My first cookbook was Adelle Davis’ Let’s Eat Right To Keep Fit from 1970. Following her, I made casseroles that tasted like axle grease, cookies in tough blocks and watery messes with milk. (Davis might not be entirely to blame. I am not celebrated for my ability to follow a recipe.)
I was reminded of my first stab at cooking by Bay Area painter Rooney
O’Neil, whom I’ve known since college. I married her brother, which is
why the top image in her photo of a part of her wall features her niece
and mine, Jade O’Neil, when Jade was about two, with a Bruce Davidson image from 1965 at the bottom. (Click to enlarge.)
Jade’s now 18. Time does
run on.
Rooney O’Neil wrote in a recent email:
I first learned about nutrition from her too, and drank her yeast glop for years. As one researcher pointed out, in 1974, she stopped saying that anyone who drank a quart of milk a day would not die of cancer, when she died of cancer.
She got many things right, she got many things wrong. Not just her recipes, but her “cures.” I did like this comment, from DayLily02:
“In a sub-chapter, titled, Eat the Superior Meats Most Often, we learn that “the housewife who wishes to maintain maximum health in her family is wise to serve glandular meats at least once or twice a week.“OK–so the brain is not a gland, but apparently it is a rich source of the B vitamin cholin. Here’s what Davis says about cooking them, Since brains are so frequently disliked, I have tried to work out recipes especially for those persons who sincerely wish to develop an enjoyment of them. If time permits, first freeze them in an ice tray… (because cube-shaped brains are less repulsive than brain-shaped brains.)
“The only thing that sounds less appealing to me than eating a brain, is stuffing it into one of my ice cube trays. Also interesting, Davis never mentions the species on whose brain we’ll be dining. Cow? Pig? Squirrel? What? Then come the recipes: Baked Brains in Bacon Rings, Creamed Brains, Brains in Casserole, Brain Salad,–and my favorite: Brain Sandwich Spread. Because mayonnaise makes anything edible.”
Art critics might miss the point, but they never advise you to eat brains in ice cube trays.
Well, as someone who has been and still is both (a critic of art and food), I would suggest that you can find frozen brains most anywhere.
Jeff. Your versatility amazes me. Regina
Yes, but how about the cookbook as literature?
Great recipes in Gunter Grass’ “The Flounder” but the king/queen of artsy cookbooks as literature must be, in my usually suspect and biased opinion, MFK Fisher‘s collection in “The Art of Eating.”
I can’t thank you enough for giving me this image just before bed time: brain sandwich spread. And I thought that when I searched up your blog I was going to get art reviews:)
Oh wow. I used to know Rooney! She was friends with my babysitter’s mom in Oakland and she used to take me on daytime outings in her VW bug to collect junk, which we’d then take back to her awesome loft in Emeryville and use to make art projects. She was great; really inspired me as an artist. I’m a film editor and underground filmmaker now, and I think maybe if it wasn’t for Rooney, I might be working in an insurance company now or something. : )