1.09.2010

Cookbooks

While sorting through old books and stuff the other day, Phil found a few old cookbooks.



These Time-Life cookbooks, copyright 1979, have some really interesting recipes that I had never even dreamt of: Lettuce Mousse, Turnip Custard, Russian Meat Patties, and Veal Pudding, in both German and Spanish styles. The pasta cookbook has a recipe for Shells with Blueberries, wherein you take cooked shells, mix them around with blueberries, then top that with a sauce made from butter, tomato paste and red wine. That just sounds so weird, but I do like all those individual ingredients, so maybe I'll try it. One of my favorite pictures came from the pasta book.


This was made in a round bowl slathered with butter, lined with spiraled long macaroni, filled with chicken mousseline and sweetbreads (you know, the pancreas or thymus gland of a calf or lamb).

There is some really neat stuff in these books, though. The first half of each book is dedicated to information about each topic-- there are neat diagrams of where cuts of meat come from in Beef and Veal, and charts that detail seasonal availability, recommended cooking methods and times and strategies for recommended methods in Vegetables. Overall, these were interesting to read, but I don't think I'll be using many of the recipes that fill the second halves of these books.

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