The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
A Review of One of the Best American Cookbooks
With the sad passing of Judy Rodgers, we have lost a chef who was generous (not least to me), who was renowned for her uncompromising commitment, who transmitted a way of thinking about food from what now seems a distant past. That was the era of Nouvelle Cuisine, whose chefs were rooted in a calmer, in some ways simpler time, as well as in that classical cooking from which they rebelled. The review below, written by James MacGuire in 2003, is an homage to her work. — E.B.
Anyone who had the privilege of knowing the Troisgros restaurant in Roanne during its golden age in the early 1970s loves to talk about it and is the envy of most listeners. It was already one of the best restaurants in the world and had received its third Michelin star, but it wasn’t yet as famous as it would become. Situated across from the station, it was still a local restaurant with a mostly local clientele, and Jean-Baptiste Troisgros, father of Jean and Pierre, still held court. Judy Rodgers arrived there as a 16-year-old high school exchange student from St. Louis, and she clearly took away with her much more than anecdotes. Probably she took more than anyone else who went through the place. She echoes Jean François Meteigner’s memories of the Troisgros family: “Their focus on raw ingredients was relentless, and the attention they lavished on each detail of every preparation was as routine for them as it was revelatory for me.” Rodgers was drawn in a particular direction: “While growing international attention swirled around the more glamorous three-star restaurants, and parades of gastronomic pilgrims clamored after the fanciest, cleverest, and most elusive truffle, lobster, and foie gras dishes incorporating exotic fruits and Japanese garnishes, I was taking thorough notes on how Michel made hachis Parmentier (shepherd’s pie à la française) for the staff meal.”
And yet Judy Rodgers’ The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, featuring food from her San Francisco restaurant, is mostly Italian. What is typically French about Judy Rodgers’ approach is her introspection and her attention to detail, which borders in every good way on the obsessive. The approach makes even the simplest dish transcendent.
To the reader, Rodgers is helpful and encouraging (the five-page recipe for the Zuni ricotta gnocchi may be too helpful!), and there are complete sections on equipment and other basics, but this is not an ideal first cookbook for anyone. Certainly, it is not a book for people who don’t want to think. The book’s charm and strength are its absence of a double standard: Rodgers presents the food as it really is prepared each day at the cafe. No claims on this cover that the recipes are quick, easy, nonfattening, or newly invented.
With her approach and the prominence Rodgers gives to the Troisgros, I had to keep reminding myself that hers isn’t a French cookbook. Nor, I had to remind myself, is it — despite the considerable terrain she covers, her clear explanations, and her seemingly congenital incapacity to dumb things down — a textbook. It’s too quirky for that, more like a book that a professor would keep for bright, independent-minded students.
Rodgers, like classic French cooks, emphasizes the importance of basic preparations, and her stock is particularly French. Where most restaurants use bones and meat scraps for stocks, she uses as much high-quality meat, pound for pound, as the 1902 edition of Escoffier, and she usually moistens that meat with chicken stock rather than water. She makes other things in-house that almost any other chef anywhere would buy. She salts her own anchovies and cod (“stop, think, there must be a harder way,” she writes). She makes her own sausage and cured meats, and her explanations of the processes are better than I’ve seen in other cookbooks. (But 33 percent fat in fresh sausage is very high, and why do she and other authors continue to cite Jane Grigson’s 1978 warhorse on charcuterie rather than a French or Italian professional text?)
The technique that most sets Rodgers apart from classic French and traditional Italian cooking is presalting of meats and even fish some time before cooking. Brining of some meats is increasingly popular among American chefs, and some amateurs must have done it, too, since the technique has been widely publicized in magazines in the last few years. It “promotes juiciness and improves texture,” Rodgers writes, and she explains the science well. I followed her directions for salting and roasting chicken with good results, but I wondered how many home cooks will regularly do it, since few plan so far ahead. (The brine must be boiled and cooled, and the brining lasts two to seven days, according to the meat.) I feel confident that the system works, but with any idea from someone as thoughtful and with such strong convictions as Rodgers, even if you disagree you can’t dismiss. I found myself celebrating her eccentricities, feeling thankful that at least one cookbook writer is thinking hard about all aspects of cooking.
Who would ever have thought that someone who cooks mostly Italian could remain so French? As a cook and as a writer, Rodgers took Jean-Baptiste Troisgros’s words to heart when he told her to avoid food that is overwrought and not generous. She has certainly given generously of herself without holding back. ●
