Trends
in cookbook publishing change drastically from year to year. Every popular cuisine has
received an in-depth “lite” or “low-fat” treatment. Fusion cooking, the
every-ingredient-in-the-world in one dish mish-mash of flavors had a great run,
and to date, most of the regions of Italy have already been explored. This
fall’s most interesting upmarket titles are very personal explorations of
regional cuisines or culinary areas. Readers can dine in Chicago chef/restaurateur Rick Bayless’s mexican kitchen or enjoy the anecdotes and
photos of life on the Proven�al farm of food writer Patricia Wells. Each
of the authors adds to a body of work with these new books, which offer mature
and insightful presentations of personal creations derived from years of
pleasurable study.
Oklahoma natives Rick and Deann Groen Bayless are proprietors of Frontera
Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, two of the country’s best-known interior
Mexican restaurants. Sampling recipes from their newest work, Rick Bayless’s
Mexican Kitchen (Scribners, $35, hardcover), proves to me that the success
of their restaurants is based on more than the location in a hot media market.
Long before they opened their restaurants, the Baylesses were frequent
travelers to Mexico. They ate and cooked their way across the republic many
times in the process, learning from and building working relationships with
many of Mexico’s most important native culinary figures. Many of those
respected cooks receive credit in the beginning of this new book: cookbook
author and culinary travel guide Marilyn Tausend, chef/authors Lula Beltran and
Maria Dolores Torres Yzabal and frequent Austin visitor UNAM gastronomy
professor Ricardo Mu�oz.
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recipes; his role is that of translator. He bases his work on what he describes
as “artifact recipes gathered in 25 years of traveling and cooking in Mexico”
that are translated to the American kitchen with a passion and genuine
reverence for their Mexican culinary heritage. The new book begins with a
section entitled “Essential Flavors of the Mexican Kitchen,” building blocks
which are important components of many dishes in the rest of the book. Each
essential recipe is followed by a list of the traditional dishes that utilize
it and Bayless also offers suggestions he calls “Simple Ideas from my American
home.” Most of the essential recipes are for sauces, salsas and flavoring
pastes which contain instructions for roasting, broiling, toasting and grilling
techniques necessary to develop the distinctive layers of flavor in authentic
Mexican cooking. The Essential Roasted Tomatillo-Serrano Salsa renders a tangy
Tomatillo Guacamole and is wonderful napped on grilled chicken or shrimp.
Mastering the Essential Roasted Poblano Rajas with seared white onions
and herbs opens up a whole range of possibilities for everything from an
excellent Roasted Poblano Crema to quesadillas, tacos, and omelettes.
The soup section seemed an appropriate place to start cooking during some
recent cool weather. Silky Golden Squash Blossom Crema is a truly elegant first
course, garnished with thin slices of the delicate flower. There is a variation
which allows for the use of yellow squash when blossoms are unavailable. The
hearty Oaxacan Black Bean Soup with chorizo is a meal in itself with hot
tortillas. Perhaps the most interesting soup is the Mushroom-Cactus Soup made
with tangy roasted nopales and woodsy tasting mushrooms such as
shiitakes accented with epazote, hoja santa and cilantro. The roasting
and toasting of all the ingredients takes a while but the resulting flavor is
remarkable.
After days of soups, I was determined to try something else and chose
Bayless’s version of the traditional special occasion cake in Mexico, Pastel
de Tres Leches. The Three Milks Cake calls for sweetened condensed milk,
canned milk and whole milk. Chef Bayless has substituted cajeta (Mexican
goat’s milk caramel) for the sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream for the
milk. The finished product is justification enough for a fiesta, divinely light
and delicious with fresh fruit and strong coffee. Rick Bayless’s Mexican
Kitchen is a useful and accessible collection of recipes and techniques
which will allow the cook to duplicate authentic Mexican flavors in American
homes. The self-described “translator” communicates these recipes very well
indeed.
Fans of food writer Patricia Wells will be pleased with her newest
publication, Patricia Wells at Home in Proven�e (Scribner, $40,
hardcover). In her five previous best sellers, the award-winning international
journalist has always presented recipes of chefs, trattoria owners, butchers,
and fishmongers encountered in the course of her work. This new book is her
first compilation of personal recipes. They are interspersed with anecdotes and
photos about the rustic Proven�al property she and her husband bought
several years ago and turned back into a working farm surrounding a warm and
inviting home. The Wells farm at Chanteduc with its outdoor bread oven, olive
grove, small fruit orchard, vineyard and year-round garden is really the star
of the book. Wells’ recipes are the natural result of having what she refers to
as a “living food encyclopedia outside my door,” home-cured olives, wild
mushrooms picked in the woods on her property and black truffles harvested from
beneath the soil of her vineyard. She also introduces the reader to the
vegetable vendors, fishmonger, and butcher in the nearby village of Vaison who
obviously recognize their neighbor’s passion for good food and were generous
enough to share some of their own recipes with her.
 View of the vineyards and the Alps from Patricia Wells’s farmhouse office |
While some of the recipes would surely benefit from shopping in a
Proven�al market or living on a working farm, the majority of what Wells
offers is perfectly within the reach of the American home cook. The key to
reproducing her recipes is to choose seasonal fresh ingredients and prepare
them rather simply. The Chicken with Tarragon and Sherry Vinegar produces such
fragrant, sensuous sauce that it should be paired with rice or pasta for
maximum enjoyment. Wells’ neighborhood butcher shared Monsieur Henny’s Rabbit
Bouillabaisse, a divine concoction with saffron, pastis and fennel, laced with
the garlic and red pepper mayonnaise rouille, a spicy sibling of
aioli. The recipe works equally well with chicken.
The sunny aroma of Proven�e can be experienced in your kitchen with the
preparation of the Lemon Lover’s Tart, a dessert which incorporates a hint of
lemon zest in the pastry crust to build the layers of flavor.
Each of Wells’ recipes is followed with serving suggestions, menu ideas, and
wine recommendations. The volume is graced with lovely Robert Freson
photographs of the food, the house, the surrounding farm and many of the
village vendors the author describes. The vegetable chapter begins with a
picture of her vineyard taken from Wells’ office window that certainly stirred
some longing in my heart for a better workday view. Patricia Wells frequently
opens her Chanteduc home to friends and students who attend her cooking
classes. For those of us who don’t know her or don’t have the money for the
trip, this wonderful culinary memoir is nice to suffice.
This article appears in November 8 • 1996 and November 8 • 1996 (Cover).