I have always enjoyed reading old cookbooks and recipes not only because I like to cook, but also because they provide a window to the past about the history and evolution of cooking.  The recent surge of interest in Julia Child motivated me to read My Life in France (2006).  It was thoroughly enjoyable  and I was struck by the way her work highlighted the tension between using fresh and locally produced  ingredients as opposed to conveniently prepackaged and processed ingredients.  When Julia was living in France, a big part of her food education involved getting to know the local food purveyors.  The freshness and superior quality of the ingredients were just as important to her as the techniques that would be used to prepare them for the table.  When she began to work on Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) she came to realize that her American audience was more interested in using conveniently canned, frozen or otherwise processed ingredients.  Food innovations and inventions in the 1950s changed the way people thought about cooking.  The emphasis was on convenience and speed, rather than fresh food.  Modern, more processed ingredients were substituted for traditional “from scratch” ingredients that involved more forethought and effort.  Having access to foods that were out of season was considered more enticing than eating local.   The microwave oven (invented in 1946) took this concept a step further when it became small enough for a typical home kitchen in 1967.

In reading Helen Evans Brown’s West Coast Cook Book (1952) and Love and Kisses and  a Halo of Truffles by James Beard (1994) I notice the same dichotomy of fresh local ingredients vs.  packaged and prepared ingredients.  Helen is all about looking to the past for original ingredients and recipes of the people of the Pacific Northwest.  She, like Julia Child, tailors her recipes to make them more palatable for the American audience of her era.  I suppose that at the time publishers deemed this type of editing  necessary in order to make money by selling the cook books.

Now, with the resurgence of the Farmer’s Market it seems that we have come full circle.  We are excited by the idea of eating like the native people of our region did.  We have finally begun to understand that eating locally supports our health, community, culture more than the alternative.  We are starting to perceive that there is a community of people in our region that grow and make food.  I’m hoping that these changes in perspective will fire a new adventurousness in all of us who are still out there cooking.  Modern cooking should  be a balance between using fresh and local ingredients and having a schedule that does not permit us to shop every day or spend hours preparing food.  Having a well stocked pantry can make the preparation of a meal from scratch just as quick as it is to assemble ingredients out of cans, boxes and/or plastic bags, mix them together, and apply heat.  I’m ready for the next great cook book writer to come along and dare to ask us to use more fresh ingredients, and to teach us how to do it with a modicum of convenience.