Lost Recipes: Meals to Share with Friends and Family

Marion Cunningham, editor of the revised The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, is also the author of The Supper Book and The Breakfast Book, two gems of American home-style cooking. This simple but delicious fare is once again onstage in Lost Recipes, a collection of almost 150 easy formulas for largely forgotten American classics. These recipes, which include the likes of Chicken and Dumpling Soup, Fresh Tomato Gratin Stew, and Salmon or Tuna Loaf might, in other hands, seem dated; here, they're just what the doctor ordered. Why? Cunningham has devised exemplary versions, which eschew bastardizations like convenience ingredients that have compromised--or replaced--the originals over time. (Her creamed corn, for example, requires fresh corn and real cream.)

Among the soup-to-nuts chapters, "Yesterday’s Side Dishes--Today's Vegetarian Centerpiece," scores with main-dishes like First-Prize Onion Casserole and Welsh Rarebit. "Real Salads and Dandy Dressings" offers equally revivable fare like Brown Derby Cobb Salad and Green Goddess Dressing, while chapters on breads and sweets present the "nostalgic" likes of Monkey Bread, Lazy Daisy Cake, and Dainty Pralines. (Readers should know that other versions of some recipes have appeared in previous Cunningham works.) Illustrated, and with pithy excerpts on food and dining from writers ranging from Brillat-Savarin to Eric Schlosser, the book is another Cunningham treasure. --Arthur Boehm