Reviving Prune Cake

Christopher Kimball seeks perfection in grandma's recipe file box.

by Carolyn Wyman

INTERVIEW

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Christopher Kimball is the guru of obsessive-compulsive cooking. He and his colleagues from Cook's Illustrated magazine and America's Test Kitchen public TV show make recipes up to 40 times to come up with a version that works best.

Kimball's suburban Boston-based test kitchen has just released the first cookbook based on Cook's Illustrated's lowbrow sister publication, Cook's Country. He'll talk about America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Kitchen-Tested Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget at the Rittenhouse Square Barnes & Noble Nov. 28. But first, he talked about it with us on the phone from Tucson, where he was at a public television convention.

City Paper: It's one thing to spend four hours making the perfect coq au vin. But does the perfectionistic America's Test Kitchen approach make sense on the oddball ethnic, food-shortage and convenience food recipes that make up your new book?

Christopher Kimball: The concept isn't really best recipes; it's more about finding interesting recipes that aren't made that often anymore but are worth keeping, especially when they're tested and tweaked so you know they'll work.

CP: Still, the book's title is America's BEST Lost Recipes. And if bologna pie, prune cake and cheese-crusted olive balls are among America's best lost recipes, what are the worst? Are there many that should remain lost?

CK: We got about 3,000 entries in the contest that produced this book of about 100 recipes. And yes, there were a number of canned pineapple soufflés that got weeded out. But overall, there was actually a lot more good food than you get in a typical recipe contest, probably because the older recipes that survive have stood the test of time.

There was also [far] more interesting, really local food back when these recipes were popular due to the influence of the immigrant populations and regional culture. This was before the rise of the big food magazines in the '50s and '60s, which, along with the big food companies, gave rise to the pedestrian national cuisine of perhaps 100 to 200 standard recipes — fried chicken, pea soup and the like — that we have today.

CP: Almost half the recipes in here are for sweets. Do you have stock in a national chain of dental clinics?

CK: Most of the recipes we got were for baked goods. I think that's basically because it's a lot easier to personalize a baking recipe than something savory. You can change a cake just by adding another ingredient or the frosting. But what can you do to a skillet steak that's unique and fun?

CP: Every survey of American cooking and eating habits done in the past decade shows that people are cooking less and spending less time when they do cook. And yet your do-it-right, time-be-damned America's Test Kitchen is the most popular cooking show on public television. Please explain.

CK: The United States is so big — there is no such thing as a single food trend. Different people want different things ... you also can't always believe surveys. For instance, when we ask our readers what kinds of recipes they want, they always ask for healthy ones for vegetables and fish. But when we ask them what recipes they actually made, the vegetable and fish recipes are always much less popular than anything else.

CP: This interview will be published the day before Thanksgiving. Any last-minute holiday dinner preparation advice for the desperate masses?

CK: Serve about half the things you think you should. Nobody will notice the creamed onions didn't make it, and it'll make things a lot easier. Brine your turkey or get a kosher one or a frozen Butterball. The salt helps the meat retain moisture, so if you overcook these birds, they'll still be good.

(cwyman@citypaper.net)

Christopher Kimball, Wed., Nov. 28, 7:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-665-0716, www.barnesandnoble.com.