Monday, November 10, 2008

Swedish fall cookbooks

En god höst prespektiv

En God Höst means "a good autumn" - or "a tasty autumn" and it's a really beautiful bright orange cloth-bound book filled with yummy, inspiring recipes for fall. And winter too, if you ask me. Everything in this book - many casseroles, a lot of potatoes and apples - makes me want to curl up under a blanket and come out sometime in the spring. Normally, I'm not super-fond of seasonal books like this, but I think fall might be my favorite food season, so this one is an exception. It's lovely.


Gårdarnas Mat by Maximilian Lundin is all about eating local and in season. He himself ONLY eats what's in season - which can sound extremely daunting in a country like Sweden where winter means.. well, ice and snow, basically. Nothing grows, so what you must rely on is whatever happens to be left over from fall - think root vegetables. Yet, somehow, it's possible to pull together an inspiring menu from this, and Maximilian definitely does so in this book which translates to "Food from the Farms". It's really quite nice - most of the dishes are however quite "restaurant-y" and I'm not so sure I want to try to cook anything myself.


Pasta Nostra by Giovanni Penco is another book that sounds like it might be in English, but sorry, just Swedish. It's a wonderful book focused on pasta as the title night suggest. It also has a small Italian-Swedish dictionary for food terms, and a few pages on Italian food in general. And lots and lots of photos! It's a very pretty book and it'd make a great gift to the Italian food aficionado. I have to make the Boscaiola, with parsley, mushrooms and salsiccia, and I really should try making tortelloni again. (I've failed miserably before, but maybe, maybe this time it'll work out!) In any case, I feel very inclined to get out my pasta machine and try a few new things!


Suzana said...

Funny how I also think of orange when it comes to Autumn... must be the zillions of pumpkins I have in my kitchen. The Italian cookbook looks rather yummy, too.

Pene said...

Ane, being a red-head means that colours at the top of the colour spectrum appeal to you more than other colours. Let me know if the first book gets translated into English.