Melissa Clark is a foodwriting star. She’s at the New York Times and has authored many cookbooks. She was on Leonard Lopate’s show on WNYC the other day to talk about her favorite cookbooks, described herself as an American who loves many world cuisines, Indian, French, Mexican, regional American cooking. She was asked about Irma Rombauer’s classic, Joy of Cooking, and I liked how she spoke about her Jewishness.
I like my Joy of Cooking. It’s not one of my five favorites. The recipes are workaday. For me they’re not as inspiring as others… If Julia Child taught my parents to cook, the Joy of Cooking taught my grandparents to cook. You know again it’s just that continuation that I love. You know another book that taught my grandparents to cook that we should talk about– The Settlement Cookbook. Does anyone remember the Settlement Cookbook? And that– so tomorrow is Yom Kippur. And Claudia Roden’s Jewish cookbook. I mean these are recipes that for my particular heritage are very important to me.
Importance, particularism, humility– great recipe. The opposite of an assumptive cultural attitude. I remember the Settlement Cookbook. It was on my mother’s shelves, as I grew up.
Probably worth pointing out to the many Mondo readers who are *not* familiar with NY-Jewish history that “settlement” in this context means something completely different from what we talk about today…. That is, those “settlements” were (as I understand it) do-gooding efforts by richer New Yorkers at the end of the 19th century to improve housing and social conditions for low-income New Yorkers (especially in the Lower East Side??)– with many of the latter group being recent Jewish immigrants…
But anyway, why didn’t she give a shoutout to The Gaza Kitchen????
I didn’t listen to the show, so maybe I missed a great length of her talking about her Jewish identity, but from her quote, I can’t really see what you are projecting, Phil.
It seems to me that her mention of the Settlement Cookbook(what a name, btw) triggered some kind of nostalgia in you and that nostalgia basically wrote this article.
Although I should say that Ms. Clark seems like a very nice woman generally.
According to the link:
“Published in 1903, this was the original “”way to a man’s heart,”” featuring authentic American recipes, European cooking, and Jewish favorites. It was put together by the cooking students at the Milwaukee Settlement House and was an important staple of the American kitchen for more than fifty years.”
What does Phil mean by “assumptive cultural attitude”?