Cookbook criticism on trial

The internet wonders why bad books are rarely taken to task. Plus a sneak preview of José Andrés' 'Zaytinya,' including a marvelous recipe, and what's cooking for Easter/Passover.

Seared Scallops with Tzatziki from José Andrés’ ‘Zaytinya’

“Where the heck is all the cookbook criticism?” That was the subject line yesterday of an email newsletter to which I subscribe — Paula Forbes’ Stained Page News. After dropping a mention of New Yorker writer Helen Rosner, Forbes referenced Lottie + Doof blogger Tim Mazurek, whose recent post “Cookbooks and Criticism” has started a digital ruckus. A snippet:

“Cookbooks, like all forms of cultural production, are mostly kind of bad. But unlike film, or literature, or even opera, they seem to exist within a culture of very strange universal praise because nobody really engages with cookbooks critically. They receive press. They appear on lists of the season’s best books compiled by editors who often have not read or cooked from them.”

I do agree that there are a whole lot of bad cookbooks published every year. Part of our mission at Cooks Without Borders is to ferret out and celebrate the good and great ones. To do so, I cook from them — extensively — before reviewing them. That’s why the reviews you find over on the big site are generally glowing; the books that make it through the process (and many don’t), are the ones we recommend.

The whole thing started me wondering: Is this the first time someone noticed how rare serious cookbook reviews have become, or criticized the state of cookbook criticism? After a little digging, I found one site dedicated to serious cookbook reviews, Cookbook Review Blog, and one devoted to recipes that flop (at least I think that’s what it’s devoted to — it’s highly narrative), Kitchen Catastrophe. But not much else. (Know of someplace that does this? Tell us in a comment!)

Serious cookbook reviews were an important part of our coverage back in the aughts when I was with the L.A. Times, but as far as I can see (and I subscribe, on and off, to about 10 of them), none of the news dailies does that anymore. Roundups, yes, but not critical reviews.

So who has written about this lack? Mazarek is not the first. Take this graf from a post I love from Aesthetics for Birds. It was written in 2018 by C. Thi Nguyen, the blog’s assistant editor:

Read enough cookbook reviews, and you’ll start to notice a curious gap. Cookbook reviews mostly focus on how the recipes turn out — how tasty the dishes are, or how authentic they are. Sometimes they’ll also talk about the quality of writing, or how much you learn about some region’s culinary history  or food science or the author’s childhood or whatever. But usually they leave out what it feels like to actually cook the goddamn things.

Thank you, Mr. Nguyen! That is so beautiful. It gets to the question of why we cook — it goes so far beyond providing physical sustenance. Those of us who love to cook understand that it’s about the pleasure of being in the kitchen, reveling in the way things smell, the quiet sizzle of onions when they hit the pan, the way it feels to scoop the soft flesh from a charred eggplant, or grind cumin and coriander in a mortar with a pestle, or watch a tortilla puff on your comal. This was a reminder for me to capture more in reviews about how much joy a book lets you find as you make the dishes. (Frankie Gaw’s First Generation, included in this review of three Taiwanese cookbooks, delightfully encourages that.)

If you can’t say something nice . . .

I’ve long struggled with how to feature cookbooks I love without glossing over their flaws too much. For me, constructive criticism has always been the goal; the impulse goes back to my years as a restaurant critic. A couple years ago, a chef whose first restaurant I’d once harshly criticized hired me as a restaurant consultant (my day job). She told me she was thankful for my review because it helped her understand what it takes to run a restaurant.

How can that apply to cookbook reviews, when the book is already out there on the shelves? Frequently, when I take cookbooks to task, I’m begging the authors and their publishers to do their due diligence next time around (or in the next edition) — by carefully testing and copyediting the damn thing. Find the errors and fix them, so that their readers aren’t laying out a fortune buying ingredients and spending hours at the stove to produce a dish that flops. That happens far more frequently with books from famous chefs or food influencers with huge followings than with those from dedicated-blogger-cooks-turned-authors, by the way.

I’ve had a review of Nancy Silverton’s The Cookie that Changed My Life in the works for some time; it’s a tough one because there are so many problems in the book, as well as so much to love.

One more thought about this. Mazurek wrote in his Lottie + Doof post that “most cookbooks are not very good and very few people actually read them or cook from them, especially industry experts.” Very few, really? Lots of people I know do cook from them (though they probably don’t read them.) What about you? I’d love to know if you’re actively cooking from cookbooks, whether you buy them, how you use them.

Time to cook!

How many times has it happened to you that you made a recipe from a cookbook and the result was more beautiful than the photo in the book? I expected the opposite to happen with a recipe for Seared Scallops with Tzatziki from José Andrés about-to-be published book Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey and Lebanon. (Aren’t you glad they’re telling us those three countries are Mediterranean? Who knew!?)

This is a title I’ve been super excited about, as I love Andrés’ Washington, D.C. restaurant for which it is named. (In case you’ve been living under a cast-iron frying pan, Andrès is the heroic chef behind World Central Kitchen. I did, incidentally, include a few complaints in my review of his 2019 book, Vegetables Unleashed, a book I generally loved.)

As you can see, the photo in the Zaytinya shows the dish garnished with pea shoots — not available when I did my shopping; instead I took the book’s suggestion and used parsley leaves (I scattered some dill leaves on mine, too, as they’re in the tzatziki). Here’s the funny thing: Andrés has you also finish the dish with Sumac Rose Spice — a blend of dried rose petals, pink peppercorns, sumac, cumin, Urfa pepper and sesame seeds. The spice mix brilliantly pulled the whole dish together, making sense of scallops on yogurty tzatziki, and it also happened to make it gorgeous. (I admit, I’m a sucker for rose petals on plates.) I’ll be making more of the mix and using it on lots of things. In fact, the whole set up — something set on tzatziki and finished with shaved radishes, a drizzle of olive oil, some flaky sea salt and that spice mix — would be good with so many things. It could be grilled branzino, cod or other fish, or a lamb chop or kebab, or maybe a slice of roast cauliflower. Don’t you think?!

Anyway, I cannot imagine why Zaytinya’s stylist left off the dazzling Sumac Rose Spice.

When I review the book (which I will; I’m loving it so far!), I’ll need to make some tweaks to the recipe as printed, as I don’t want you to make twice as much tzatziki as the recipe requires, and so forth. But as a little preview, I’ll give you what I did, for three people.

Zaytinya’s Seared Scallops with Tzatziki

The idea of this recipe is to spread some tzatziki on each plate, sear the scallops, lay them on the tzatziki, then scatter garnishes over. It’s ideal for entertaining: You can make the tzatziki and spice mix, and shave the radishes in advance, and then just sear the scallops right before serving. The tzatziki uses garlic confit rather than the more traditional raw garlic; it gives it a soft and lovely flavor. You can let the confit simmer while the tzatziki’s cucumbers are resting with salt.

Sumac Rose Spice Mix

• 1 tablespoon pink peppercorns

• 2 tablespoons dried rose petals (available in Middle Eastern markets or online)

• 1 1/2 tablespoons sumac

• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon Urfa or Aleppo pepper (the recipe calls for Urfa; I used Aleppo and no one was the wiser)

• 1/2 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

—> Grind the pink peppercorns in a mortar, spice grinder or minichop until finely ground. Add the rose petals and crush them lightly (if using mortar and pestle) or pulse them into small pieces. Put the mixture in a small bowl (or leave them in the mortar) and add the sumac, cumin, Urfa or Aleppo pepper and sesame seeds; stir to combine.

Garlic Confit

—> Peel 6 garlic cloves (or more or less, depending on how many you want; our recipe only requires 1). Put them in the smallest saucepan you have and cover them with olive oil. Warm them slowly over medium heat, until the oil just begins to simmer. Reduce the heat to very low and simmer very barely until the garlic is very soft and lightly browned, about 30 to 40 minutes. Strain out the garlic, and keep the now-flavored oil refrigerated in a tightly covered jar for other uses.

Tzatziki

• 1/2 English cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely diced

• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

• 1 clove garlic confit

• 3 ounces / 85 g Greek yogurt

• 3 ounces / 85 g labneh

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 tablespoon minced fresh mint

• 1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

• Freshly ground white pepper to taste

—> Season the cucumber with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and let it sit for 1 hour. Wring out the cucumbers in a clean dish towel to remove the excess liquid.

—> Put the garlic in a small bowl and smash with a fork. Whisk in the yogurt and labneh, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil while continuing to whisk. Fold in the cucumbers and herbs, then season to taste with salt and white pepper.

Putting it all together

(Serves 3)

• 1 small red radish

• 1 recipe Tzatziki

• 3 tablespoons canola oil

• Salt

• 1 pound sea scallops (about 14 to 16, depending on their size)

• Sumac Rose Spice

• Parsley leaves and dill leaves for garnish

• Extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

• Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon

—> Slice the radish as thinly as you can, and drop the slices in a bowl of ice water.

—> Divide the tzatziki evenly in three and spread it on each of three plates.

—> Warm the canola oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Line a plate with paper towels. Gently dry the scallops with a paper towel, and season with salt. Add the scallops to the hot pan and sear on the first side till dark golden brown, about 3 minutes. Flip them as they’re browned and sear the same way on the second side. Transfer them to the lined plate to drain as they’re done.

—> Divide the scallops among the three plates, setting them atop the tzatziki. Sprinkle generously with Rose Sumac Spice, garnish with radish slices, parsley and dill, then drizzle with olive oil and season with flaky salt.

[Note: if you purchase Zaytinya at Bookshop through the link below, Cooks Without Borders may earn a small commission.]

Coming soon

I love flageolets, and I love lamb. Therefore I love the traditional French Easter dish gigot d’agneau flageolet (leg of lamb with flageolet beans). I’m putting the finishing touches on a recipe tonight, and hope to have that for you next week. It will also make a fine Passover centerpiece, or a generally delicious spring dinner.

Have an excellent weekend.

Lots of love,

Leslie