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by Suzanne Buchert
Books About Food Eleanor Ostman’s book: “Always on Sunday, Eleanor Ostman’s Best Tested Recipes” begins “During the past three decades, when a Tested Recipes reader urged, “You ought to write a cookbook,” I’d demure. “Maybe, someday, when I retire…”
“The story of our adventure, our move to Rue Tatin, began some thirteen
years earlier, when I first went to live in Paris.” So writes
author Susan Herrmann Loomis in her book “On Rue Tatin”. This month’s reviews are of books on one of my favorite subjects: food. I am a dedicated foodie. Eating, cooking, reading about eating and cooking, talking about eating and cooking, are all fascinating subjects to me. I love to try foods from other cultures, other parts of the country, other families. I subscribe to the penultimate magazine for such an interest: Saveur, also to be found at www.saveur.com. Saveur doesn’t just give recipes, like Bon Appetite and Gourmet, which I have subscribed to in the past. Saveur intertwines the culture of a place with the foods of the place. That brings me to this month’s books. I saw Eleanor Ostman’s book “Always on Sunday” when on a break while driving to St. Paul to visit my mother. I was immediately interested in the book due to having read Ostman’s column in the Sunday St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press during the 60’s and 70’s. I lived in Mankato, Minnesota and the paper was a connection with my hometown and even, in a way, with my family. I resisted the books siren call for a couple of years and then when staying at the Historic St. James Hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota where it was on the shelf in the coffee/gift shop I succumbed. I also purchased a copy of a local Red Wing book of recipes from Bed and Breakfasts, tea rooms and coffee shops, but that is another story. My husbands comment on the appearance of these two books in our room led to the comment, “Well, we really needed those.” I had loved Ostman’s articles which were written in a down to earth, chatty style offering a recipe and the ins and outs of testing the recipe in her own home kitchen. She told of the flops, the successes, the enthusiasm or lack thereof on the part of the tasters at home and in the office. She offered suggestions for making the recipe work better. I still have a number of her recipes carefully clipped from the paper and saved in my recipe box. Reading her book was a trip down memory lane for me. I grew up in the time when adding a can of mushroom soup to a tuna hot dish was considered a gourmet touch. It was also a time saver, a real boon to working women having to put a hot meal on the table every night without the help of a microwave, or pre-prepared meals. The decades roll by from the beginning of her column in the 1968, until her retirement 30 years later. She covered food trends, changes in eating habits, new kitchen appliances like the microwave and the food processor. She delved into ethnic foods as they became part of the Midwestern diet, organic or health foods and other food trends while continuing to give proper attention to the chocolate god. Chocolate cake, chocolate bars, chocolate cookies, chocolate pies, all were presented and praised or panned. Ostman hobnobbed with famous chefs and cooking personalities, led food tours throughout the world, and even lunched with Paul Newman after winning a contest utilizing an Newman’s’ Own product. Through it all, she knew Midwestern comfort food and made her readers know and love it too. “On Rue Tatin” is one of those books so in vogue where the author leaps into a life in an exotic local and makes all her (it is usually a her, despite Peter Mayle) readers salivate for a similar life changing experience. There is usually little mention of how this is accomplished, especially where the money comes from that supports this lifestyle. However, the books are generally easy to read and enjoy and this one is no exception. The author of “On Rue Tatin”, Susan Hermann Loomis, moved to Paris to attend cooking school. She lived in a tiny apartment, worked her tail off, fell into writing food articles for a publisher in the states and met a rather aloof family in the countryside when they needed a nanny for the summer. By the end of the summer they were all great friends and Loomis eventually finished cooking school, married her long time boyfriend, bought a run down house in a small town in Brittany and wrote several books on French farmhouse cooking. Each chapter, as is often the case, includes a recipe along with a recollection of how and why the recipe was first used by Loomis. It is a charming book, to be enjoyed on a sunny afternoon along with a cup of tea and a sweet. Although I have read more than one such book, the title drew me in. I have in recent years made a holiday specialty of a sort of upside down apple tart called a Tarte Tatin. The tart was supposedly named after the Tatin sisters who made it at their father’s inn. Enter the book “On Rue Tatin”, no connection unfortunately, and I was hooked. Of course, if you read the previously reviewed compilation “The Art of Eating” by M.F.K. Fisher, describing her introduction into food and especially French food, you have already savored the Neuhaus truffle and may find “On Rue Tatin” to be just a bit of a Hershey’s kiss.
Suzanne Buchert and her husband, Keith, own several restaurants.
sbuchert@hotmail.com
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