joy of cooking

A long time ago, far from her home, a very young woman in a one-room log cabin worked her way through Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. The book, which had belonged to the English aunt of a friend, was the perfect thing to fill in for an absent mother; it explained not only how to do it all, but why, and step by step. From the basics to the specialties, most questions a novice cook might come up with were answered between its covers. Often with illustrations.

Many years later this young woman’s mother, after listening to her rave about it for 20 years, spotted a used Joy of Cooking at a yard sale and picked it up for a dollar. It’s never left the now middle-aged woman’s collection since; it knows all.

In Saskatchewan today the farmers are in full harvest swing, and I dug two different types of pork roasts out of the deep freeze, to have meat on hand for the ravenous man (or men) who will be poking his head in and out of the door, on the run, for the next while. No meat aficionado, I pulled Joy of Cooking off the shelf and turned to page 406 to learn about the preparation of pork roasts. In the relevant section I found this:

"Roast Suckling Pig
We never think of suckling pig without thinking of our friend Amy, an American, long a resident of Mexico but determined to reconstruct in alien surroundings the traditional Chrstmas dinners of her youth. Describing the preparations of roast pig to her skilled Indian cook, she wound up with the announcement, ‘ The pig is brought to table on plenty of greenery, with an apple in the mouth.’ The cook looked first baffled, then resentful and finally burst out with a succession of ‘no’s.’ Her employer persisted patiently, but with increasing firmness. When the pig was served, she discovered that her cook could effect an entrée which surpassed her wildest expectations. There was plenty of greenery and a distinct air of martyrdom; but the apple was clenched, not in the pig’s mouth, but in that of the desperate cook!’ "

The 75th edition of this lifesaving cookbook can be found here.