The best a book review can hope for is not only to assess the book in hand, but also tap into some larger point. By that measure, the latest cookbook review in the NY Times is a great read. In its crosshairs is the “easy” cooking using processed ingredients, and in particular one Sandra Lee’s “semi-homemade” fare. But it might as well be Food Network’s Rachel Ray or any other prophet of quick and easy.
Of course part of the critique to be made against this mentality is that good food takes time and occasionally the money spent on quality ingredients. But the brilliance of the Times review is to document the recipes that were actually about as expensive and time-consuming as the from-scratch versions. My favorite bit:
In a recipe for Anjelica Huston’s Having-It-All Caramel Shortbread, Ms. Lee calls for 20 Brach’s Milk Maid soft caramel candies, unwrapped. I timed myself to see how long it took to unwrap them. Three minutes. It’s not a long time, but it is an incredibly annoying task. The caramels must then be melted in a microwave oven, which takes another few minutes. It took me only 15 minutes to make the same amount of caramel from scratch. The difference in time was negligible, while the difference in taste was significant. Homemade caramel has the texture of taffy and tastes of butter. Brach’s have a waxy texture and taste of sugar.
Certainly food tastes and the lifestyle priorities of food shopping and preparation are caught up in class divisions. But the quick and easy is also an American phenomenon. We do spend a lot of money on luxury items and a good deal of energy and effort to track brand names for food and restaurants. But quality seems elusive and sadly is often just the province of foodies.
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