Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader

Rating:
Summary: More than a cookbook...
Review:
I was surprised and pleased at the size of this cookbook. It is over an inch thick and has heavy, glossy pages, which seem less likely to become stained with the occasional cooking splatter.

I am more of an armchair chef than a real cook, and I bought this book because I love the Mitford characters and story. I wasn't disappointed. The day after getting this in the mail, I sat down for three hours and just read the stories that go along with each recipe, read Jan Karon's notes and sidebars about cooking, the characters, and life, and looked at the mouthwatering recipes, vowing to try some.

I love that most of them are totally simple and anyone can do them (barring the marmalade cake, which you will need to have both a well-stocked kitchen and a whole day set aside to bake), like Father Tim's Meatloaf (Old Faithful) or the three very different (yet still simple) apple pie recipes (made with Sadie Baxters of course!).

So as a cookbook, it gets five stars, and as a Mitford reader, it also surprisingly gets five stars. There is even more text than recipe, and that makes it a true pleasure to relive some of our favorite Mitford moments and imagine bringing the characters to life by preparing their recipes.


Rating:
Summary: A divine collection of comfort foods from the Mitford series
Review: "Mitford" devotees, rejoice! If you've long salivated over author Jan Karon's many descriptions of food in her Mitford novels, you'll be delighted to find Viking has at long last assembled the recipes into one delectable volume, JAN KARON'S MITFORD COOKBOOK & KITCHEN READER.

Despite a nod to Father Tim's diabetes, this is pure, unadulterated, break-out-the-butter, down-home southern cooking. Don't look for calorie counts or number of servings. Most likely, with this carb-fest of comforting, sweet-tooth ticklin' recipes, you don't want to know the nutritional information! Just think of it as pure enjoyment.

Each recipe is presented in the order of its appearance in the Mitford series, and six recipes are included from the forthcoming and concluding novel, LIGHT FROM HEAVEN (2005). The recipes range from the simple Silver Queen Corn (butter, sugar, corn, salt and pepper) to the dust-off-your-apron-and-clear-your-schedule-for-the-day complex Esther's Orange Marmalade Cake (although this is photographed as a two-layer cake, the recipe calls for a more complicated three-layer).

Recipes run the culinary gamut: main course meals (Rector's Meatloaf, Ray's Barbecue Ribs, Cynthia's Bouillabaisse); basic side dishes (Puny's Potato Salad); mouth-watering desserts (Louella's Buttermilk Chess Pie, Cynthia's Raspberry Tart, Mama's Ice Cream in a Tray); beverages (Marge's Sweet Tea with Peppermint), and breads (Magdolen's Spoon Bread, Louella's Cinnamon Rolls). Playful recipes like Dooley's Fried Baloney Sandwich Supreme are paired with Dooley's Second Favorite Sandwich --- The Doozie, consisting of white bread, smooth peanut butter and Cheerios ("Fold the sandwich in half and jump on your bike and go"). Look for the unexpected, such as Barnabas's Dog Biscuits or The Lord's Chapel Communion Bread, and the unusual --- a page devoted to Russell Jack's livermush --- what it is, where to get it, and how to cook it.

Declining to try the livermush, I experimented with three recipes: Velma's Chili, Cynthia's Heavenly Tea, and Emma's Fudge. Velma's Chili is a thick, meaty concoction with the surprise addition of cloves and celery, and won rave reviews when I made it for a casual dinner party this fall. Like many cooks might do, I tinkered with the recipe a bit, adding more tomato sauce than called for. Cynthia's Heavenly Tea is a memorable, rich drink with an unusual blend of tea, apricot nectar, mint, frozen lemonade, and a squirt of almond extract. Emma's Fudge didn't set up firmly for me, but was scrumptious anyway --- cooled, spooned up and eaten, rather than cut into squares.

Though the recipes whet the appetite, they are only a smidgeon of what makes this cookbook so appealing. Sprinkled throughout the beautifully designed pages are table blessings, poetry, and little vignettes about Karon's own culinary life and history. Recipes are interspersed with full-color, mouthwatering artwork and photographs of the featured foods, often pictured on Karon's own tableware. "Puny's Saving Grace" tips offer snippets of cooking wisdom on everything from keeping lettuce fresh to freezing ripe bananas. The recipes appear alongside their specific excerpts from the Mitford novels, inviting contemplation of favorite passages while Uncle Billy's Sweet Potato Pie bakes in the oven.

Just why is there so much yummy food in the "Mitford" books? Karon answers that question in her page-long essay, "Writing Hungry," one of many such nostalgic reflections from the author that makes the book so wonderfully palatable. Karon remembers life as a freelance writer when bills piled up, her cupboards were bare, and she dreamed of good food --- food that found its way into the pages of the Mitford novels. Karon tells how she learned to make do, even creating soup broth from chicken bones (recipe included). A lovely two-page essay recounts one of Karon's "starving writer" Christmases and how she canned apples, picked free from a tree in her yard, for Christmas gifts (complete with an original poem and a recipe). But of that time: "What I learned mostly, however, is that God is faithful," Karon writes.

It's the personal warmth of Karon that gives this cookbook and kitchen reader its charisma. On one page, Karon confesses, "Cover your eyes! Plug your ears! It's confession time. I love anything fried!" Another page, detailing her grandmother's biscuit recipe, notes, "If you have a grandmother, go call her right now and tell her you love her to pieces. Actually, if you have a mother, call her, too." Gratitude to her readers permeates the pages: "...together our imaginations have made Mitford real, very real --- and I couldn't have done it without you."

Mitford fans --- your collection won't be complete without this book!

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Food Memories Equal Family Tradition
Review: I loved the stories and vignettes-- and recipes. Readers who love this book will also enjoy "Let Us Eat Cake" and "Cooking for Love."

Rating:
Summary: Karon moves Mitford into the average kitchen
Review: Karon is best known for her series of novels set in the fictional town of Mitford. Her stories have involved a number of different scenarios, but all of her books have included one thing in particular: food.

Now Karon has penned the Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader to satisfy her fans, who have been writing the author for years about the many dishes mentioned throughout her books.

The book is a clever combination of recipes based on dishes mentioned in her novels along with excerpts of those books, to give newcomers a glimpse into the Mitford world. Each chapter is filled with insights into one particular novel (A Light In The Window, A Common Life, Shepherds Abiding, etc), and most recipes are accompanied by either a passage from the book talking about the dish, or comments from the author about how the dish came to be included in the novel.

Not being familiar with the Mitford book series before now, it quickly becomes obvious why Ms. Karon's fans are always writing to her about the food in the books. The dishes in the Mitford Cookbook are for the most part simple, family fare, and sound absolutely delicious. The recipes are straightforward and complete step by step instructions, like the type you might get from a friend who's apple pie recipe you're going to try, are designed to make each dish as easy as following simple written directions. There's also a flavor of the characters who present the dishes in the Mitford books found in the different styles of dishes. Special mention to those recipes which have caused many a Mitford fan to salivate for years, such as Louella's Grandmother's Peach Cobbler, Avis' Salmon Roulade with Shallot Sauce (the recipe made ME salivate as well) and, I'm given to understand by the book, what amounts to the holy grail of Mitford food, Esther's Orange Marmalade Cake.

The readings included with a good many recipes give even more insight into the Mitford books, the various cultures of the books' many characters, and are designed to pique your interest in reading more. Karon has even included several short stories which appeared previously only in the pages of Victoria Magazine, and never in a Mitford book, not to mention some great comments on what she and her friends eat, and their many opinions on several food-related topics. Karon's musings on many foods and how to eat them are insightful, and, many times, also hilarious.

Filled with down-home charm and a mighty fine array of delectable comfort food, if you're looking to make the kind of food that you'd share with friends and family at a church social, then take a trip down the highway a ways and stop by Mitford, USA, and Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader. It's definitely a town full of dishes that any food lover will enjoy.


Rating:
Summary: As heartwarming as the novels!
Review: What a great gift for yourself or any fan of the novels! All the favorite recipes that readers have drooled over are here, including Esther's famous marmalade cake! (Can't WAIT to try that one!). Some of the best recipes are of course the simplest, like the quiet but lovable characters they're named after. A must-have for any fan of Mitford - and a sly way to attract a new fan to the series who loves to cook but hasn't read the novels! Thanks, Jan Karon!

Rating:
Summary: Delicious!
Review: What a wonderful book! I bought a copy for my local library, now I know what I want for Christmas! If you love Mitford, and have drooled over the feasts described in the books, buy this book! Full of mouth-watering recipes, excerpts from the books, and memories from Jan Karon's childhood. Curl up in front of the fire, pour a cup of tea, and enjoy!

Since I have been on diet, all the cravings for junk food have gone. I was someone who lived for sugar and now I do not want any of it. I use to crave coffee in the morning as well but realized I didn't want that wired up feeling & acid stomach. I switched over to a caffeine-free coffee substitute made from soyabeans I found on the net at www.
S o y c o f f e e.c om. It so easy for someone to tell you to eat less, but if you are craving bad foods, eventually you will fail. In the first five days I was on this diet all the craving ceased and I was already 8 lbs down. If you were like me and cannot wait for your next slice of cake and at the same time really want to change your lifestyle, Try this.


Rating:
Summary: Recipes get same loving attention as the characters. Buy It.
Review: `Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader', as clearly stated by the title, is a hybrid work of extracts from the fiction of Jan Karon interspersed with recipes inspired by the stories copied from Jan Karon's novels and, in one case, a short story. All fiction is based on the inhabitants of a small Southern town, Mitford. The recipes do not actually appear in the fiction. The stories only contain names of or brief descriptions of dishes. The recipes for these dishes have been brought to life by culinary collaborator, Martha McIntosh, who is credited as the book's editor.

As I am far more expert at reviewing cookbooks than I am at reviewing fiction, and as the fiction in this book is almost all taken out of the context of the novels in which it was first published, I will not review Ms. Karon's writing except as it provides the context for the recipes.

As I constantly state in many of my reviews, cookbooks can be written to many different purposes. Just as Thomas Keller epitomizes `haute cuisine' and Rachael Ray spins out great advice on fast cooking, and it is simply not fair to judge the two by the same standard, this work by Ms. Karon and Ms. McIntosh must be judged by the correct standard. What makes it worse is that this standard is not entirely culinary. The recipes themselves have a strong affinity for traditional Southern cuisine as exemplified by Edna Lewis, James Villas and mother, and Charleston's Mrs. Wilkes and Paula Deen. On one end of this standard are professional culinary writers Villas and Lewis who are attuned to foodie interests. The other end of the spectrum has Mrs. Wilkes and Ms. Deen catering to the average experienced home cook who may have little or no interest in the history of Carolina barbecue or Brunswick stew, and who can interpolate over lapses in instructions in fundraising cookbooks.

And yet, while the recipes can be judged by these standards, the book as a whole is not trying to emulate Lewis or Deen or Wilkes, even though Edna Lewis and co-author Scott Peacock are cited in the book. In a nutshell, this book is primarily food for the spirit by enhancing the experience by readers of Ms. Karon's fictional accounts of a town populated by uncomplicated god-fearing folk, spiritually lead by a Father Tim, whose character appears to have been the spark of inspiration for the whole series of novels. For those of you who may not be familiar with Ms. Karon's fiction, it will also be warm affirmation of anyone who believes that God is actively at work in the world today.

As the recipes' primary function is to support this objective, their culinary merit is secondary, but let me address this before taking the measure of the whole book.

All recipes are arranged as they are mentioned in eight different Karon works plus a final chapter of her grandmother's recipes, `Mama's Miracles'. The title of most recipes attributes it to one of the fictional characters and the text in which the dish is introduced to readers is included to provide context. This immediately makes the book less than typically useful as a culinary reference and much more a book to be read from front to back. Fortunately, the index is excellent so a trip back to the book to find a particularly attractive biscuit recipe should be trouble free.

This raises another point that for certain kinds of dishes, there are often several different, but very similar recipes for the same dish. Biscuits are a perfect example, as there are seven (7) different biscuit recipes, although the last is simply the name of a recipe with the notation that the author's mother, Wanda Setzer, prepares her biscuits `ad lib', with no written directions at hand. There is redundancy for several other such dishes such as stews and fried chicken.

Regarding the quality of recipes such as fried chicken, for which some Southerners (Jim Villas, for one), I can say that they are very, very good. The one I examined closely does all the right things which such culinary exemplars as Edna Lewis, Shirley Corriher, and Alton Brown, all good southerners, heartily endorse. This includes an overnight brining followed by a marinade in buttermilk. As you may expect, buttermilk appears in many recipes, and your license to bake `Southern' would probably be revoked if the food police ever found your refrigerator devoid of a carton of buttermilk.

I also heartily endorse the palette of ingredients such as buttermilk, White Lily Flour, and bacon; however, I am surprised that the culinary editor did not go with purely `all purpose' flour or purely `all purpose self rising flour'. The way the book is written, you need to stock both. But why go to the very commendable trouble of giving a recipe for homemade baking powder, yet try to avoid just a little effort by doubling the pantry requirements for flour sacks? Other small quibbles are the fact that the recipes require `dry yeast', without distinguishing between traditional `Fast Acting' and newer `Instant' yeast. The recipes appear to assume you are using the older `Fast Acting' type that is typically bloomed in warm water with a bit of sweetener.

Being a fictional representation of how real people eat, I was tickled to find recipes for a few very Italian dishes such as Osso Buco sprinkled here and there in the book. I was also tickled to find a paean to the Lodge cast iron skillet and the allowance that if care and feeding of this icon is beyond you, to get a Le Cruset enameled skillet. Even Julia Child is smiling down on that little grace note.

Fans of Ms. Karon's fiction will find this somewhere between a comfort and a hoot, depending on your disposition. The recipes are as good or better than most you will find, but some `shorthand' may require an experienced hand here and there.