One Big Table, A portrait of American cooking

My son and daughter-in-law, Michael and Marisa, gave me an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas. I used it to buy this cookbook and what a fantastic cookbook it is.

It is not just a cookbook, but a history of American cooking. It is one of those books you can truly curl up on the couch and get lost in. . . as I have done on more than one occasion!

Ten years ago, Molly O'Neill, a well-known cookbook author set out on a cross country journey to investigate reports that Americans had stopped cooking at home. As she traveled highways, dirt roads, and coastlines, gathering recipes and stories, it soon became apparent the dire predictions about the end of American cuisine were vastly overstated. From Park Avenue to trailer parks, from suburbs to isolated outposts, home cooks were following their family histories into delicious meals. One decade and over 300,000 miles later, One Big Table is a celebration of these cooks, a delicious portrait of Americans at the table.

As much as the recipes that I found, the stories and countless vintage photos really caught my attention. I've always enjoyed baking bread. I've come a long way since the first loaf I ever made decades ago that would be better off used as a baseball bat than a loaf of bread. I found a big section on the history of bread making in this country.

There is a section on the "Social History of American Stoves" that I loved. It is hard to imagine in this day of $10,000 gourmet stoves that the first measure of status and wealth was a fireplace for cooking.

So how do I choose one recipe from the over 600 presented here for this posting? There was no easy answer. However, because I use fresh kale a lot in my own cooking, I found this roasted kale recipe unique and appealing.

Allison Martin's Roasted Curly Kale (from Bar Harbor, Maine)

This can be served with shellfish, pork, or chicken

2 pounds curly kale rinsed and thoroughly dried
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Remove the ribs from the kale and tear the leaves into bite size pieces. This should yield about 4 cups of kale.

Toss the kale in a large bowl with the olive oil, pine nuts, and salt and pepper. Let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and roast for 2 minutes. Toss. Roast for 2 more minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

If cooking and baking are your passion and you enjoy the "story behind the recipe", then I highly recommend this book.