Cookbook reveals culinary successes ‘Best American Recipes’ improves on a good thing

THE BEST AMERICAN RECIPES 2000, by Fran McCullough and Suzanne Hamlin, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 2000, 343 pages, $26.

If at first you succeed, try again.

That’s precisely what veteran editors Fran McCullough and Suzanne Hamlin have done with “The Best American Recipes 2000,” which naturally came on the heels of the highly touted “The Best American Recipes 1999.”

As The New York Times said: “Throw out all those clippings – here’s what’s worth saving from every magazine article, book, church newsletter, Internet chat room, and newsgroup from the past year.”

And what a compilation it is. McCullough and Hamlin drew from every conceivable printed source, rigorously testing each recipe. The result has been dubbed “dazzlingly diverse.”

In the introduction, McCullough, who is the author of three cookbooks, explains how the recipes are chosen to make up the annual “Best American” collection: “And although we do have some criteria – taste first and foremost, recipes that solve problems, dishes we get excited about and can’t wait to make again – the fact is that we’ve developed a kind of radar for these distinctive recipes. It’s as though a little bell goes off in our heads when we first read them, and then we have to go back and see why.”

Indeed, a little bell went off in my head when I first read these recipes. Apparently, I need to live closer to a giant supermarket in order to find the ingredients needed for the majority of dishes, from haute to down-home. Take, for instance, a lovely sweet-and-savory salad to be served at the end of a meal, with a glass of vintage port. It calls for a pound (four bunches) of arugula and a dozen fresh mission figs, not to mention crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. The walnuts, balsamic vinegar and olive oil are no problem, but I’d have to make a run for some ruby port. And, where would I ever find fresh figs?

Even the spicy coleslaw may prove to be a problem for rural residents who can always find a head of cabbage but not necessarily julienned jicama, whatever that is, or fresh gingerroot.

Other than that, the cookbook is a great compendium of recipes, well-organized and attributed. The editors looked at thousands of recipes, cooked hundreds of them, and came up with this collection of what are, for them, the essential recipes of the year, complete with notes to the cook, serving suggestions, wine choices and variations.

Here’s how the year looked to McCullough and Hamlin, who rated the Top Ten Food Items: 1. Comeback of the Year, Eggs. 2. Addiction of the Year, Fried Everything. 3. Spice of the Year, Ginger, Ginger, Ginger. 4. Novelty of the Year, Smoked Spanish Paprika. 5. Vegetable of the Year, Potato. 6. Technique of the Year, Slow Roasting. 7. Dessert of the Year, Anything Chocolate. 8. Fruit of the Year, the Quince. 9. Drink of the Year, Beer. 10. Gadget of the Year, the Japanese Mandoline, aka Benriner Slicer.

“The Best American Recipes” is as substantive as many of its dishes; 327 pages of recipes from starters and soups to desserts and drinks. No glossy, color photos accompany the script, yet the pages are as clean and crisp as fresh leeks; and the graphic design running across the pages is as user friendly as a cup of herb tea.

Any cook would benefit from having the recommended side dishes or complementary wines included at the bottom of each recipe. And the “cook’s notes” scattered throughout the cookbook are added treasures.

“To make Beer Can Chicken in the oven, prepare the chicken as described and roast it as you usually do, but perched on the beer can inside a shallow roasting pan … We know sooner or later, someone’s going to ask: Can you use light beer to cook this chicken? Of course you can, but you know what the good old boys on the barbecue circuit would say about that.”

The beverage of choice with this recipe: “More beer, of course.”

Beer Can Chicken

2 cups hickory or oak chips

2 12-ounce cans beer

1/2 cup of your favorite barbecue rub or Memphis Rub

2 31/2-to-4-pound chickens (fat removed), washed and patted dry with paper towels

Place the wood chips in a medium bowl. Pop the tab of each beer can and make two additional holes in each top, using a church-key opener. Pour half the beer from each can over the wood chips. Add additional beer or water to cover the chips and let soak for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, start a charcoal fire in a kettle grill. When the coals are red hot, dump them in two piles at opposite ends of the grill. Place a drip pan in the center and set the grate on the grill. Drain the wood chips.

Sprinkle 1 teaspoon barbecue rub in the neck cavity and 2 teaspoons in the main cavity of each chicken. Add 1 tablespoon rub to each open half-full beer can – don’t worry if it foams up. Season the outside of each bird with 2 tablespoons of rub.

When you’re ready to cook and the coals are red, scatter the wood chips over the charcoal. Stand the beer cans on a work surface and lower each chicken over a can so that the can goes into the main cavity. Pull the chicken legs modestly forward to form a sort of tripod, so the chicken can sit upright on the can. Carefully transfer the chickens to the grill in this position, placing them in the center over the drip pan, away from the heat.