 The Possibilities of the Pantry ShelfbyNicki Leone
The reason I even have Troth Wells’ One World Vegetarian Cookbook is because someone with perfect timing sent me an email. It had been a cold winter—at least, cold for the Carolinas, and I had spent more days inside making endless pots of hot coffee than outdoors enjoying the winter sun. In fact, looking back now it seems like there was very little in the way of winter sun, just lots of winter grey. It was on one of those grey, cold afternoons where I was trying to muster up the energy to make something for dinner that suddenly my email inbox dinged (Star Trek communicator tone) and there appearing like an oracle from the food fairy, was a recipe for Dobi–a spinach and tomato dish from Zimbabwe. “This is a recipe from One World Vegetarian Cookbook by Troth Wells,” said the email. “Enjoy.” I don’t believe in fate, exactly, but I do try to listen when the universe is talking to me, and something about Dobi just sounded really appealing at that moment. I took a quick look at the ingredients and discovered I had everything on hand: Spinach and some beet greens I had left over from last night’s dinner and needed to use up anyway, tomatoes I had put up in the summer, chili peppers (frozen, not fresh, but from the garden), an onion, garlic, parsley, thyme, peanut butter. It took about five minutes to chop everything up, and about ten to cook it in my largest iron skillet, adding a tablespoon of peanut butter and a little black pepper near the end. I ate it served over the last of the sourdough bread from that week and felt that winter was once again endurable. For the rest of the season while the cold weather lasted, I found myself making dobi about once a week or so when I’d reached the heel end of that week’s bread loaf. And I picked up a copy of the book. One World Vegetarian is not what I’d call a unique or especially fascinating cookbook. It doesn’t delve into an exotic cuisine, or bare the secrets of a reclusive master chef. It isn’t an adventure story or a culinary memoir. It isn’t a comprehensive reference or an encyclopedic look at a country or a culture through its food. The latest in a series of cookbooks focusing on global cuisine with a theme of sustainability and the value of local ingredients and communities, One World Vegetarian is made up mostly from recipes submitted by readers to the New Internationalist, a magazine, website, and publishing house committed to issues of social justice in what the organization calls the “Majority World.” The author, Troth Wells, has a shelf’s worth of books to her credit, including cookbooks like The World of Street Food: Quick and Easy Meals to Cook at Home, and more issue-oriented food books, such as The Bittersweet World of Chocolate, which peers at the dark side of the dark chocolate industry and promotes (with recipes) fair trade chocolate alternatives. In comparison to either of those, One World Vegetarian is breezy and casual, a gentle and smiling invitation to sit down and eat your vegetables. What is surprising and extraordinary about the book isn’t immediately obvious—it’s what I didn’t have to do when I opened it. I didn’t have to make a shopping list. I didn’t have to go to the supermarket. Normally when I start with a new cookbook, this is exactly what I have to do. I look through it, mark the recipes I want to try, check my kitchen cabinets and make a shopping list, hunt through my less-than-cosmopolitan grocery store for what I need, and end up buying instead whatever actually looks good in the produce section, since when all is said and done it doesn’t matter how good a zucchini recipe sounds if the only zucchini to be had look like they have been tossed around by clumsy monkeys. As it turned out, the dobi I was able to make on the spur of the moment with ingredients already on hand was not a fluke. Most of the recipes in One World Vegetarian are for familiar foods that are, seasonality taken into account, easy to find and likely to already be in the pantry. The bases are broths, oils and coconut milk. The spices are chili, ginger, garlic, and the usual array of things found in a McCormick spice rack. The herbs are parsley, thyme, rosemary and coriander. Even the occasional special ingredient (there is a potato/bean salad that calls for something called “sweet sauce” made from boiled pumpkin and grape must) is qualified with a list of acceptable substitutes (in this case, honey.) The recipes are for people like me, who think not in terms of menus, but of keeping the kitchen stocked. I don’t plan meals, but I also don’t run out of brown sugar or black beans, and I keep sweet potatoes on hand because really, why wouldn’t you? It is as if Wells took a look at my pantry and then decided to write a cookbook using only the things she found in it. As it turns out, there was quite a lot of potential in my pantry, even if I hadn’t been to the store recently. And although I am not a vegetarian or even particularly dedicated to eating healthy, the fact remains that even after several months I have yet to make a special trip to the supermarket when I decide to make something out of her book. I’ve almost become vegetarian in practice, just because the book is so convenient. One World Vegetarian likes recipes that are one pot, one pan, one knife dishes—making the book useful for someone like me, who cooks for one person. Directions are sometimes laconic, so it does help, for example, to know something about how to clean beets before using them, since this book assumes you know. And it will sometimes skip over steps that would make the difference between a good dish and a great one, such as the recipe for ratatouille, which instructs the cook to throw all the vegetables into the pan at the same time. (Anyone who has met a Julia Child cookbook knows that the best thing to do is cook all the vegetables separately, and combine them at the end just before serving). But it is mostly its uncanny ability to anticipate what is likely to already be on my kitchen shelves or in the fridge that has me going back again and again to the book, especially when I get to that point where I know I need to go back to the grocery store soon, but I’m putting it off. (I have a rule that I won’t go grocery shopping until I run out of cat food. It’s actually the cat’s rule.) So it isn’t unusual to find myself looking at a nearly empty fridge, which only a few carrots or parsnips in the crisper and a couple apples in the bin, wondering how I can possibly get a meal out of what’s left. Last night, it turned out to be apple parsnip soup (from Britain) and a bread and walnut dip (Greece) with carrot sticks. It was pretty amazing. Like most vegetarian cookbooks One World really comes into its own in the spring and summer, when things like tomatoes, summer squash and corn are in season. So it says something about the book that it has been so appealing and useful in my kitchen in the worst of the winter months. And despite its emphasis on sustainable farming and organic gardening, it isn’t what you’d call a “preachy” book that insists on taking the moral high ground, and it isn’t a stickler for authenticity either. Taste, ease, and an appreciation for what you have to hand seem to be the guiding principles. “I’m not great at vegetable gardening,” writes Troth Wells, “nor a star cook by any means, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying what I do. Some of the things in the book are made from just what was in the garden at the time . . . such recipes are pretty easy, but they taste good. And I guess for a lot of people, that is what matters.” It’s certainly what matters to me. Books mentioned in this column:
Nicki Leone showed her proclivities early when as a young child she asked her parents if she could exchange the jewelry a well-meaning relative had given her for Christmas for a dictionary instead. She supported her college career with a part-time job in a bookstore, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her college career and attending scholarships and financial aid loans supported her predilection for working as a bookseller. She has been in the book business for over twenty years. Currently she works for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, developing marketing and outreach programs for independent bookstores. Nicki has been a book reviewer for several magazines, her local public radio station and local television stations. She was one of the founders of The Cape Fear Crime Festival, currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers Network, and as Managing Editor of BiblioBuffet. Plus, she blogs at Will Read for Food. She manages all this with the loving support of varying numbers of dogs and cats. Contact Nicki.
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