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the Home Cooking issue caps (“ DO NOT FREEZE ”) or multiple exclamation points tacked onto the end of a recipe headnote (“ This version of shrimp creole is very good!!!! ”). These personal stylistic choices ensure community cookbooks never feel intimidating or impersonal, but instead read like a group of enthusiastic people scribbling off cooking notes just for you — with personalities a-blazing. Maybe I’m a sucker for oddballs (or maybe I am an oddball), but the recipes, and recipe creators, that tend to capture my attention most in community cookbooks are the ones that seem a little wacky. A recipe out of Lafayette extols the deliciousness of a “carrot ring” that molds mashed carrots, eggs and butter into a sliceable vegetable cake. (The center of the ring is filled with creamed peas — for presentation, of course.) Not for the squeamish, Pirate’s Pantry has an entire page instructing readers on how to properly skin a deer before cooking it. And I’m a well-known champion of aspic in all its jiggly forms, but a recipe for “mystery salad” that combines raspberry gelatin, stewed tomatoes, onions, celery and hot sauce seems to be constructed on very wobbly culinary ground. Then there are the dishes that have ingredient lists so head-scratching you can’t help but want to make them for novelty’s sake. One of the most curious creations I’ve encountered in any community cookbook is a crustacean-based dip called lobster au rhum. Found in the 1987 edition of Talk About Good! , this four-ingredient concoction combines shredded canned lobster, light rum, butter and — wait for it — American cheese into a warm slurry meant for eating with toast points. I was skeptical at first, but after making it myself, I’ve determined that it scratches a certain itch if you’re ever in search of something that is fondue-like in its gloopy goodness and sweatpants chic. (Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try it.) Community cookbooks are also meant to be interactive and, if they’ve had been around long enough, filled with the kind of notes, doodles and adjustments known as “marginalia,” a term used by former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Any cookbook passed down through generations (and likely fraying at the edges, held together by masking tape or covered with a few smears of grease) is sure to have as much of its white space as possible filled

with comments, questions and instructions for how to make each recipe just a little bit better-suited to a family’s particular taste. In a 2014 essay for the Southern Foodways Alliance about my own experience with a family copy of Talk About Good! , I called community cookbooks, “Culinary love letters passed down through generations, [with] cookbook marginalia that tell the tale of the perfect punch for sweltering June weddings, that Aunt Ruby loves extra raisins in her oatmeal cookies, and just how much bourbon a ham marinade really needs.” In turn, contributing my own marginalia to community cookbooks feels like keeping a family tradition alive and well. If I discovered that the lobster au rhum dish is much improved with a large dash of cayenne, I could just tattoo it in next to the recipe itself — no need for a post-it or separate recipe card. I’d like to imagine the community cookbooks where I’ve scribbled turning up at a garage sale someday, and a

curious kitchen newbie flipping through them while quietly judging my terrible, hasty handwriting. The thought of recipe sharing — handwritten notes and all — as a kind of necessary public service and means of greater connection speaks to the heart of what community cookbooks embody, with each ingredient list and step-by-step set of instructions a way to allow one cook to share the joy of their personal kitchen table with those around them. So, yes. I’ll likely continue to hoard those elegantly photographed, chef-written cookbooks, admiring their pristine spines all lined up in a row on my bookshelf. But the works I truly treasure won’t be sitting on some pedestal. No, the ones that have my heart — the community cookbooks — will be down in the kitchen trenches right by my side: flour-covered, sticky and just a little disheveled as we dive headlong into another recipe together.

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018