Natalie Vivian Scott

Since this book was published in 1931, there has been a huge sea-change in attitudes on race. The uncomfortable call-outs of "Negro dialect" around many of the recipes are cringe-inducing today, though I for one find the chatty, personal tone of the recipe instructions to be charming. It's like it used to me when I was cooking in my mother's kitchen.

She was always a little surprised at how interested I was in her cooking habits, since she said I was going to have a wife to do all this stuff for me (neither wife could cook for sour owl shit, BTW); she came to see it as a boon when she realized it meant I could be sent to the grocery store with a menu and come home with the proper ingredients.

I reproduce here a weird little dish that shows how different tastes are today, and that chatty quality that I like so well:

"Celery a la Creme
Celery well-washed and scraped, cut into short lengths, boiled, and drained, appears appetizingly served with a hot white cream sauce."

Which apparently you already know how to make. I cavil at "appetizingly," since this dish appearing on any table at which I am seated is guaranteed to put me off my feed for several hours or until dessert, whichever comes first. And who on earth thought of BOILING CELERY?! Ugh!

But, in contrast, there are WONDERFUL recipes in here for strawberry beignets, for a corn fritter straight from heaven (made both for lunch today, my sainted 90-yr-old aunt asked me to marry her), and for Fish St. Martin...3lb of fish, 1/2lb mushrooms, 2 dozen oysters, 2lb boiled shrimp and looooots of butter. I'll try this one soon. And maybe even share. Not so sure about that one, though....… (altro)