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A Little Maine Cookbook

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A Little Maine Cookbook (Canada, UK)
By Barbara Karoff
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN 0811809293

Wouldn’t it be ironic if you lived in Northern California and wrote a cookbook about Maine, and then had someone review it who actually lives in Maine?

Barbara Karoff, author of A Little Maine Cookbook, finds herself in this potentially awkward position. Fortunately, her book — for all its limitations — holds up pretty well.

This book is one of a series of more than 40 tiny, regional cookbooks published by Chronicle Books, that aim to give a sampling of the cuisine of Vietnam, Greece, France, New Orleans, etc., — and of Maine. The books, which measure a little more than four by six inches, and include 30 or so recipes each, are clearly intended as stocking stuffers, hostess gifts, or souvenirs. No one is going to mistake them for the definitive culinary reference on a particular region.

Maine is certainly one area of this country that people associate with a particular cuisine. But, I think, people actually make more of an association with Maine ingredients than they do with Maine cooking or specific dishes. Maine is famous for lobster, of course, as well as many other types of seafood — scallops, oysters, clams, mussels, salmon, etc. — and also for potatoes, wild blueberries, maple syrup, wild game (especially venison), and fiddlehead ferns.

But as I scan the list of recipes in A Little Maine Cookbook, Lobster Stew is perhaps the only one that Maine could definitively claim on its own. Indian Pudding, Clam Chowder, Blueberry Muffins, Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, even Spring Fiddleheads are as much at home in other parts of New England as in Maine. The rest of the recipes in the book are for dishes that incorporate ingredients found here — Corn & Pumpkin Chowder, Baked Wild Duck Breasts, Maple Muffins, Roast Venison, Stuffed-Beet Salad — but are not necessarily traditional Maine recipes.

In general, I think it is fair to say that the recipes in this book are a little fancier than the dishes are likely to be prepared here. I have never been served Brandied Pumpkin Soufflé, Cold Blueberry Soup, or Savory Clam Bites at anyone’s home in Maine. But it wouldn’t surprise me to see some version of these dishes on a restaurant menu.

The one dish that’s really missing from this book is some version of baked beans. It may not be fancy enough to include in a skinny little cookbook, but you cannot visit a small town in Maine in the summer that is not holding a bean-hole supper in somebody’s field on a coming weekend.

A Little Maine Cookbook has built recipes around many of Maine’s best-loved ingredients. By and large, they’re not traditional, but that doesn’t mean some of them shouldn’t be.

A Little Maine Cookbook (Canada, UK)

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