Bingo 20: Landscape
As the cover (pictured above) suggests, this book is about Canada (see wooded landscape in mists) in terms of food (it’s part cookbook) and character (it’s part excerpted prose bits from travel and fiction stories, and photography collection too). I can see how all of this could fit together, except that it doesn’t quite work out. The photos are gorgeous but the sentimental/philosophical sayings accompanying them are so out of context that to me at least they come off as either hollow or cliché, and then there’s the recipes; some are clearly Canadian in nature (occasionally a boost from the little headnotes might be needed; I hadn’t realized blueberries were such a Canadian thing, but ok), others are not; while Canada may have some decent seafood, clam chowder and lobster rolls are not specifically Canadian, at least not the versions presented, and the explanations are not all that convincing. The recipes and pictures seemed to be grouped by theme, except that doesn’t connect terribly well either.
The themes/chapters(?) are: “In Search of Space: A new day dawns” (aka breakfast foods), “Limitless Freedom: An adventure begins” (‘sides’ or ‘lighter fare’ maybe), “Go Your Own Way: Live the moment” (lunch and condiments mostly), and “Blissful Solitude: Campfires under the stars” (dinner type meals mostly). The ‘mostly’s are because each section ends with something sweet, like chocolate pudding cake (which is really just a chocolate soufflé) {Go Your Own Way) or s’mores (mislabeled IMHO since the actual recipe is for graham crackers {Blissful Solitude}).
Essentially the whole book is comfort themed with some emphasis on Canadian ingredients, mostly blueberries, maple syrup, cranberries, and salmon. Two obvious cultural inclusions are nanaimo bars (and this looks like a better recipe than the one I’ve tried before) and poutine, but things like pumpkin spice muffins really have little specifically Canadian influence to them, and neither does peanut butter-chocolate granola; both recipes sound good and I plan to try both, but I am not convinced that they or other things like grilled cheese sandwiches, clam chowder, and pulled pork sandwiches really demonstrate either the title or the Canadian emphasis. Comfort food, and tasty looking recipes, yes; linked to the themes or landscape photos and story bits, no.
The “stories” part of the cover basically means 4 short (2 pages-ish) prose excerpts with some Canadian connection. The first “Fugitive Pieces” is about the author’s immigrant parents in an outskirt part of Toronto; “Uncles” is by Canada’s most famous living author Margaret Atwood, “In Canada” is a piece of travel writing by Charles Dickens, and Chris Czajkowski’s “Cabin at Singing River” appears to be a bit of journal or memoir about the wilderness of British Columbia. These pieces are all fine, but they have virtually nothing to do with anything around them, image or recipe, other than the tangential Canadian connection.
Overall, I wish that the book had picked one or two things, preferably the stories and recipes, and stuck with that. The recipes are definitely worth trying though and there are some interesting new things, like a Berry Latte that’s actually tea based. I’ve heard of the tea latte before but never seen an interesting looking recipe until here. On the other hand, a no-knead bread that includes kneading in the instructions or a mac and cheese that looks dry both in photo and recipe suggest that it’s probably just as well this is a library book that can go back to its place in about two weeks.