Growing up I didn’t have anything one might refer to as received scripture. Our church tried. And I tried with them. I did my Methodist best but it just didn’t stick with me. And though I had hero’s … in sports, there was Muhammad Ali … who we first knew as Cassius Clay. In Music … Elvis and then on to The Beatles … and in literature… Charles Dickens. By age 20 Thomas Wolfe’s gargantuan vision swept my mind after my grandmother gave me the copies her son, Norman had purchased and read before his sad passing from a kidney disease at 24 years of age … But it was after cooking a few years. Seven? Lucky 7? That’s when I found a scripture I finally could hitch my star to. And it was the scripture of classical French Cuisine. The doctrine as first decreed by the legendary Marie-Antoine Carême and then updated by Auguste Escoffier!
This codification of cookery appealed to my searching mind. Here, at last, was a declarative vision in the maze of what was cuisine to me then. And it was in books! So I could read it and without having to go to cooking school … which I could then ill afford!
Now it’s time to hit the ‘Listen on WLRN’ button at the top to hear the remainder of my show. ‘A Word On Food’ airs on WLRN every Saturday around 8:30 a.m. at 91.3 and also 91.5 on the radio. I want to thank so many of you who tell me in person how much you are enjoying the show!