The Non-Julia (and the Non-Rachel)

Over at Slate, Regina Schrambling breaks out the terrible truth: Julia Child may be a saintly woman, but she's not all that cookable. Schrambling talks about the canonical Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My copy of that one disappeared many years ago in a divorce; I do retain The Way to Cook and I look at it from time to time by way of reference but I'm not sure I've ever cooked a whole meal--or even a whole dish--out of it.

Which is all by way of excuse for me to plump again for the non-Julia: Elizabeth David, the woman who introduced Mediterranean cooking to England. Rummaging around my bookcase, I find three Elizabeth Davids: A Book of Mediterranean Food, and Summer Cooking,both from NYRB Classics, and Italian Food, from Penguin. With absolutely no disrespect to Julia--who is just as wonderful as everybody says she is--David is surely the antdote. She's restrained, she's low-key, she's direct and to the point. For example:

SCAMPI LESSATI
(Boiled Scampi)

Boil the unshelled scampi tails in salted water for 10 minutes. Serve them hot with melted butter, leaving each person to shell his own.

That's it? That's all? Well, no, not quite. Elizabeth adds:

This is perhaps the best way of appreciating the delicate flavour of the scampi.

Oh. Ah. Right. Got it. Actually, I don't do it quite that way any more. One, I don't use water; in my view, it's better with beer. On the other hand, I don't "boil for 10 minutes." I think this makes them too rubbery. Rather, I start them in cold stuff and bring them to a simmer and hold until they are just cooked through. Still, the fact is that Elizabeth has got to the point: find good ingredients, and stay out of their way. She's good to go back to, whenever you need to clear the head.

Or, we could go on to:

SCAMPI FRITTI
(Fried Scampi)

There are several ways of frying scampi:The tails can be taken raw out of their shells, dusted with flour and plainly fried in oil, or they can be dipped in egg and breadcrumbs or in frying batter. They can also be first boiled, and then friend in any of these ways.

And the last line kicker again:

They are best served plain, with no garnish but lemon.

That's the point isn't it? Look, this is not all that difficult. Just don't screw it up.

Okay, I am being selective. Not every recipe comes in just a few lines. She takes most of two pages to explain "Octopus, Squid, Cuttle" to the English audience, advising, that "Polipi" i.e., Octopus, "musrt be bashed a good deal before cooking--gads, I which I had known that the first time I tried to cope with one. She ends with the ambiguous advice that "Diogenes the Cynic, it is said, died from trying to eat a raw inkfish."

In simplicity and straightforwardness, I suppose David is closer to Rachel Ray. But she is really the no-Rachel just as she is the non-Julia. Straightfoward she may be, but she doesn't sound working-mother harried so much as uncluttered and focused on the task.

There are at least two biographies of David, neither of which I have read. But from the sound of things, her life wasn't as simple as her approach to dining. Wiki says that made a "marriage of convenience" with "a man whom she did not ultimately respect." It says that "she had many lovers" and that at "49, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, possibly related to her heavy drinking." It adds: "Although she recovered, it affected her sense of taste and her libido."

Sadly, I can't speak for her libido (come to think of it, which of us can ever speak for our libido?). But her taste seems to me impeccable. More than impeccable, she seems to have understood early that good food was worth attending to and worth taking seriously. And not that-all difficult.

Source: both recipes quoted are from the Italian Food with an introduction by--oh, look here, folks: Julia Child.

Pollan on Food

Michael Pollan has an amusing if somewhat bewildered piece in the New York Times Sunday Magazine in which he tries to make sense out of Julia Child, the Food Network, and sundry cultural artifacts. He seems to have discovered (horrors!) that the Food Network is popular among people who do not cook.

I can relate. I first discovered the Food Network when I was living alone for a few months in apartment in New York City. I like to cook, but not for myself only and hey, NYC is so crammed with over the top wonderful takeout (I was about six blocks from Balducci's. now Citarella, on Sixth Avenue). My nightly routine was to plop my quarry on the kitchen counter and flip on the TV more or less simultaneously, deploying the Food Network to give me the consoling illusion that something was actually happening in the kitchen. Back home, as I've mentioned I do cook--quite a bit, actually--although I acknowledge that I am (semi) retired so I have time for that sort of self-indulgence.

I still use the Food Network as talking wallpaper some--even when I am in the kitchen myself--but I would also knowledge that the new round of "eating" shows and "competition" shows is just over the top, around the bend, out the window, down the drain, whatever is the metaphor for wretched excess. But I do think I should not one important reason: it is the curse of any long-running entertainment, you find yourself competing with yourself after a while. Necessarily you get crazier and crazier until you are just lost in space. I miss the old days, but how many ways can you broil a chicken, anyhow?

A few passing bits of advice for Pollan, who seems to need more guidance about content: Emril is better than people give him credit for (ignore the band). Paula Deen is a nice lady, but really a terrible cook. Michael Chiarella is easy to overlook. And the Barefoot Contessa is still the sexiest celebrity alive (cotton underwear division).

Afterthought: Has anybody actually cooked a Julia Child recipe lately? She's an icon, of course, and I still have a copy of The Way To Cook (second hand, from Palookaville's fine used book store). As a nostalgia trip, it can be fun to look at, but when I need something in the way of an encyclopedia, I tend to pull down the old original Madelaine Kamman.

Afterthought to Afterthought: And what is this stuff about 27 minutes to cook and four to clean up? My impression is that cooking to cleanup is pretty much 1:1.