Since getting to California, I've been making a habit of hitting thrift stores to collect culinary books. Cookbooks, wine books, memoirs- the whole nine yards. Originally, I was searching for recent publications that my cheap butt could nab for 80% less than in bookstores, but then I came across a copy of Food & Wine Best of 1989. I had to get it, '89 was the year I was born and I was curious to see what people were eating back then. Since then, I was hooked on more, shall we say, "vintage" books.
I never went to any sort of culinary higher education beyond a vocational class in high school, and then we were using recipe books published in the 80's (in suburban Maine, that's where many palates were rooted in the early 2000s anyway). And nowadays, there are a plethora of amazing cookbooks on the market that are full of bright, innovative, clean dishes- nothing like what I grew up with. Reading through the old books versus the new, it awed me just how different people ate even just 20 years ago. So, from an EXTREMELY nerdy anthropological perspective, it fascinated me.
From another educational side of it, because of my lack of "official" education, having old books makes me feel like I can "catch up" on the formal schooling- when I would have gone to culinary school, I probably still would have been referring to older books. The chef memoirs I admire the most, they all mention classic cookbooks from the 60s and 70s- if they can create fun dishes from old recipe inspiration, surely I can figure something like that out.
Cooking is something that anyone can do. However, creating? Innovating? That takes talent, but more than that, it takes knowledge. How can you riff on classics if you don't understand them? My collection has grown exponentially. And I couldn't be more excited. I love learning about food, and look forward to sharing it with everyone- hopefully making it fun in the process. Second blog will hopefully be coming soon!!!
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