Cookbook review: The James Beard Cookbook

Foodies know the name James Beard. It's his name that graces the most prestigious award chefs (and cookbooks) can win. But long before the award bearing his name was around, and even longer before the foodie revolution he helped create really took hold, Beard was pushing the envelope of what Americans should expect out of -- or more specifically, what they could create within-- their kitchen.

The James Beard Cookbook is a re-issue of Beard's original 1950s era cookbook, which was updated in the late 1980s, then again in the 1990s. 

"This is a basic cookbook," Beard begins in his 1959 foreword. To prove that point, Beard provides instruction, in the second paragraph, of how to boil water, then assures the reader that most recipes aren't much more complicated than that. The primary difference between The James Beard Cookbook and most modern celebrity-chef cookbooks is that Beard is full of simple recipes without the high-gloss photographs of the chef having a blast making the recipe. For the money, you probably get ten times the number of recipes in The James Beard Cookbook than you would in any modern celebrity chef's cookbook. Part of that is marketing-- why put all your recipes into one 350 page cookbook, when you can add lots of playful pictures and use the same number of recipes over four or five cookbooks. You'll sell a lot more cookbooks! 

But this is old school. This is reminiscent of the style in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which isn't a surprise as the two were contemporaries and well acquainted with one another. The primary difference between the two is that Child focused on French cooking; Beard is quintessentially American with French influences. This was written in a time when good cooking was French cooking, and much of Beard's career was spent helping Americans cook good food, regardless of influence.

Like the boiled water example, there are basic steps and ingredients, and then it's on to the next recipe without fanfare. Editors of the more recent editions commented that there are a few changes and additions over the years, but for the most part the contents are the same. The techniques are the same basics that any modern chef would recommend, yet there are holdovers from other eras that give the cookbook a feel as if it contains a time-space continuum within. For instance, in the chapter on bread, Beard comments that most people of his generation can still remember when all bread came from a home oven, and that housewives would never consider serving baked bread from a commercial bakery (Beard was born in 1903). That's almost laughable these days-- buying bread from the grocery store is a staple of American life. But that was, in essence, Beard's point: baking bread isn't difficult. In fact, it's so easy that it seems silly to pay $4 for a loaf of bread when you can do it yourself for pennies.

There are a few clunky moments, such as listing brownies in the section on cookies. But there are also plenty of refreshing finds. I don't remember seeing cookbooks with recipes for hamburgers A` Cheval (with eggs and anchovies on top) or Marseillaise (garlic inside with sautéed eggplant on top). The recipe for Welsh Rarebit is a simple treat that, by itself, is worth the price of the book. More than anything, the joy of this cookbook is the appeal to anyone who feels overwhelmed in the kitchen. It makes me think of the chef in the Pixar movie Ratatouille, who claimed that anyone can cook. I wonder if that character was an homage to James Beard; if so, it is a fitting tribute. 

Beard closes the foreword with this sage advice: "Good food has a magic appeal. You may grow old, even ugly, but if you are a good cook, people will always find the path to your door." Add this one to your cookbook collection, even if you already know how to cook. There are some treasures stored within, not the least of which is a glimpse at how far we've come in home cooking in the last 115 or so years since James Beard's birth.