Gifts for Cooks: ‘My New Orleans: The Cookbook’
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A New Orleans cookbook? First you write about roux. That’s what John Besh did; it’s naturally the first recipe in ‘New Orleans: The Cookbook,’ outlined on a page titled ‘Thoughts on Roux.’ But it’s as much a story about how he makes roux his way as it is a recipe. And the 374-page book might be as much an epic about one man’s culinary journey as it is a cookbook.
There are more than 200 recipes, as well as stories about crawfish boils and Mardi Gras parades; histories of Louisiana citrus and Ponchatoula strawberries; and anecdotes about friends and family (revolving around the joys of duck hunting, for example, or, more somberly, the tribulations brought on by Hurricane Katrina). Throughout are lush photographs of not only food but portraits (nuns at a fishing rodeo, say) and landscapes (the waters of Lake Ponchartrain). Besh, who grew up in southern Louisiana, attended the Culinary Institute of America, cooked in Europe and now has a growing empire of restaurants in New Orleans, also includes plenty of cooking tips, such as what to look for in grits (minimal processing) for his jalapeno cheese grits. The recipes are a reflection of New Orleans’ culinary history: gumbos and etouffees; red beans and rice; caldo; Jaegerschnitzel (hunter’s chops). Many are modern takes, using traditional and/or local ingredients: strawberry and Creole cream cheese ice cream; an elegant cauliflower and crawfish soup; salad of grilled bobwhite quail with chanterelles.
The book is loosely organized by season (as in shrimp, tomato, blackberry or oyster season -- and gumbo weather) and highlighted by celebrations, the times when families and friends orchestrate big get-togethers: birthdays, Mardi Gras, Easter, Thanksgiving, Reveillon, even St. Joseph’s Day. And the book itself reads like a celebration.
-- Betty Hallock
