Mother's cooking goes to the head of the table
The best cookbooks are much more than collections of recipes. They involve the history, economics, technology, climate, social order and religion that shape a nation's cooking. This concern with context is evident in the major cookbooks of the past few years, in which origins are sought out, variations explored and invention honored. At the same time, they have marked a retreat from the ostentatious extremes of "new" cuisines, from what Author Paula Wolfert calls "front of the mouth" food. "Though these dishes may appeal to the tips of our tongues," she maintains, "there is no real depth to them, and not much desire to eat them again." Wolfert and other notable cookbook authors in the past year or so have shown less interest in revolutionary recipes than in what the French call "Mother's cooking."
In The Cooking of South-West France (Dial; $24.95), Wolfert presents the first up-to-date comprehensive study of this exemplary but little-known cuisine. She calls it "a magnificent peasant cookery in the process of being updated . . . modern, honest, yet still close to the earth." An inventive cook and author of two classic books, Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco and Mediterranean Cooking, Wolfert found herself committed to "a passionate long-term enterprise" that took five years to complete.
Though relatively poor, France's sudouest is blessed with some of Europe's greatest culinary riches: the truffles of Périgord, Bayonne ham, Roquefort cheese, Armagnac, walnuts, chestnuts, wild mushrooms, vast amounts of poultry and pork. It is the principal home of foie gras and boasts more than 100 hot and cold dishes based on duck or goose liver, some accented with sauerkraut, seaweed, prunes and green grapes. Duck is to the southwest what steak is to Texas, observes Wolfert, whose 30 or so recipes for the bird range from duck sausage with green apples and chestnuts to duck breasts with capers and marrow. Above all, the region is unified in its passion for confits, or preserved meats.
The most celebrated dish of the southwest is cassoulet, a concoction of meat and dried beans that is the subject of as many variations and arguments as bouillabaisse or chili. After tasting dozens of versions, the author found the ultimate cassoulet at the Hotel de France in Auch, prepared by the celebrated Gascon chef Andre Daguin. Made with fresh fava beans and confit of duck, it is a contrast in flavors and textures that struck her as nothing less than "a miracle." American cooks should be equally impressed.
Wolfert believes that the southwest has more varieties of soup than all the rest of France. The greatest, though little known outside the region, is garbure, a creation of cabbage, beans, salt pork and endless embellishments. In Wolfert's interpretation it becomes a thick stew enriched with preserved duck or goose, ham hock and garlic sausage. Among other distinctive potages, she stirs up a modern version of a traditional Basque soup called ttoro and an oyster velouté with black caviar made from Gironde River sturgeon.