Recipe Weekend: Book Review and Giveaway: The Lost Art of Cooking by Ken Albala and Rosanna Natziger

Subtitle:  Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time 

** THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED ***

This book has been all over the books pages this summer and I couldn't wait to review it, lucky for me  Penguin Book was happy to send me a review copy!

Synopsis:
The Lost Art of Real Cooking heralds a new old-fashioned approach to food-laborious and inconvenient, yet extraordinarily rewarding and worth bragging about. From jam, yogurt, and fresh pasta to salami, smoked meat, and strudel, the authors arm you with the knowledge and skills that let you connect on a deeper level with what goes into your body.

The authors celebrate the patience it takes to make your own sauerkraut and pickles. They divulge the mysteries of capturing wild sourdoughs and culturing butter, the beauty of rendering lard, making cheese, and brewing beer, all without the fancy toys that take away from the adventure of truly experiencing your food.

These foods were once made by the family, in the home, rather than a factory. And they can still be made in the smallest kitchens without expensive equipment, capturing flavors that speak of place and personality. What you won't find here is a collection of rigid rules for the perfect meal. The authors offer a wealth of recipes, history, and techniques that start with the basics and evolve into dishes that are entirely your own.

Example Recipe:

Homemade Flour tortillas (make dough up and hour before you want to make)

Ingredients

• 4 cps flour- all purpose or whole wheat, or mixture of both
• salt
• half a cup of softened butter or lard
• 1 cp of water

Directions:
1. Put the flour and a little bit of salt in a large bowl. With clean fingers, work in the butter. It is ready when you can squeeze a handful in your hand, then open your hand and find the mixture holds its form.
2. Add the water slowly, kneading as you go til you have a fairly stiff dough. keep kneading til it is smooth and lifts the sticky bits of dough from your fingers. Wrap well and let sit on the counter til ready to roll.
3. To roll: flour counter. Take an egg size piece of the dough and roll it out to your desired thickness- between an eighth and a quarter of an inch.
4. Cook tortillas on a hot UNGREASED griddle or tortilla plate (on high). If using a cast-iron griddle, be advised that the high heat, without oil, will ruin the 'seasoning' in the pan, and you will have to start over, so dedicate a pan just for tortillas, if using cast iron.  Cook briefly on both sides until blistery and dry, with darkened marks from the skillet. Keep cooked tortillas warm under a towel.
Note: You'll know you've mastered the skill if your tortilla makes tortugas (turtles) and inflates, meaning it is cooking on the inside.  Tradition says to eat the first tortilla with butter and salt! Cooks prerogative to share!



 About the Authors:   
Ken Albala, is professor of history at the University of the Pacific and author of Eating Right in the Renaissance, The Banquet, and Beans: A History. Visit his website at www.kenalbala.blogspot.com.

Rosanna Nafziger spent her girlhood working in the orchard and selling pies at market. Now she writes about old-fashioned cookery on her blog, Paprikahead.com.

Review:
For the recipe above, I had to read 2 pages of text to compile it in normal form. The whole book is this way- there are no lists of ingredients, you have to read the sections and try to determine what ingredients are needed. The format reminds me of how your mother or grandmother would tell you a recipe. How many times did they have set measurements when reciting a recipe from memory that they made all the time? Right. So in many ways this book reads like a memory recipe book! Once you get used to it, it's not hard to decipher!

I loved the extra tidbits thrown in, like in the recipe above that if your tortilla bubbles, it is a good thing! How many people know that, who didn't grow up making tortillas? This is really an intermediate cookbook, as there are only line drawings of some things, so you have to have an idea say what Risotto or what pita bread looks like, to know if you've made it right.

This is the perfect book to give to the cook, who has a lot of regular cookbooks. The recipes and asides are really helpful and will help to elevate your cooking to a new level! It would be the perfect Christmas gift for the relative who likes to cook! I would also suggest giving a blank journal and suggest that the recipient make their own cookbook, like The Lost Art of Real Cooking, of their own family recipes!

GIVEAWAY:

One reader will win this review copy of The Lost Art of Cooking!

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Contest will end on August 29th, at midnight. Winner will be picked by Random Number (random.org) on August 30th, and emailed. As soon as winner's info is received, I will mail their book to them during the following week.

Disclosure / Disclaimer:  I was offered this book, free of charge,from Penguin Publishing, for review on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to review the book.