiger, Georgia, and ninety-year-old Nina Garrett of near Cartecay, another Georgia hill-country community." Dabney's book echoes much about my own childhood experiences of growing up on a farm in these mountains. It is about hog-killing and smokehouses, about making lye hominy and gathering wild greens, about ramps and cushaws and leather-britches. These are all elements of a food culture that once thrived in the mountains, and now faces a tenuous and uncertain future. Egerton states that "One of Joe Dabney's many gifts in this book is the documentation and preservation of a vanishing way of life, for the everlasting benefit of future generations." I could not agree more. There are recipes and stories about many locals here in Western North Carolina including one for Poke and Eggs by Frank Pressley of Cullowhee. Whether you grew up here or have had a few decades as a halfback in the mountains, this book will give you an insight, a chuckle, and an inspiration to head to the kitchen. FOOD, The Definitive Guide Published by Murdoch Books and written and Researched by Kim Rowney, Lulu Grimes, and Kay Halsey. This 496 page book will become your kitchen bible, and yes the "definitive" answer to most any question a housewife, cook, or experienced chef could ask. The best part for me is the pictures, and it is loaded with them, 1500 in fact. Every herb, meat cut, or recipe is well illustrated with a clear concise color photo. I just flipped to a page on types of cooking oil. Based on these photos and descriptions one could go to the market, fully informed on not only which oil to purchase but how well it will perform at the desired task. Entries include such ingredients as rare and tropical fruit, as well as the more everyday vegetables and flavorings, each accompanied by a helpful photo. If your interests include the popular trend of learning to cook some ethnic cuisines then this book will be ever so valuable. It takes a global approach with entries such as Asian vegetables and exotic African spices, to name just a few. Please be assured that every food we use daily is also included in this classic. I am now reading about beetroot (beets or Harvard beets as we know them), which includes a brief history, what foods they go well with, two color photos and a recipe for Beetroot Mash. Well, that's a new recipe idea for me and very easy to prepare. Boil the beets whole until tender, rub off the skins and mash with an equal amount of boiled potatoes. Add a knob of butter, some chopped chives, and salt and pepper. Serve with fish, chicken or meat. The Botany of Desire, a plant's-eye view of the world, by Michael Pollan Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and in the process spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. What Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates in The Botany of Desire is that people and domesticated plant species have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He suggests that this relationship is just as common and essential to the way nature works. Pollan makes a persuasive case that the plants we might be tempted to see as having been most domesticated by humanity are in fact also those that have been most effective in domesticating us. It is a stunning insight, and no one will come away from this book without having their ideas of nature stretched and challenged. The Secret Life of Water, by Masaru Emoto This writer, Masaru Emoto, is an international researcher who has two other books on water which have made the New York Times bestseller list. His research has visually captured the structure of water at the moment of freezing, and through high speed photography he has shown the direct consequences of destructive thoughts and thoughts of love on the formation of water crystals. Readers will find this book very thought provoking and considering the care taken in performing the experiments the photos are revelations. Here is the most important element to life on earth that we have taken for granted. Could it be such an enormous extrapolation to consider Dr. Emoto's hypothesis that water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers? |
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