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Food and drink

Best wishes, and potential dishes, of the season

’Tis time for nicely seasoned greetings and foodstuffs of all sorts. So being the practical, world-conscious Canadian gal that I am, can I gently remind you of the best gifts of all — ones that disappear, preferably those that are B.C.-born or –bred.

How about a year’s supply of Whistler Chocolate? Gift certificates, or the real thing, from Howe Sound Brewing? Or a sack of Across the Creek Russian blue potatoes paired with a couple of Pemberton Meadows steaks for the pal who has everything. You can offer to cook.

On the other hand, I can’t think of a soul who wouldn’t welcome rare and exotic already-homemade comestibles, or even down-to-earth retro ones like a batch of spicy nuts ’n’ bolts mixed up by your very own hands and baked golden-brown in your very own oven.

Or consider beautiful B.C. wines, a box of smoked salmon that’s easy to ship to friends in other time zones, fine hand-made soap from an emu farm in the Okanagan — gifts like these give double or triple overtime when you count the giftee, who’s delighted to receive it, the giver, who’s delighted to source it so easily and conscientiously, and the delighted gift producer, who’s grown, raised or made it and has friends and family of his or her own to support this Christmas season.

Another usually welcome gift that produces volumes of pleasure beyond the physical resources it consumes or tangible space it occupies is a mighty good book. Chances are that once it has been consumed by the intended recipient it, too, will disappear — into the hands of another eager reader or, at least, into a second-hand book sale where its capability to give will keep on giving.

Thankfully, ideas centred around food and eating, in case you haven’t noticed in this column, segue into just about every human activity and foible, from politics to pottery-making. Lord knows you don’t have to be a “foodie” — how I hate the term, sticky as it is with classism and the swagger of competitive eating — to appreciate a good book about food. So here are a few offerings, in time for holiday or any-day giving:

 

In Bad Taste? The Adventures and Science Behind Food Delicacies . Dr. Massimo Francesco Marcone. Okay, so you’ve caught me red-handed, but wasn’t that a good set-up for a book bent on demystifying food brinksmanship? Like, is it worth paying 30 bucks for 50 grams of coffee ( kopi luwak <) made from coffee beans a civet in Indonesia eats and then poops out?

Dr. Marcone, being the balanced professorial sort that he is from the University of Guelph, can’t really advise you on that one. But, among other adventures, he does one heck of a job describing his trip to Indonesia to see how the myth holds up of gathering the scatologically-sourced beans from the rainforest floor (it does), and the subsequent testing in his lab back at the university to see if the coffee’s flavour really is enhanced by the process (it is). Your giftee will then have to figure out if it — or the maggot cheese from Italy — are worth ordering on eBay.

 

Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet . Edited by Ruth Reichl. She’s been a tour de force of a restaurant critic for the likes of the New York Times and a best-selling author. Now she reigns as editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. But Reichl (also spelled Reichel) is no food snob. This is largely due to her roots in Berkeley’s ’70s counter-culture, where she had a taste of political protest (the Vietnam War) that made a difference, hung out with Alice Waters, who wrote the metaphoric cookbook on sourcing local/cooking local at her restaurant, Chez Panisse, and dumpster-dove for ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner, not because she had to, but because she could and should (all that wasted food).

One of Reichl’s best quotes is, “You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one you need to know about life.” And so this collection of essays from Gourmet is all about life. It stands as one engaging, humanistic collection of writing, about food or otherwise — part travelogue, part time-traveller, especially if you drum up one of the recipes, which are written in their original form, in other words, not modernized for contemporary kitchens or ingredients.

One of the quirkiest pieces is James Villas’s essay on the regional cooking of the U.S. “low country” coast, which lies between Wilmington, North Carolina and Savannah, Georgia — a place barely on anyone’s map these days, even with GPS. The article drips with a strangeness as affecting as the Spanish moss that hangs from the region’s swamp-addled trees. The Brunswick stew recipe, with its three meats and zing of hot pepper, will transport you there.

 

The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery . Auguste Escoffier. Sure, this has been a bastion of French cooking, gourmet-dom and all things chef-like for 100 years. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to poke through or even cook from. When it was first published in 1903, Escoffier’s book was a Reader’s Digest Condensed version of French cooking of the day, simplifying some 5,000 recipes. I know… your friend doesn’t have a hair sieve for straining sauce anywhere in sight, and why would she? But, honestly, this book still sports a lot of simple, useful recipes that anyone who can make a taco can pull off. The hot wine with orange looks like a perfect holiday topper.

 

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen . Harold McGee. Yes, I cite it endlessly, and I’ve told you about it before. But I can’t pass up an opportunity to plug this amazing book, stuffed as it is with weird facts and good stories. Even people who hate to cook will gobble it up.

The book is organized in snippets, like an encyclopedia, perfect for browsing and grazing. Open it anywhere, like I’m doing now, and interesting tidbits invariably pop out: Water is the major component of all foods. Aztecs flavoured their chocolate with aromatic flowers, vanilla, chili, wild honey and achiote. The English walnut is Persian. Pistachio trees are related to cashew and mango trees. Bonus: If you’re into it, this is the kind of book that will also help anyone invent their own recipes. Have fun!

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who wishes you the best of the spirit of giving.