The UC Press list of wine books stands out for its diversity and unique areas of interest. With a particular emphasis on wineries, viticulture and winemaking in California and the West, it appeals to casual tasters, aficionados and wine professionals alike. Yesterday's Los Angeles Times praised our wine program for its ability to draw a wide audience and excel in the competitive wine book market. Read the article here.
Congratulations to Niloufer Ichaporia King, whose book My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking has won a James Beard Award
in the Asian Cooking category! The James Beard Awards are the most
prestigious culinary honors in the United States, praising the greatest
achievements in all corners of the culinary world. In the award-winning
book, King inspires kitchens everywhere with Parsi flavors and personal
experience, turning each recipe into a story spiked with flavors like
ginger, garlic, and turmeric. The awards were announced at a June 8
ceremony in New York City. Read more about the James Beard Awards and
this year's winners here.
Recipe from My Bombay Kitchen:
"Banana Raita / Kera Nu Raitu
This was my mother's favorite. The combination of bananas and mustard sounds odd, but it really works. This is a small-spoon raita for pulalos and biryanis. Serves 4 to 6.
1 to 2 teaspoons Colman's dry mustard
1 cup plain yogurt
1 to 2 firm ripe bananas (no green on the skin)
Salt to taste (optional)
Starting with 1 teaspoon, whisk Colman's powdered mustard into the yogurt until you get that wasabi feeling in the back of your head. The yogurt will taste a bit bitter. Don't worry; just let it sit for 2 hours or so. Close to serving time, slice the bananas into the yogurt-mustard mixture. Taste. You might want to add a tiny bit of salt."
Darra Goldstein is Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian at Williams College, series editor of California Studies in Food and Culture, and editor-in-chief of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, which recently won an Utne Independent Press award. She has published four cookbooks and numerous articles on Russian literature, culture, art, and cuisine. She has also organized several exhibitions including Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005, at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. She was recently interviewed by Associate Director and Publisher Sheila Levine.
When did you start writing about food?
When I was at Stanford in the mid-1970s I wanted to write my dissertation on food in Russian literature. But none of my professors thought this was a serious enough topic. It was too domestic. So instead, I wrote about Nikolai Zabolotsky, a brilliant Russian poet. In 1978–79, I spent a year in the former Soviet Union. The generosity of the Russians, who had so little in those years, was extraordinary, and their hospitality gave me a way to enter more deeply into Russian culture. My first cookbook, A Taste of Russia, resulted from that experience. I went on to write three more cookbooks. Meanwhile, I was teaching Russian and publishing academic articles on Russian literature and art. It was like having two lives—dutiful Russian scholar and cookbook writer.
You had read an article of mine in Food & Wine, and you recognized, in a way that I wasn’t yet able to, that my two halves could come together. You asked me to write on vodka in Russian culture. I decided that book wasn’t for me, but as we talked I started thinking about writing a larger book about food in Russian culture. UC Press’s commitment to the food and culture series validated that the study of food was a legitimate intellectual pursuit.
You also started our prize-winning journal Gastronomica. Why was it needed?
After my second cookbook, The Georgian Feast, won the Julia Child award, I started writing more frequently about food. In the mid-1990s I published one of my favorite articles, on Carême, the great French chef. Carême was celebrated for his pièces montées, fanciful sculptures for the table made out of a special pastry dough or sugar, which were fashioned after great architectural forms. I compared his architectural studies for the table with those for the city of St. Petersburg and published my article in a small scholarly journal. I doubt that many more than 50 people read it.
I decided there needed to be a journal where people like me, who were interested in a serious investigation of food but weren’t necessarily joined by discipline, could come together and begin a dialogue that would also help legitimize the nascent field of food studies. I brought the idea of Gastronomica to UC Press, because you and I had already developed a relationship. It is wonderful to be working with you on the book side of the house and with Rebecca Simon and her staff in the Journals Division.
What is most challenging and satisfying about editing a quarterly magazine?
I read every article that is submitted and edit every one that I accept! It’s like having a second fulltime job. Gastronomica is helping to shape the field of food studies, which is wonderful. On a more personal level, I’m continually learning new things, and I feel very connected with the world, especially when I hear from potential contributors in Asia, or India, or Australia. One of the best things about Gastronomica is that it truly represents a global community.
And the book series? What are you most proud of?
What I love about our series, and something that distinguishes it, is that we are looking at food and culture very broadly. If you look at our list of twenty-plus titles, you might say it is eclectic, but you’ll see the multiple perspectives represented. For example, the series includes historian Warren Belasco’s Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, anthropologist Theodore Bestor’s Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, and nutritionist Marion Nestle’s Food Politics. Taken together, the books show how multidisciplinary the study of food is, and how by looking at familiar subjects through the prism of food we can see these subjects in new ways, and make new discoveries. Our series shows both depth and range, which I find very exciting.
How do you see the future of food studies developing?
Food studies is now recognized as a legitimate mode of inquiry, but I do worry that there is not yet a sufficient number of people who are able to comment on all of the work being produced, and therefore there is a lot out there this is not critically sound. But this situation is slowly changing, especially as more academic programs are established in the field, such as those at NYU and Indiana University.
Food studies is more and more rooted in the social sciences. Although it is good to have a disciplinary home, ideally I would like the study of food to encompass other modes of thought, including the arts and the natural sciences. It is this inclusiveness that I aim to represent in the book series and Gastronomica.
Congratulations to editor Paul Freedman, whose book Food: A History of Taste won the 2008 IACP Award in the Food Reference/Technical category. The awards were announced on Friday evening, at the IACP Awards ceremony in New Orleans. Food is also up for a James Beard Foundation Award—check back after June 8 for the results.
To see more of our books about gourmet cuisine and wine, download our Food & Wine brochure.
Food: A History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman, is a finalist for an International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Cookbook Award, in the Food Reference/Technical category. The IACP's list of award nominees is a sumptuous spectacle of gourmet masterpieces, and includes some of the most recognized names in the culinary world. Categories range from best overall cookbook to food photography and food writing, and the judges select from hundreds of entries from all over the globe. Food explores the evolution
of cuisine across distant lands and over the centuries, and details the gastronomic delights of foodies of yore. It has also
been nominated for a 2008 James Beard Foundation award.
Another UC Press book, Thomas Pinney's A History of Wine in America, took home the IACP Wine/Spirits award in 2006.
The IACP will announce the results tonight at a ceremony in New Orleans. View the entire nominee list here.
On today's Morning Edition, The Kitchen Sisters profiled Niloufer Ichaporia King, the author of My Bombay Kitchen, in their feature on Parsi cooking. The story reveals King's deliciously artistic world, which, like her recipes, is a feast of fresh ingredients and delightful flavors, enriched by her Parsi history and the joy of inspiring the kitchens of others.
Listen to the full story here.
An interview with Darra Goldstein appears in the "Great Writing" section of "Utne Blogs," a section of the Utne Reader's web site. She discusses, among other things, the origins and evolutions of Gastronomica, and what makes for good food writing. "For instance, in the May issue there will be an article that I find very disturbing, and I think readers will, too. It's about an artist who harvests her own eggs. It's a social commentary on caviar and the egg as a luxury good and the way women sell their eggs to make money. It's a perfect Gastronomica article because it's looking at food, but it's also horrifying and pushing against the edges of good taste."
Gastronomica has been included in Saveur magazine's "Top 100," the annual list of their favorite foodie people, places, and things. "Part high-brow food 'zine, part scholarly journal, the quarterly publication Gastronomica has been at the top of our bedside reading pile since its inception, in 2001. Rarefied but unpretentious, each issue is an artfully curated collection of essays, poems, art, and journalistic reportage . . . Gastronomica's fare never fails to nourish us." View the complete list here.
Gastronomica has received a 2007 Independent Press Award from Utne Reader, in the category of "Social/Culture Coverage." The awards honor the very best in independent media from the pool of more than 1,300 sources Utne uses to cull its content. "In a word: sumptuous," says Utne. Read their review here.
Darra Goldstein, editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, has launched a new web site: http://www.darragoldstein.com. The sharply-designed site features information about Darra, including a publication list and a selection of favorite recipes. Try the pink potato salad!
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