Although he was referencing a tiger with this nugget of knowledge, George Bernard Shaw s words hold just as true for humans. In fact, the very idea of food inhabits such a large portion of most people s lives that they spend more than twice the time planning and preparing their comestibles, as they do actually ingesting them. Its presentation and ritual is even more representative of the people who live on it than many other indicators. Perhaps this is why, when traveling, we tend to remember what we ate where, and the exact name and location of the town where we stopped for a quick bite and were surprised with that fabulous meal.
Taste is a conduit for memory.
This season s independently published cookbooks are a testament to this. The focus is primarily on regional cuisine, and the books themselves often feature more than just the how-to s of ingredient mixing. From the heart of the Midwest comes one such chronicle. Evelyn Birkby s book is stuffed with recipes and household tips culled from the more than fifty years she has written the newspaper column of the same name. Evelyn has never viewed cooking as merely the precursory act to satisfying hunger.