The Taste of Black

What better way to celebrate that most American of inventions, Black Friday, than with a black cookbook.

Björn Lindberg had an idea to take photos of black food.  He loved color; he loved food so why not combine the two.  But he needed a partner in crime, so he explained his idea to Jonas Borssén.  Borssén began developing recipes and Lindberg photographed them.  In 1997 they published The Taste of Black.  It is the artistic of food porn.  

Now, I do love black food, but I must confess that most of "black" creations come from my love of charcoal as an ingredient.  There is no charcoal in these recipes, no dyes, no inedible combos of squid and bananas (though there are recipes for squid and also a banana chutney) so don't be tempted to dismiss this book are an aberration.  The recipes are solid and reasonably easy to add to your cooking repertoire.  Some are very familiar like this one.

Black Bean Soup

1 1/4 cup black beans, soaked overnight
1-2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3-4 sticks of celery, finely chopped
1/2 lb. spicy sausage, thinly sliced
1-2 tablespoons jalapeño, finely chopped 1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon oregano or savory
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil

Begin by lightly frying the vegetables and sausage in a large casserole with a little oil. Drain the soaked beans and add them with the stock to the pot. Bring to a boil and skim thoroughly. Add all the spices except the oregano. Cover and simmer for 40-50 minutes or until the beans are completely soft. Add the oregano, salt and black pepper to taste. Serve in deep soup plates.

Once you see Lindberg's photographs of the food, you will never look at plating the same way again.   The utilitarian black bean soup has never been more radiant.  So enjoy your black Friday.

The Complete Western Cookbook

The early 1960's brought us The Complete Western Cookbook by Betty Johnson. With the current fascination for regional cooking, I must say there is not a whole lot in this cookbook that would scream out, "This is the land beyond the Pecos." 

what this may indicate is a land beyond proper cookbook editors.  The book has a really funny layout.  It starts with curry and New Mexico dishes.  One of those seems a bit out of place.  It is followed by game poultry and barbecue.  Then we move into a huge section of desserts: cookies, cakes, pies, frosting, frozen desserts, and candies.  It is an odd jump to go from venison and barbecued chicken to Lane cake in a few pages. 

Then we move into appetizers, pastas, sandwiches and "Oriental" dishes. then we move into a fairy common list of eggs, soups, salads, sauces, meats and vegetables.

I must say, with the exception of the Mexican and Oriental dishes, the book could well have been titled, The Complete Southern Cookbook.  It seems Mrs. Johnson hails from Alabama and given that the book has at least 4 fried chicken recipes, more cornbread and pone and spoon bread than most, not to mention Lane cake, deviled eggs, ribs, and gumbo, it reads far more Southern than Western to me.

I was actually struck by how many good recipes there were in this book.  But, as we often find with books of this age, the recipes are kind of limited in the level of  direction one receives to actually cook the dishes.

I have a fondness for lima beans.  Yes, those little green ones are fine, but I am especially drawn to the large, white, dried lima beans.  This recipe offered a different twist on my usual white limas.

Creole Lima Chowder

1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon fat
1 cup sliced carrots
8 small onions, quartered
4 cups boiling water
2 cups diced celery
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 1/2 cups canned tomatoes
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic slat
2 cups cooked large dry limas

Saute beef in fat until evenly browned,  Add balance of ingredients. Cover simmer over low heat for thirty minutes until vegetables are done.  Remove cover and continue cooking 15 minutes.

I don't get why this recipe is "creole."  And while it sounds pretty simple, it seems to me there might be a lot to wrong in those instructions.  Starting with the soaking and cooking of the lima beans.  But you get the idea.

Heirloom Beans

We love beans. The South is full of cool beans you can't seem to find anywhere, pink eyes, lady peas, purple hull, crowder peas, the list goes on. When most people think of Southern, they think of black-eyed peas. When they think Southwestern, they thing black or pinto. Come on people lets add some variety!

But you might be thinking, "Cookbook Of The Day, where can I find such variety?" Try searching about your grocery store, we might say. (Several weeks ago, I wanted to make my favorite baked beans with figs and searched around my grocery store. The navy beans I bought were soaked 12 hours and cooked for about that long and were still HARD!!! This sometimes happens, so as a warning, if you find a dusty bag of beans on a back shelf and you think, "Hey, I've never seen these before. ", be forewarned that even dried beans can go -- bad. But I digress...).

Want to find lovely beans on the internet or in your more discerning grocery, look no further than Rancho Gordo. The folks at Rancho Gordo will send you out a package or great heirloom beans in no time. They have a flat shipping rate of $8, so buy several bags and experiment. They even have sampler sets for you to try.

They even have a cookbook, cleverly entitled, Heirloom Beans, written by Rancho Gordo's uber-seed-saver, Steve Sando, and Vanessa Barrinton. They offer up some unusual and usual bean dishes. Don't be alarmed, they give you a rather generic substitute if you have not received your heirlooms from Steve.

Here's a recipe using tepary beans.



They are sweet beans and look a bit like a pinto, which can be substitute in this recipe but, then it would just be plain old pinto bean dip and you would have failed in your mission to step outside you boring comfort zone.

Spicy Tepary Bean Dip

1 1/2 cups drained, cooked tepary beans
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 poblano chili, roasted
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, roasted and ground
1 chipotle chile in adobo
salt and freshly ground pepper

In a food processor, combine beans, garlic, olive oil, poblano chile, cumin, chipotle chile, salt and pepper to taste. Process until smooth, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl. You will have about 2 cups. Serve at room temperature.

Please give it a try.

***Two things:

1. In checking to see if my link was working, I found that Rancho Gordo doesn't have tepary beans in stock right now.

2. Since the new blogging rules say we must have full disclosure, I just want to say I have received NOTHING for Rancho Gordo, not a book a bean or a T-shirt. I am truly sad about this!

The Ethnomusicologists’Cookbook

There is no doubt that I love food. My other passion is music. Mix them both together and you get -- The Ethnomusicologists’Cookbook. Sean Williams contacted a series of ethnomusicologists and asked them to gather recipes for a meal from the country where they were doing research. He also asked, quite naturally, for a list of music to accompany the meal as well as some additional reading material.

I was surprised to see that collards are a popular dish in many areas around the world. It is also interesting that every culture really wants to eat something sweet at the end of the meal.

I chose to share a dish from Kenya. I really love beans and this was something I just never thought of. This recipe features plain old kidney beans. When we think of kidney beans in the U. S. we think of them as an ingredient in chili, but not in other preparations. This is a lovely way to take a very common, plain ingredient and make it unique.

Maharagwe Ya Nasi
(Kidney Beans in Coconut)

4 c. fresh or canned coconut milk
4 c. cooked kidney beans
1 t. salt
1/2 t. allspice

[The recipe explains the long process of making your own coconut milk, but we encourage you to buy it in cans.]

soak 1 1/3 lb. kidney beans for 24 hours or use 4 c. canned beans. Boil with water, 1 t. salt and 1/2 t. allspice until soft. When nearing desired softness, add 4 c. coconut milk. Stir in and simmer until a thick cream forms around the beans.

This is a great recipe to clean out the larder. There are several sites out there challenging people to eat only the food you have on hand for a week. This is a great one to try, even if you have to buy some kidney beans or coconut milk.

Eggs I Have Know

Corinne Griffith was a silent film star affectionately known as “the Orchid of the Screen.” When the “talkies” came into vogue, she left the silver screen. After movies, Griffith turned her talent to writing. Her book, Papa’s Delicate Condition was a best-seller and became a movie. Along the way she married several times and became quite the cook and hostess.




Her most famous husband was George Marshall, owner of the Washington Redskins. Griffith once referred to him as “the Marshall without a plan.” She wrote a book about her life as a football wife, My Life With The Redskins. Her most significant contribution, however, was composing the "fight" song, Hail to the Redskins.
Today there is a slightly more politically correct version than this original version by Griffith:

Hail to the Redskins !
Hail to victory !
Braves on the war path !
Fight for old Dixie !
Scalp em, Swamp em,
We will take em big score !
Read em, Weep em Touchdown,
We want heaps more !
Fight on... Fight On...
Til you have won,
Sons of Washington !

In the 1950’s she wrote Eggs I Have Known. The book is one of those “famous food and friends” books that drops more names than recipes. There is J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Elsie de Wolfe, and William Randolph Hearst to name just a few.

Here is a lovely dish with international flair.

Spanish Beans in Garlic Wine

2 cans red kidney beans
5 tablespoons brown sugar
6 strips bacon
1 larger (or 2 small) cloves of garlic
1/2 cup red wine

Chop garlic very fine. Mix beans, sugar, garlic, and red wine. Place in a casserole. Lay strips of bacon across and bake for about 1 hour or until sauce thickens. Serve in casserole.

Cook up a big old casserole full for your next Redskins' game.

The Good Cook

Cooking without onions is like cooking with heat.

Allegra McEvedy

We are planting our favorite beans again this year. Chinese longbeans, yardlong beans, liana, red noodle, they are beans that grow to almost 3 feet. I gave some to Harry Lowe, who wanted to snap them – I protested. After spending months growing them, I had no desire to see them snapped!

Allegra McEvedy is a British chef who loves to make cooking accessible for everyone. In her book,

The Good Cook, she writes:

“There’s no point in writing a book about how accessible and universal food is, and then stuffing if full of technical jargon, exotic ingredients and specialist equipment.”

Her books are chatty and easy to use. She truly loves food and wants to share that joy with her readers. Here is her recipe for long beans. There is and editing error in the recipe, instructing you to add the beans – twice. I think you can probably add them at either point, but I would add them after the garlic and chilli sauces.

Yard Beans with Sesame Seeds

225 g (8 oz) Chinese long beans
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and firmly chopped
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons black bean sauce
1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and prepare a mixing bowl of iced water.
Blanch the beans for 3 minutes, then drop them into the iced water to stop them overcooking.
In a big frying pan or a wok heat the sesame oil until it is about to smoke.
Throw in the garlic and chilli, followed a minute later by the beans.
Stir-fry for a moment, then add the sesame seeds. As soon as you see them toasting – going a beautiful golden brown – add the black bean and sweet chilli sauces.
Throw in the beans and toss everything together so it all gets a good coating of sauce and serve. No fun cold.

This is not the most gratifying picture of the yardlong beans, but you get the idea