One primary indicator of the upcoming Christmas holiday is the overabundance of flashy new cookbooks and food memoirs on the bookstore shelves. Good reason: They make great gifts.
There are many new titles that I wouldn’t hesitate to bestow upon a loved one. Like master teacher Anne Willan’s new “The Country Cooking of France,” which harks to the slow re-emergence of casual French cooking in American home kitchens. Or Mark Bittman’s fresh “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” a hefty, but zingy participant in the back-to-veggies trend. Or Jamie Oliver’s punchy “Cook With Jamie,” an energizing one-stop tome for budding culinary hobbyists in the arugula generation.
But don’t overlook the oldies-but- goodies when choosing your Christmas gifts. Hit your small local bookseller for more unusual treasures, early editions of classics like James Beard’s 1972 “American Cookery,” Giuliano Bugialli’s 1973 “The Fine Art of Italian Cooking,” just about anything by M.F.K. Fisher, or the eternally relevant and flawlessly composed “French Cooking in Ten Minutes,” by Edouard de Pomaine, first published in 1930.
Sure, old books can be tattered and dusty, but who says gifts have to be shrink-wrapped to be legit? I’ll take an old book every time.
Maybe my all-time favorite food book is 1973’s “The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth,” by Roy Andries de Groot. In it, de Groot, one of the most lavishly gifted food writers of the last century, penetrates deep into the French-Alpine countryside to research the mysterious aperitif Chartreuse, produced and distilled by secretive hermits.
But de Groot is quickly diverted by the goings-on in the kitchen at the inn where he stays. He’s drawn into the cyclical rhythms of local, sustainable, organic cooking and eating in the countryside, where what’s for dinner is determined not by what’s quick and convenient, but by what’s proximate and ripe.
Far predating the current so-called “revolution” in sustainable food and eating, this book, perhaps without meaning to, makes a compelling case for ditching industrial food production and keeping a closer culinary relationship with the surrounding countryside.
Instead of preaching high-horse food morality, de Groot focuses on the fleshy characters at the inn and the urgent deliciousness of the food they produce: souffles of local cheeses, canapes of mountain ham, spit-grilled spring lamb, wine. Re- reading it now is a face-smack reminder that what’s in culinary vogue now is nothing new, and that some of the answers we seek for our own culinary conundrums might be found by looking back.
Plus, it’s an intoxicating, enveloping fantasy (what food freak doesn’t dream of announcing “I quit” and decamping to a roadside farmhouse in the magical French pays?), perfect for a winter afternoon.
If you’re lucky enough to find it (preferably in your favorite neighborhood used-book store), be sure to read it yourself before wrapping it up and giving it away.
Tucker Shaw: 303-954-1958 or dining@denverpost.com
What’s your all-time favorite cookbook? Let us know in the comments section below:
