Foodist: Cookbook Reviews

A is for Apple

By Greg Patent and Dorothy Hinshaw Patent

It's hard to believe that bananas are the most popular fruit in the United States, followed by apples, but there you have it. Such small but telling details can be found in Patent and Patent's A is for Apple. That and every apple recipe you might ever want to try.

If there were only Red and Golden Delicious apples to choose from there wouldn't be much point. In relating the stories of these two apples the authors tell a condemning story of modern American fruit production, where marketing has won out over the market. Both the Red and the Golden truly were delicious at one time in their odd histories, but years of selecting for color and shape over flavor has robbed these two apples of their legacy. Fortunately, small scale farming has found a niche and farmers markets have grown in every community, so apples in season with names you have never heard and flavors you have never encountered are available. They may cost a little extra, but they are real.

Though there is enormous pleasure to be had just eating a ripe apple in season, there's a lot of cooking to be done out there, too. Authors Patent have divided the recipe chapters of A is for Apple into Pies and Tarts; Desserts; Cakes and Cookies; Breads; Soups and Salads; Seafood and Game; Poultry; Beef, Pork, and Lamb; and Side Dishes. There are chapters on basics, growing, and oddball info, too.

There is an apple pie recipe in this book, and then its deep-dish cousin, and then the same with rhubarb, and so on. But there's a recipe for apple-venison sausage, too. And apple rice pudding, and spicy apple dumplings, and oatmeal-apple-nut bars, and cider gingerbread with cider cream, and Latvian pumpernickel and fruit soup, and trout with cider, chanterelles, and cream, and duck breasts with cider, orange, and Calvados sauce. You get the idea. The whole big apple kit and kaboodle.
Schuyler Ingle ...