Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Momofuku Cookbook

Last Friday, after wandering around the Greenmarket, I bought myself the Momofuku Cookbook. I bought it as a gift to congratulate myself. I'm not sure what I was really congratulating myself for. Making it through another week? Remembering to put on my sunscreen? Gaining 5 pounds while I'm trying to lose 10? Either way, I felt that I needed congratulations, so I bought it.
It is 5 days later, and I've read 80% of it straight through. I'm obsessed. I think what I like best about it, is that it is not a self-congratulatory tome. I've read a number of cookbooks. One, by a famous French chef, stands out in particular. The chef had another author write the prose and the intervening stories read like a seafood Harlequin novel.

"The tides roar in and Chef SoandSo decides he wants to make us all fish for dinner. As we all turn to go to the car, Chef SoandSo rolls up his pants and dashes into the water. He momentarily disappears under the angry gray foam. We gasp for a moment and then breathe a sigh of relief as he stands, victorious, with a 10 ton tuna in his right hand, shirt ripped open by the currents."

Okay, I know I'm exaggerating. But in my mind, despite the fact that Chef SoandSo is extremely talented, the dramatic stories overshadow the real star: the food.

David Chang's book, on the other hand, really comes off as a humble collection of recipes and the story of his restaurants is a super compelling mixture of luck, temper, hard work, and trial and error. Dropping a mixture of F-bombs, kimchee, and menu brainstorming into one book is pretty cool. Like Thomas Keller, he pays tribute to some of his amazing food sources: Bev Eggleston and Allen Benton. To dispel misconceptions about foie gras, he dedicates a couple of pages to his foie gras source, paying particular attention to the animals' wellfare. His true respect for the talent of Marco Carnora (Hearth, Insieme), Andrew Carmellini (formerly A Voce, now Locanda Verde), Wylie Dufresne (wd-50) and many of his own partners comes off as sincere deference.

Credit is given where credit is due.

My Smart Wine Friend (SWF) thinks that many of the ingredients are inaccessible as are the times and techniques which is true. These certainly are not Rachael Ray's 30-minute meals (thank goodness) and would be a challenge to put together on a weekday. But as a weekend project they are utterly tempting. I truly appreciate Chang's "ghetto sous vide" method. And though many cookbooks do not tell you what can be made ahead of time, Chang's book seems to recognize that while life may be "a la minute" not all cooking can be.

I totally recommend this book. Stay tuned for a demi-glace blog... yup had a major demi-glace triumph this past weekend!