Cookbooks tumble forth from American publishing houses like frites from a frying basket. In the past six months, hundreds have been published. They are profitable for the simple reason that everyone has to eat, which means that someone has to cook.
That is precisely why I have been messing around in the kitchen since high school days, when I was the first football player to hold membership in the Chef's Club. If I knew how to cook, I would be sure to eat when and what I wanted, even though my mother and father were both steady producers of great food. Cookbooks should serve the same end: better, more flexible eating.
I have been reading and cooking from a large pile of the newest cookbooks for the past several months, full of wonder at the variety and sophistication of modern American cookery. That is all the more remarkable because only a decade or so ago, most of the country was stuck in the pot-roast-and-mashed- potato syndrome. This new crop of cookbooks will tell you everything from how to clean raw abalone to how to prepare a really good, well, pot roast with mashed potatoes, one of my favorites. The cookbooks incorporate all the flavors and delicacy of the new American cuisine as practiced in imaginative restaurants across the country, but there is also a pile of books that resurrect the wonderfully old-fashioned regional cookery, from Cajun to Mennonite. Most cooks won't buy more than a couple of cookbooks a year, so I have ranked the following in order of purchasing preference. Work from the top down, as in a recipe, to stock the kitchen library.
At the very top is a very modern version of the great old war-horse cookbooks like The Fannie Farmer Cookbook and Joy of Cooking. It is called The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (Workman; $29.95). These are the people who founded New York City's swell little gourmet-food store the Silver Palate and then produced one of the pioneer nouvelle American cookbooks. At 849 pages, The New Basics describes and prescribes just about everything one does in the kitchen.
Let's see, how about pot roast? The comprehensive 44-page index says "pot roast pasta." Huh? Yes, you make this pot roast that sounds delicious, but then you chop it all up and, with its juices, spoon it over a pound of penne or pappardelle. The old pot roast is now actually a stracotto. How modern can you get? You wouldn't want the mashed spuds if you've got the pasta, but let's check anyway. Three listings: the basic one, with sour cream; one that has a whole head of cooked garlic (yum!); and one that is half potatoes and half parsnips (hmm?).
By comparison, the 1964 version of Joy of Cooking has one straightforward recipe for pot roast and one for mashed potatoes. But Joy is an amusing cultural icon, atwitter with the new availability of frozen food and the wonders of the blender. It is stern and didactic in tone, urging its female readers on to culinary excellence: "You will eat at the hour of your choice . . . And you will regain the priceless private joy of family living, dining and sharing."