Collards: A Southern Tradition From Seed to Table

We love esoteric, scholarly books. And cookbooks. So when we find a scholarly, esoteric book about one of our favorite food; a book that has recipes, too...we are plum ecstatic!

Edward H. Davis and John T. Morgan have written the definitive book on the history of collards in Collards: A Southern Tradition From Seed to Table. The journey they take is part mystery, part geography, part horticulture, part folklore, and great recipes.

Now if you are like most people, you think of the collard as a Southern dish. As with many Southern dishes, like rice, okra, and watermelon, one might think that the collards origin is from Africa. One of the most fascinating finds in Collards is that the Southern collard is most probably not from Africa but from jolly old England. I, too, was surprised.

As the plant was dying out in England in favor of cabbage, it was finding new life in the old South. Davis, who writes about collards on his blog, Collard Geography, inaugurates it with this personal tale:

"I grew up without collards because my mother (Lucy Claytor Davis) hated (and still refuses) to cook them. It is the smell, of course.  In fact she won’t allow anyone else to cook them in the house.  Instead, she offered me many kinds of green vegetables – peas, green beans, lettuce, broccoli… But I was worse than your typical child on this subject – In spite of persistent nudges (in fact, daily doses – it seemed like medicine to me) I would not allow anything green into my mouth. "

Collards got a bad rap from their rather pungent smell during cooking. Some people, like Davis' mother, simply refuse to cook them in their house. One also runs into the socioeconomic stigma of collards -- they are the food the poor folks ate. The section on collards in the history of cookbooks is an area we were drawn to.  The earliest cookbook by and African American woman, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, by Abby fisher contain not a single recipe for collards.  

Mary Stuart Smith's Virginia Cookery-Book doesn't contain collards either and even cabbage gets a short shrift.  
"This vegetable, so staple and article of food among out-of-door workers, has fallen into general disuse with the upper classes on account of the disagreeable odor it emits, permeating every corner of an ordinary constructed house from garret to cellar."

 It wasn't till the early 1970's that Southern Living published a recipe for collards. It was the first big wave of Southern cooking going mainstream in the form of Soul food which, "members of the jet set ...have discovered." 

Fresh Greens

1/4 pound salt pork
1 large bunch turnip, mustard, or collard greens
1/2 cup boiling water
Salt to taste

Cook the salt pork in the water for 10 minutes, add washed greens, and cook until tender. Salt to taste. Don't overcook. Serve with vinegar.

Not much water if you want a lot of potlikker, but it was a start. And now, you can't trow a stick at Southern Living without hitting a recipe for greens.  Collards, not just our favorite side dish, but a book whose time has come.




 

Kitchenette Cookery

From 1917, Anna Merritt East's Kitchenette Cookery. Perhaps what we like most about this little book is the "kitchenette" on the cover. It has that walk-in closet feel and in an age when we see the entire first floor of many houses as an extension of the kitchen, seeing one that could be easily shut away behind doors is kind of nice.

East states:

"...I offer this little book to you, friends of the business world, who must needs eat and mayhap, too, love to cook rather than sit forever around a boarding-house table."

Two things strike me from this beginning of the introduction.

1. The way that rents are rising, I am not sure that boarding houses shouldn't make a big comeback.

2. I am quite sure that "mayhap" should be resurrected into modern language.   Its definition from the Urban Dictionary:

A term combining the best qualities of the terms "maybe" and "perhaps" into a single superior word. Often used when planning something mischievous or pretending to be British.

"mayhaps I'll go get fucked up instead of writing this paper"

 or

"care for a spot of tea?"
"mayhaps a bit later" 

But I digress... 

East offers up a list of the modern conveniences that one would want in their kitchenette and some rather enlightening prices such as:

1 gas stove                                $28.00

2 asbestos mats                              .10

2 anti-splashers for faucets             .05

Vacuum ice-cream freezer            2.50

10-piece earthenware set               .85

While I am pretty sure they no longer make asbestos mats, I want a pair of anti-splashers!

East has an entire chapter devoted food that comes in a can. While she advocates the use of canned foods, she finds that cooking a whole can of any one item is simply too much food for one person to consume.  Her chapter is aptly named  "Half-a-can Recipes." Using the "saved" half-a-can for a salad later in the week is her favorite trick.  One can then look forward to lima beans and corn in a French dressing. Or asparagus and pimientos in a French dressing. Or beets stuffed with cream cheese in a French dressing.  Clearly, French dressing is a favorite.

Her recipes for midnight snacks are included in the chapter, "A Bite to Eat at Bedtime." She will include a half-a-can here and there for bedtime included in several rather complicated dishes. This one takes at least 30 minutes to prepare and could offer up some intense dreams.

Shrimp Wiggle

1/2 cupful cooked rice

1/2 can of peas

1 can shrimp

1 onion

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cupful cream

1/2 teaspoonful salt

1/4 teaspoonful paprika

Brown the sliced onion in the butter;add the cream, rice, and peas; let cook up, and add the shrimp, salt,  and paprika; simmer over hot water for fifteen minutes, and serve on crackers.

i don't know about the shrimp, but I am sure if you eat this right before bed, you will be the one wiggling! 

Eating Appalachia

In an era when we talk extensively about "American" food, it is funny that much of what in on the plate is not American at all. Where is that food that is indigenous to our country. Darrin Nordahl set out to find some of that food in his book Eating Appalachia.

As you know, I live in Appalachia, so I don't find these ingredients to be quite as mysterious as Nordahl does. It is funny, when someone makes a big fuss over something you have eaten all your life.

Look at ramps, for instance.  A favorite anecdote during ramp season in West Virginia says that children were sent home from school because they reeked of ramps. Nordahl states that the Smithsonian (Full Disclosure--an organization I often work for) blames Martha Stewart on the proliferation of ramps into mainstream culture.  When she included a ramp recipe in a 1996 Martha Stewart Living, ramps became a thing. Now those poor kids in Appalachia could barely afford ramps as most of them are shipped off to New York City! Damn you, Martha.

While the ramp might be the golden goose of Appalachian produce, there are many others that Nordahl features. There are paw paws, persimmons, and various nuts.  The butternut is the bane of my tire's existence. When one says, "it is a tough nut to crack," they have no doubt tried to crack the butternut. Why don't we see more of these American beauties? As Nordahl will tell you, "Because they are a bitch to crack..." Yes, they are. Everyone in West Virginia has a sure fire way to crack them that they learned from their granddaddy. These are family secrets. Trust me, you will never go into any one's home and find a big bowl of butternuts sitting on the table.

If you can find a way to extract the sweetmeats inside, this is a good way to use them.

American Indian Cream of Butternut Soup

3/4 cup finely ground butternuts
2 cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons butter
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Combine the ground butternuts and chicken stock in a saucepan and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat another pan over medium heat, add the butter, and saute the onion and celery for 3 to 5 minutes, or until tender. Add the sauteed vegetables and milk, salt, and pepper to the simmering butternut stock and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Adjust the seasoning as necessary and serve. 

With no television, iPads, nor video games, American Indians of yore had lots of time to crack those devilish butternuts for soup. If you keep up with food trends, you know that Appalachian cuisine is going to be the next "BIG" thing. Eating Appalachia is a good primer.

The Good Cook

Mary Norwak published over 100 cookbooks in her lifetime. Her most enduring might be her book of English puddings, recently republished.  Our favorite, however, is The Good Cook. It combines two of our favorite things, a cookbook and an abecedery. 

From allspice to yoghurt and some very British items in between; like brown bread ice cream, eel pie, medlar jelly, and potted partridge. Norwak's idea was a simple one.  Create a cookbook much like a dictionary that was filled with simple recipes that were easily found. Need to make a marmalade?  There is a plain orange marmalade and several ways one could use the marmalade including cake and ice cream. Have a glut of cucumbers? There is a soup, a salad, and a sauce.


Norwak was a home cook who firmly espoused English cooking. She believed it to be more than just a fine treacle pudding. There is probably no better example of a genuine English dish than toad in a hole.

Sausage Toad in the Hole

1 lb/450 g pork sausage
4 oz/100 g/1 cup plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg
1/2 pint/300 ml/1 1/4 cup milk

Prick the sausages lightly and put in a baking tin. Bake at 400F/200C/Gas mark 6 for 10 minutes. Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and work in the egg and milk. Beat well and pour over the sausage. Bake for 25 minutes and serve at once.

When you are out digging in old book stores, don't pass up one of Mary Norwak's books.

The Connecticut Farm Table Cookbook

Most of our experience with Connecticut is to drive through it.  We know they filmed Mystic Pizza, it's where you live if you go to Yale, and Martha Stewart lived there for many years.  When Tracey Medeiros sent us a copy of The Connecticut Farm Table Cookbook we told her we knew nothing about Connecticut but we are fond of tables, so we gave it a look.

We loved her book, The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook. In The Connecticut Farm Table Cookbook Medeiros teams up with Christy Colasurdo and they follows a similar format.  They  introduce us to farmers who are providing ingredients to restaurants in the area who use the farm's bounty in their recipes. There is an inherent problem with cookbooks like these. Farmers produce these exquisite fruits, vegetables, animals, herbs, eggs, and other goodies. We see them on the page. The chef takes the ingredients and turns out beautiful restaurant fare.

Here is the problem. You want to pull that tomato off the page, slice it and eat it. You want to poach a single egg right in front of the chicken that laid it. You want eat those berries one at a time. The farmer's fare is so wonderful that the thought of doing much to it seems sad. On the other hand, you have trained chefs who see that produce as one step in an elaborate recipe. At some point you want to scream, "Stop tarting up those carrots and let me eat them!" Medeiros and Colasurdo do a good job at crossing the divide with the stories of both sides.

The most interesting thing about a book like this is the diversity.  Today, it is virtually impossible to stand in any geographic spot in America and not find excellent dinning within a stones throw. Yes, Virginia, there is pizza in Mystic, but there is also soup with pistou, eggplant chutney, onion and kale frittatas, gazpacho, pear smoothies, and more Southern recipes, than in most cookbooks. If one looked only at the table of contents and then asked to name the state these recipes come from, most people would head south of the Mason-Dixon.  Like this offering from Dish Bar & Grill.  The tomatoes are from farmer David Zemelsky, of Starlight Gardens, Durham.

Heirloom Tomato Pie

Tomatoes

5 medium-large mixed heirloom tomatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds), tough cores removed and cut into 1/2-inch slices
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt

Crust

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small cues
4 tablespoons ice water or as needed

Filling

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, plus more for garnish
1 1/2 cups (about 5 ounces) shredded Fontina cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
 
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F. Line one or two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. To make the tomatoes: Place the tomatoes on the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with oil and salt to taste, and bake for 2 hours. Set aside to cool.

3. Meanwhile, to make the crust: Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. With a pastry blender or fork, cut the butter into the flour until just crumbly. Add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix until the dough just comes together. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a disk. Wrap the disk in a plastic wrap and refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the disk into a 12-inch round. Transfer to a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate or 9-inch tart pan with 2-inch sides and removable bottom. Using your fingers, press back into the crust any pieces of dough that have fallen off. Trim the excess dough just at the level of the edge of the pie plate. With a fork, pierce the bottom of the crust. Place the crust in the refrigerator and chill for at least 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the piecrust on a baking sheet, line the dough with foil, and fill with dried beans. Bake the crust until the edges are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and beans and continue to bake until the crust is golden brow all over, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

6. To add the fillings: Increase the temperature to 375°F. Gently pat the tomatoes dry with paper towels. Arrange a layer of the tomato slices, overlapping as needed, in the bottom of the pie shell. Spread a think, even layer of the mayonnaise over the top; the sprinkle evenly with about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the basil and about 1/2 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layering with the remaining ingredients, ending with any leftover cheese.

7. Bake until the tomatoes, cheese, and the crust are golden brown, about 1 hour. Let rest for 1 hour. Garnish with basil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cut into slices and serve warm.

Note: This pie can also be made using a double crust.

As you can see, this, like many of the recipes are a bit "chefy" but then the recipes come from restaurant chefs, so how else would they be? What is truly wonderful about this cookbook is seeing the quality of cooking that takes place in towns big and small across Connecticut, like much of America.  Too often the media would lead us to believe that truly great chefs and restaurants are located in New York or California and yet there are amazing restaurants and produce providers tucked into little hamlets everywhere.  That bodes well for our culinary appetite.

Don't let "Connecticut" in the title discourage you from buying this book if you are living in California, or Kentucky, or anyplace else. Oliver Parini's photographs are stunning, the stories are universal, and the food is great!

Infuse: Oil Spirit Water

Eric Prum and Josh Williams, the team that brought us Shake have added a new book (and product) to their growing line. Infuse starts with that ubiquitous Mason jar and tops it with their new product, the infuser cap.

Infusing stuff is not this revolutionary idea. It is as old as the hills. What is new is the design for the infusion top. Williams and Prum who are W & P Design found that they had loads of infusions sitting around in Mason jars. When they tried to add them to drinks or whatever...they ended up with infusing the table and floor more than the drink. Since they are designers, they set out solve the problem.

If you are one of those people, like myself, who has jars and crocks, and bottles of concoctions sitting around infusing and steeping, you will understand this problem.  My beautiful, oak vinaigrier is full of red wine vinegar, but the oak spout is often clogged making it hard to get to the vinegar. The tall Italian infusing bottle is equipped with a small spigot at the bottom to release the infusion, but the peels and spices are the first things sucked into the spigot, which immediately clogs. A bag of glass marbles aids in keeping the ingredients at bay, but doesn't allow for easy agitation of the infusion. And those Mason jars...well the current cherry bounce has more than once bounced onto my shirt!

W & P Design not only came up with a great design, but they came up with a book to show us how to use the design and become master infusers. Infuse, like Shake before it features photos of the mise en place for the recipes. For instance, the Olio Santo is a Calabrian chili oil.  On the table are the infuser, the oil and the peppers.

You, too, can master this recipe!

Olio Santo

1/2 oz of dried Calabrian chilies
8 oz of extra virgin olive oil

i         Grind the chilies in a spice grinder of food processor
          until coarsely ground. (Use gloves or wash your hands
          after handling!)

ii        Combine with the olive oil in an 8 oz Mason jar. Seal
           and shake briefly until the ground chilies are evenly
           mixed in the oil.

iii        Let sit in a cool dark place for two weeks to allow the
            oil to infuse and the chilies to settle.

iiii        Use sparingly as you wold use hot sauce. the infusion
             will keep u to two months if kept in a cool, dark place. 

As the title implies, there are many mediums to infuse, oil, spirits, and water for instance. Just when you think you have thought of EVERYTHING to infuse in every way...Infuse comes up with new ideas.

My biggest problem with the whole Infuse thing is that, after reading the book, I want at least a dozen stainless spouts to infuse away and the spouts are a tad pricey.  I will wait for the next iteration...the large mouth spout!

Now get out there and infuse something!

What Katie Ate on the Weekend

 Katie Quinn Davies of the blog, What Katie Ate, produces a beautiful blog.  In fact, it is an award winning blog. After a stint in graphic design, Katie turned toward photography and was soon shooting for everything from Kitchen Aid to Martha Stewart Living.  And let's just say, she was good at it!

In 2010 she did her own little Christmas magazine downloadable to her readers that clocked in at an impressive 495 pages.  Her first cookbook, appropriately titled, What Katie Ate was a huge success.  She came back with What Katie Ate on the Weekend.  Frankly, I think Katie is having better weekends that we are...

As you might have guessed by now, her photos are beautiful, her friends are having a glorious time, the food looks magical, and one feels like a bit of a dullard when flipping through the book.  But then, that is what some cookbooks are for...to lift us out our complacency and to strive for really beautiful weekends.

We are starting out with a smoothie.  Seriously, the girl can make a glass of green sludge look like something you crave!

Super Smoothie

2 kiwi, peeled
1 green apple, cored
3/4 oz. kale or baby spinach leaves
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 small handful of mint
1 large handful of ice, plus extra to serve

Put all the ingredients and 1 cup cold water into a blender and whiz until smooth.

Pour into chilled glasses, add extra ice and serve.

Now drink that down.  You have the entire week to plan and execute a glorious weekend.  Don't dawdle!

Audrey at Home

For most people, this is the image they think of when they think of Audrey Hepburn in a kitchen. Holly Golightly in full tiara examining the contents of her refrigerator: milk and ballet slippers.

 
Really, to look at Audrey Hepburn one might never think she ate a bite. Such a supposition has a rather sinister truth. As a child in war ravaged Holland, she suffered from acute malnutrition and came very close to starving. Some twenty-two thousand people died of hunger in Holland during World War II.

We also think of Audrey Hepburn as a movie star. Her son, Luca Dotti, says he never knew Audrey Hepburn, and vehemently denied that his mother was an actress telling those who inquired that his mother was, "Mrs. Dotti."


Recently, Luca Dotti shared the Audrey Hepburn he knew as Mum, in a lovely book entitled, Audrey at Home.  It began when a friend pulled a binder off a shelf and Dotti discovered it was a collection of recipes many that, "never made their way to our dining table."  He goes on to say,

"For in the kitchen, as in life, my mother gradually freed herself from everything that was superfluous to keep only that which mattered to her. Those are the recipes you will find  in the pages that follow  -- and the stories that go with them."

As one might suspect, the vast majority of the recipes are Italian. One might not suspect that Audrey Hepburn was a fan of junk food. Here is a recipe that combines the two.  She often ate this sitting in front of the television.

Penne with Ketchup

1/2 pound (250 g) penne or pennette
1 tablespoon (14 g) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons (30 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
Splash of Heinz ketchup or more to taste
Emmentaler cheese, grated for serving

Cook the penne in a pot with abundant slightly salted boiling water; strain when it is "al dente." In the same pot over medium heat, toss the pasta with the butter and oil, mixing for a minute or two. Turn off the heat, cover the pot and wait a few minutes more; this is called "mantecare" and leaves your pasta as smooth as silk. Pour the penne into a serving bowl and toss with a splash of ketchup, just enough to give the pasta a pinkish color. Dot the top here and there with a little more ketchup. Serve with grated Emmentaler cheese.

If you are a fan of Audrey Hepburn, this is a magical book to add to your collection. 


Here a few "extra" photos we have of Audrey in and out of kitchens real and imaginary.

Audrey Hepburn with Mel Ferrer in the rustic kitchen at their home, Villa Bethania.

Audrey in Sabrina.

Audrey in a California apartment.

Gary Cooper and Audrey on the set of Love in the Afternoon.

The Big Jones Cookbook

I feel like a 100-year-old Italian grandmother when I see another "Southern" restaurant opening in Brooklyn.  I hear a voice in my head saying, "Y'all know Yankees can't cook Southern food."  So when some guy from Chicago named Paul Fehribach sets out to write a Southern cookbook...let's just say we were skeptical.  But wait a minuet, this Southern girl can make a bolognese that would make your Nonna weep.  So all things are possible.

Paul Fehribach was a reader. And readers can accomplish anything!  When he opened Big Jones, his restaurant in Chicago and namesake of his cookbook, he was pretty proud of himself.  Then he tells a story of an couple who were having dinner at Big Jones.  They were very happy with the restaurant and the chef and then they asked a simple question, "Have you read Edna Lewis?"  For Southerners, Miss Lewis is just as important as Julia Child.  His answer was no, but he quickly got her books and totally revamped Big Jones. 

These days, there is a lot of talk about "ingredients" as being the driving force behind cooks, but here we believe that equally as important as the ingredients are the cooks and the recipes that went before us.  One doesn't become a great musician without playing a lot of scales and one doesn't become a great chef without following a lot of old recipes.

In The Big Jones Cookbook, one could eliminate all the recipes and still learn boatloads about Southern cooking just by reading the influences and cookbooks that Paul Fehribach writes about. The other really interesting element of this book is Fehribach's inclusiveness of Southern cuisine.  It is not just about the lowcountry or NOLA, or some southern mashup of cuisine.  He looks at individual areas from Kentucky, to the Appalachian Highlands, to the Deep South to the Lowcountry, giving an excellent overview of the diversity of foods that often simply get lumped as "Southern."

In the original planning stages of Big Jones, Fehribach was looking for a meat-free option to serve during Lent in the largely Catholic Chicago. He turned to Louisiana for their favorite Lenten food, gumbo z'herbes.  Most days other than ones during Lent, a ham hock or bit andouille will probably find its way into the pot but for Lent, it's all green.

Gumbo z'Herbes

1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups yellow onion, finely diced
1 cup green bell pepper, finely diced
2 ribs celery, finely diced
6 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 bottle (6 ounces) Louisiana-style hot sauce
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
2 tablespoons granulated onion
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 quart mushroom stock, unsalted
1 cup shiitake mushroom caps, thinly sliced
4 packed cups finely chopped greens, including mostly collards, turnip greens, and/or mustard greens, you can also use some parsley, radish, or carrot tops. More greens is better.
2 bay leaves
1 small can (6 ounces) tomato paste
2 tablespoons kosher salt
A few dashes Worcestershire is optional, or you can use a good quality soy sauce

In an 6- to 8-quart, heavy-bottomed stock pot, heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat until just smoking. Immediately turn off heat and add flour to the hot fat, sprinkling it in gradually to avoid splatter, and stir with a wooden spoon. Turn the heat back up to medium, and continue cooking and stirring. Once flour starts to brown in four to five minutes, gradually turn heat down to medium-low but continue browning the flour, stirring constantly, until dark brown, the color of milk chocolate, another 45 minutes. Stir constantly to avoid burning. If you burn the roux you'll know by the awful smell and you'll have to start over.
Once you have the color you want, it's time to add the vegetables. Turn off the heat, and using a long-handled wooden spoon, stand back to avoid splatter and carefully add the onions, celery, and bell peppers to the pot and stir well. Return heat to medium and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the vegetables sweat well and turn soft, six to eight minutes. Add the garlic, hot sauce, and spices, turn off the heat, and stir for a minute or two. Allow the roux to rest off the heat for ten minutes to infuse. Add half the stock and turn heat back to high. Stir to incorporate the roux to the stock, and bring to a low boil, stirring constantly, at which point the mixture will be very thick. Add the rest of the stock and return to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.
Add the greens and mushrooms a cup at a time, adding the next cup after the previous is wilted and soft, stirring well before and after each addition. Once all greens are added and have wilted, add the bay, tomato paste, and one tablespoon of the salt, stir the pot well, reduce to a simmer, and simmer one hour uncovered, stirring regularly. Skim off and discard any fat that rises to the top, using a small ladle. After an hour, add the rest of the salt to your taste and Worcestershire or soy if desired. Serve over hot boiled rice.

Not only is The Big Jones Cookbook a great survey of Southern cuisine, but it's also a great bibliography of "must own" cookbooks.  So read it close to your iPad and keep your Amazon app open!

Feeding the Lions

 In 1942, Frank Case wrote a cookbook entitled, Feeding The Lions. It is filled with recipes from the Algonquin Hotel kitchen alongside pithy favorites from famous Algonquin diners.
The hotel was made famous by the gatherings of a witty group of writers, editors, and actors who came each day for lunch. They became known as the Algonquin Round Table or as they might tell you, the Vicious Circle.

Case managed the Algonquin, buying it in 1927.  It is Case who is credited with the first "round" table.  In the beginning, the group dined in what would become known as the Oak Room and they were seated at conventional tables as if they were any diners. As the group grew, the rectangle table became increasingly cumbersome and the the group was moved to the Rose Room where Case installed a round table.

"A Vicious Circle" by Natalie Ascencios

Natalie Ascencios' "A Vicious Circle" features many of the key players in the what has been dubbed the Algonquin Round Table.  In this illustration you will find: Robert Benchley, Franklin Pierce Adams, Robert Sherwood, Harpo Marx, Alexander Woollcott, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, (seated) Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman, Heywood Broun. This lively group, supplemented by the likes of Tallulah Bankhead, Alice Duer Miller, and Donald Ogden Stewart, held court from 1919 to 1929 at Algonquin Hotel.

They began meeting after John Peter Toohey, a theatrical agent, became angry at Alexander Woollcott for refusing to write about Eugene O'Neill, one of Toohey's clients. Toohey decided to invite Woollcott to lunch as a "thank you" while secretly planning on having Woollcott made fun of.  Of course, Woollcott loved it and began regular lunch meetings that became daily events.

Case oversaw the kitchen and collected the recipes in Feeding the Lions. He attributes the title to Edna Ferber.  Ferber writes in the cookbook:

"Highly spiced dishes happen to be my particular weakness and, at the same time, on my dietary taboo list. I manage to be stern with myself, except on those occasions when I lunch at the Algonquin. After looking at all the dishes that I might and should order,I take those curried shrimps with rice that the Algonquin chef does so tantalizingly."

Curry of Fresh Shrimp

2 lbs. raw shrimp (or 1lb. cooked, shelled shrimp)
2 tablespoons butter
1 1.2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 cup white wine
3 cups rich cream sauce

Prepare 3 cups rich cream sauce, using half cream and half milk.

Boil the raw shrimp in salted water for 5 minutes and allow them to cool. Peel and remove the dark intestinal tract.

Saute them for 5 minutes in 2 tablespoons butter, add the curry powder and the wine and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add to the cream sauce, mix thoroughly and cook for 5 minutes.

Taste for seasoning.

Serve with rice pilaf and chutney.  Grated fresh coconut and chopped toasted almonds are traditional accompaniments.

In 1987, Aviva Slesin won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table.  Unfortunately, it has been out of print for years, but recently turned up on YouTube. The Alan Ruldoph film, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a pretty good fictional depiction of the era, and an excellent look at the evolving "round" table of Frank Case.

In 1998, The Algonquin received a much needed face-lift and the Rose Room was eliminated. In 2005 the Algonquin produced a new menu incorporating many of the favorites in Frank Case's cookbook.

In this day and age one might ponder if the round table seated a truly vicious circle.  Groucho Marx, brother of regular Harpo, was never comfortable with the luncheon regulars.  A quick wit who possessed his own biting repartee, Groucho Marx said of the Round Table, "The price of admission is a serpent's tongue and a half-concealed stiletto."