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The Great Nova Scotia Cookbook by Pauline Carter Nimbus Publishing Ltd. Soft cover Cost: $29.95 ISBN 1-55109-346-4 Great Cookbook? Well....? reviewed by Ronnie Scullion
What characterizes the recipes included in The Great Nova Scotia Cookbook? Is it filled with local character? Emanating local flavours? Steeped in long-standing cooking traditions? The only common thread running throughout the book is a gross lack of consistency. Recipes are marked either 'traditional', 'trendy' or 'best'. 'Trendy' seems to be used to describe quick recipes, like the Vegetable Pizza that often incorporate prepared or processed foods. 'Traditional', by contrast, generally uses raw vegetables and basic food items. The 'best' designation is applied to recipes that 'have come highly recommended by an experienced cook', according to the book's author Pauline Carter. According to Carter, the collection of recipes represents four generations of family cooking. They are derived from a host of mostly European cuisines, interspersed with some unique local recipes and derivations, and some even more obscure plates of Oriental or other origins. One does not get a sense of true Nova Scotia specialties like the clam or fish chowders or other seafood delights that so many of our restaurants are known for. And Carter does not highlight the use of ingredients that are unique to or grow well in this area, like fiddleheads, Jerusalem artichokes, or cranberries. For fiddleheads, which are today available in the vegetable departments of major supermarket chains and at the many fresh markets, the reader is directed to look by streams and rivers (a nice option, but not always practical) to gather these delicacies. The Jerusalem artichoke, on the other hand, prolific in home vegetable gardens, also available in markets and groceries, does not make it into any of the recipes in this book! The book's author has no apparent credentials to warrant this compendium other than an interest in cooking and a large collection of recipes of unknown sources and questionable origins. Carter’s introduction to the "Cholla Bread" recipe reads as follows: "My mother often spoke of the delicious Challa or Chola (egg bread) made by her Jewish neighbours in Glace Bay. Unfortunately, however, the recipe she used has been lost.." This is then followed by a recipe, it’s origin to be guessed at -- from memory, another personal source, or another cookbook? The index, an invaluable to addition to any large collection, is a hybrid between a true index and a Table of Contents, organized by category: desserts, soups, vegetables, etc. One must familiarize oneself with the category headings, which sometimes match chapter headings and sometimes do not, before one could make real use of this ‘index’. The
book is over ambitious -- just leafing through it, makes one feel
'stuffed'! It attempts to cover everything from breads to desserts, and
even has a lengthy section devoted to children's cooking and recipes. It
lacks professionalism in design, style and organization. There is nothing
that qualifies the recipes as uniquely Nova Scotian and nothing
discernable that would qualify the book as 'great', except perhaps its
unnecessary voluminous size.
Designed &
maintained by Outdoor Nova Scotia, Liverpool, N.S. BOT 1KO |
A
first cursory skim through The Great Nova Scotia Cookbook brought me to a
Vegetable Pizza appetizer, designated as 'trendy'. When I scanned the
ingredient list and spotted the inclusion of two processed food items, I
knew this book was not destined to grace my kitchen library. A further
flip of the pages then took me to a ‘traditional’ recipe for preparing
a soup stock, using fresh ingredients.
