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The subtitle -- "A Cookbook of Sorts" -- serves as a clue to just what's so captivating about "The Art of Living According to Joe Beef" -- and what's frustrating about it. Knowing nothing beforehand about the Montréal gastropub for which it's named -- which in turn is named for its guiding spirit, an eccentric 19th-century tavern proprietor -- reading it recalled the voyeuristic experience of looking at a stranger's old high school yearbook. Compelling as the encapsulation of a specific time and place is, it's also a constant reminder of that which you cannot be a part. (The lack of photo captions doesn't help.)
This book, in short, is as much if not more about close-knit community as it is about cookery. Organized not strictly by dish type but rather by aspects of the restaurant's culture that make it so apparently unique -- one section is inspired by chef-partner Frédéric Morin's obsession with trains, another by his hand-built smoker, complete with instructions for jury-rigging your own -- it's also chockfull of anecdotes about Joe Beef's historic neighborhood, its larger-than-life characters and the unconventional worldview and methods of the owners.
Uncompromising in their craft
With the help of co-author Meredith Erickson, both Morin and David McMillan come off as punk-rock Renaissance men, uncompromising in their craft even as they're the life of the party. You may find yourself wanting to revolve in their orbit rather than imitate what they do.
Many of the recipes will, in fact, seem inimitable to all but the most intrepid home cooks. Though they're gorgeously photographed as well as clear and thorough in the extreme, only those in major urban centers will be able to source with ease or regularity ingredients such as rabbit, calves' trotters, pork skin, whelks and even less-common herbs such as chervil -- never mind horse meat, which until November was banned in the U.S., or the old radios for which one recipe only half-jokingly calls. The suggestion that "if you can't find razor clams, quahog will do" may sound to the average land-locked American a lot like, "Let them eat cake."
As for the preparations, with the exception of cocktails and condiments, each of them daunt in some way. Pork Fish Sticks, for instance, look feasible until you realize you'll have to make pulled pork first, work with gelatin second, and ultimately commit yourself to a process that will take at least a full day of your life. Heck, in his foreword, Momofuku's David Chang emphasizes the impractical nature of "The Art of Living": "I don't think anyone can replicate what these guys do."
Stick to the wisdom, if not the recipes
Truth be told, however, the insiderly, Bourdainian braggadoccio of that foreword is far more off-putting than what follows. If you never cooked a thing from the book, your storehouse of knowledge would nonetheless be better stocked for reading it. McMillan's notes on wine and spirits are particularly stirring, as he makes airtight and often hilarious cases for everything from grower Champagne to Chartreuse. ("I love red Burgundy so much I want to pour it into my eyes" may be my favorite cookbook quote ever.) Morin's month-by-month report from Joe Beef's urban garden offers plenty of insights for cold-climate green thumbs. And the section titled "Tall Tales, Taste, and a Few Theories," with its treatise on cutting lardons and its diatribe against square plates, contains many a word to live by.
Still, to shell out 40 clams for something that doesn't quite, because it's text-heavy, suffice as a coffee-table tome is to bet on its overall utility, and that may be a wager that only Joe Beef buffs and ambitious kitcheneers can comfortably place. As one who largely swore off cooking after completing culinary school to become a food writer, I found myself ruling out 75 percent of the recipes on complexity alone, probably the same 75 percent with which my more avid counterparts would have a field day.
I wound up resorting to the Lamb Paloise, hand-formed lamb-pork sausages with a yolk-based, mint-touched sauce. That seemed feasible even in a pinch, and proved to be so. (Just be careful not to curdle the eggs.) The same went for the Mouclade, your basic steamed mussels in a yolk-and-cream-enriched sauce with white wine and root vegetables.
All about Montreal
But then, those are the sort of straightforward recipes you could find in many a general-interest cookbook, not the sort on which Joe Beef has made its name. Those, in turn, bring me back to community, in that so many of the recipes seem inseparable from the context in which they originated, be it the veal-liver brisket that automatically calls for non-Montrealers to make a substitution for the signature ingredient or the marjolaine that requires you to build a milk-carton contraption in presumable lieu of anything like the chef's custom-made steel mold. I admire the authors' mastery of the art of living as they see it -- but only from afar. Their tireless integrity was ultimately to my discouragement.
Ruth Tobias is assistant editor at Sommelier Journal as well as a seasoned food-and-beverage writer for numerous city and national publications; she is also the author of the upcoming "Food Lover's Guide to Denver & Boulder" from Globe Pequot. Please visit her website or follow her @Denveater for further information.
Top photo composite:
David McMillan, Meredith Erickson and Frédéric Morin. Credit: Jennifer May © 2011
"Joe Beef" book jacket, courtesy of Ten Speed Press
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