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Foodie books to drool upon

Gina Mallet, National Post Canada

Food NetworkIna Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, is a sensualist who has endless appeal - and her food is rich and delicious.
I know what a cookbook used to be: a blueprint for wonderful home cooking. Delia Smith, who transformed the English kitchen in the '70s, says she drew her inspiration from a 19th-century poet, Eliza Acton, "the best writer of recipes in the English language." Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families was dedicated to the "young housekeepers of England" struggling to put fresh food, rather than Bird's Custard Powder, on the table. Sound familiar?
In the 1950s, Elizabeth David found Acton's mission an inspiration. In A Book of Mediterranean Food, which remains influential today, David threw under the bus the prevailing French classic cuisine. The techniques and luxe ingredients had made Escoffier's cooking supreme in Ritz Hotels around the world, but they were beyond the skill and pocket of the average home cook. By evoking the simple food of the south, David took food back to basics. But it was the way David wrote - hungrily, passionately - that gave her message traction. Like her American contemporary M.F.K. Fisher (A Measure of My Powers), David gave food gravitas - not just as a sensual delight but as part of our lives, expanding horizons and arousing neglected emotions.
At first, The Betty Crocker Cookbook generation (nurtured on processed food) barely noticed. But dissent was simmering. Travelled boomers were itching to overturn the food status quo. The breakthrough came with the success of Julia Child's French Chef series on TV in 1963, which promoted her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia's Americanization of Escoffier revived home cooking and spurred a string of revelatory cookbooks, among them Claudia Roden's A Book of Middle Eastern Food and Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
From the sublime ... to the hot chick. A golden avalanche followed. Best-seller spawned clone after tweaked clone. Food was scoured clean for every ingredient and nuance. TV food shows drove sales, and cooks had to be telegenic to get published at all. Soon cooks didn't matter, only stars. Lavishly illustrated, the cook book is home decoration. I have a friend who picked up a cookbook because its colours matched her kitchen. Sales drive copy - food is cute, it's fun, it's love. Long forgotten is M.F.K.'s admonition "It's life."
Serious foodies now blog. But the web is an information filter. Only a book can interpret and shape information, give it depth and passion and kindle the ardour of the home cook. Luckily, some writers can still deliver - as my Christmas picks show. Bon appétit.

For those who want to read all about it
Simon Hopkinson isn't one of those boorish British chefs. He's the deceptively modest, awesomely erudite author of Roast Chicken and Other Stories, which was voted most indispensable cookbook in a Waitrose Magazine poll. His new book, Second Helpings of Roast Chicken, is equally irresistible, chockablock with engaging and doable recipes, from braised ox tongue and caper sauce to white coffee ice to beet dumplings with horseradish cream. Munch his words with equal relish. In the accompanying commentary, Hopkinson never minces his strong opinions, which are shaped by his experience as one of London's top chefs - and he serves them with panache.
• Second Helpings of Roast Chicken by Simon Hopkinson; HarperCollins; 233 pp.; $26.95.

For Marcella groupies
Marcella Hazan (Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking) is the icon who turned on North Americans to the glory of proper Italian food - as opposed to Mezzogiorno fast food. In Amarcord, Marcella Remembers, Marcella recalls the most intense experiences of her 84 years. I love her storyteller's voice; her candour sparks her adventures in the anglosphere as she struggles to overcome francophiliac prejudice. Her story underlines the gulf between North American and Italian cooking. Not just ingredients but 'tude. In Italy, food is a philosophy: You must be slow, patient, thorough and there's no way to shortcut food prep. To take food out of that context is to lose its taste.
• Amarcord, Marcella Remembers by Marcella Hazan, Penguin; 307 pp.; $30.

For Food Snobs
The book that must appear under the ecotarian tree is David Tanis's A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes. Tanis is the long-time chef at Chez Panisse, where brand name organics are communion wine to the faithful. Intoning the CP creed, "Eating seasonally is eating sustainably, supporting local farmers and preserving the land," Tanis presents 24 menus that confirm less is actually less. Menus are austere: tomato bread, fish soup with mussels and chorizo, goat cheese and honey. I found solace in a good hazelnut sponge cake. But I was puzzled by Tanis's frequent failure to specify the provenance of ingredients. What white fish goes into the tortillas? What apple into the apple tart? After all, ingredients are more important than cooking at Chez Panisse.
• A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by David Tanis; Thomas Allen & Sons; 294 pp.; $39.95.

For Walter Mittys
You, too, can cook like Joël Robuchon, the magisterial French chef - once you've absorbed the 800 recipes in The Complete Robuchon. Sure. I have successfully made two Robuchon recipes, Roast Chicken Grand'Mère and Shrimp Broth - they came from Simply French by Patricia Wells. The Complete Robuchon is a touch petulant, but then he is a perfectionist - and invaluable resource. A cauliflower must always be blanched before cooking to make it more digestible. (Broccoli rates one mention as a pasta garnish - hooray!). The meat will be more tender if you don't preheat the oven before roasting the fowl. The smaller the mushroom the better. Oh, and Robuchon okays frozen puffed pastry.
• The Complete Robuchon by Joël Robuchon; Random House; 813 pp.; $40.

For wannabe hosts
I took lots of ideas from all the books, then I came home to Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics by Ina Garten - a glossy book by a TV chef! Garten caters to today's paradox - people who don't have time to cook but want to eat well - and she has created mouth-watering recipes that any wannabe sauce stirrer can pull off. Tuscan Lemon Chicken, Chive Risotto Cakes, Fresh Raspberry Gratin. First time ever, I was seduced by a picture and made Garten's quick apple tart. Of course, it didn't look as splendid as Garten's and it probably didn't taste like hers, either. So what? As she notes, a dish tastes different according to who cooks it. Restaurants must strive for uniformity, but the home cook is the happy amateur who invests food with their personality. That's what makes good home cooking matchless.
• Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics by Ina Garten, Random House, 272 pp., $40.