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Enduring joy
REVIEWS BY SYBIL PRATT
By Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker Scribner, $30 1,152 pages ISBN 9780743246262
Bring home the bacon
By Joanna Preuss with Bob Lape Lyons Press, $24.95 192 pages ISBN 9781592288519
Culinary Cuba
By Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $37.50 198 pages ISBN 9781584795414
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The Joy of Cooking has been a mainstay for millions ever since Irma S. Rombauer first told her readers to "stand facing the stove." What started in 1931 as Irma's collection of favorite recipes, sold from her apartment in St. Louis, mushroomed into the go-to, have-to-have cookbook for generations, the resource with the answers and the recipes. To honor this venerable veteran on its 75th anniversary, a new edition of The Joy of Cooking promises to un-gussy all that got gussied up in the last revision, 10 years ago, and to bring back the pragmatic voices of Irma and her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who devoted years to refining and revising their culinary creation. Restoring the comfort quotient doesn't mean there's nothing new. Indeed, 500 recipes have been added, including breakfast bars, smoked brisket, corn dogs, spinach dip in a bread bowl, velvet cake, rolled sushi, green posole, enchiladas, wraps, smoothies and advice on making your own flavored vodkas. Many of the treasured dishes cruelly excised from the 1997 edition have been restored, including the entire chapter on brunch, lunch and supper recipes with the necessary how-tos for turkey tetrazzini, Quick Tuna Casserole (canned cream of mushroom soup is legit again!), frozen desserts (ice cream and all) and the recipes for bear, boar and game galore. In this new year, there's good reason to jump for Joy!
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What I really mean is, bring home the book that tells you what to do with the bacon once it's home. Seduced by Bacon: Recipes & Lore About America's Favorite Indulgence by Joanna Preuss with Bob Lape, is a truly tantalizing collection of 85 recipes that showcase bacon in all its manifestations. Fifty-three percent of U.S. households say they always have bacon in the fridge (sounds accurate, I've got pancetta in the freezer and hickory-smoked bacon in the fridge) and though most of us eat it for breakfast or brunch, it's time to explore the enticing flavors bacon adds to soups, salads, sides, main courses—and, yes, even desserts. So, let the seduction begin. Almond-stuffed prunes wrapped in bacon is an easy appetizer; follow it with a sublime lobster bisque topped with bacon bits and scallions, then beef and vegetable pot pie in pepper-bacon crust. And for the finale: pecan, brown sugar and bacon ice cream. Go ahead, revel in this bacon bonanza and pig out!
Regime change? Sí! Cuisine change? No! Many people yearn for a post-Castro Cuba, but no one wants the island's unique food tampered with. Eating Cuban: 120 Recipes from the Streets of Havana to American Shores by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs, who took the fabulous photos in this sumptuous book, is a great introduction to the tastes and temperament of Cuban cooking. Cuban creole is a marvelous mélange of traditional Spanish cooking influenced by indigenous Native Americans, African slaves brought to work the plantations, the Chinese indentured servants who followed them, and French planters who moved to Cuba from Haiti. Once a vacation mecca for Americans, it's been difficult to visit the island for some time, but the authors did it in-depth and the result is eye-opening and palate-pleasing. As Ana Menéndez, a fine Cuban-American novelist, puts it in her charming introduction: "The book you're holding in your hands is a sweet and honest love letter to Cuban food. For those coming to the Cuban table for the first time, the recipes offer a straight and simple roadmap to the cuisine. For those who grew up with picadillo and arroz con pollo, the recipes will send you tumbling back to recollection." Look, cook, enjoy—¡buen provecho!