THE COOKBOOK TEST #0095: CUISINE RAPIDE

INSTALLMENT #0095 (PAID) WINNOWING / THE RELATIVITY OF LIGHTNESS / WORLD'S BEST SOUP? / LIQUID SHRIMP

Dear Subscribers,

I’ve been purging my cookbook library over the past few weeks. Nothing radical - just winnowing the intake stack, which is stuffed to overflowing.

Most of what I’ve been chucking have been vintage cookbooks from middle-aged white guys cooking standard Continental fare. Nothing exactly wrong with it, but an awful lot of foie gras and pheasants and rabbits - generally overproduced, slow, and expensive. If I’m going to eat truffled squab, I’ll have it cooked by a pro rather than messing it up at home, even assuming I can lay my hands on squab in the first place.

So as I’m whipping volume after volume over my shoulder I encounter the reasonably ancient CUISINE RAPIDE by chef and PBS host Pierre Franey and New York Times food writer Bryan Miller. Same basic gist: Continental cuisine, this time two middle-aged white guys rather than one. But during my cursory flip-through, something grabs me.

The recipes are neat, clear, elegant and often unusual - Poached Capon with Pistachio Stuffing, Cold Lobster with Hot Mustard Sauce, Grapefruit and Campari Sorbet. Continental but intriguing. Classic but updated without seeming, 30 years later, particularly dated. Seemingly legitimately rapide. Worth a shot!

at your service,

James

CUISINE RAPIDE
PIERRE FRANEY AND BRYAN MILLER
TIMES BOOKS| 1989

The premise of Cuisine Rapide is twofold: the food is pretty quick and easy to execute, which turns out to be true. The second point: the food is…

...lighter, purer, more healthful. For example, many sauces here call for less butter and cream and more olive oil and vegetable purees.

Which turns out to not be terribly true, since these recipes are absolutely chockablock with heavy cream, butter, bacon, and many other critical beloved culinary building blocks that I, for one, am loath to surrender.

That said: It’s possible that the authors did a lot of halving entire sticks of butter down to a half stick, and it’s possible they were operating in good faith. All I’m saying is that I was worried that Rapide meant “diet” in the most pejorative possible 1980s use of the word, and it sure doesn’t.

THE WORLD'S BEST SOUP?

The two recipes that I seized upon were, for no particular reason, both seafood focused. Seafood has a tendency to be complex and/or pricey, but both of these recipes ended up being affordable (canned clams and canned crab both fit the bill) and simple to execute.

I lived in New England for about six years in my 20s, and have gotten back there plenty of times since. New England clam chowder has always been one of my favorite soups - I first tried it as a little kid, in a bread bowl, at Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant. And I got to know and love the classic Legal Sea Foods version of clam chowder as my go-to version of the dish, especially when flying out of Logan Airport.

I was therefore suspicious when I ascended to the (now sadly defunct) Top of the Hub restaurant atop the Prudential Building in Boston and saw "Rhode Island Clam Chowder" on the menu. Qu'est-ce que c'est? 

Turns out: Basically New England Clam Chowder with some crushed tomatoes in it, effectively splitting the difference between the New England and Manhattan styles. I ordered it.

Upon eating it, I thought: “This is not only one of the most interesting clam chowders I've ever eaten, but also one of the best.” The acid and brightness of the tomatoes was a terrific complement to the cream, and it raised the question: Why not ALWAYS both tomatoes and cream? 

The two flavors back each other up like Crockett and Tubbs. Or, I don't know, McNulty and Bunk. Briscoe and Green? Pick your favorite detective duo. Like that. Ooh, Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster! Flynn and Provenza! You get the gist. Clearly I haven't seen a good detective show in a number of years. WAIT. NO. 

Carl Morck and Akram Salim! HA! 

So anyhoo, when I saw an appealing-looking recipe for Manhattan Clam Chowder in Cuisine Rapide and remembered the heavy cream lurking in my fridge, I jumped at the chance to recreate this bit of culinary genius. 

And sure enough: my slight twist on the book's Manhattan Clam Chowder (minus the pointless bay leaf, the unpleasant parsley, and the celery I forgot to purchase, plus a half cup of heavy cream) turned out to be absolutely delicious, easily ranking among the tastiest soups I've eaten anywhere under any circumstances.

Here's the kicker: I looked into "Rhode Island Clam Chowder" online before writing this newsletter and the reigning definition is... clear broth! Neither cream nor tomatoes! So whatever it was I ate at the Top of the Hub, it wasn't a chowder that fit neatly into existing categories. 

Thus I present to you a chowder for the ages, not New England nor Rhode Island nor Manhattan, but possibly superior to all of the above: