Feature Stories Winter 2011 Issue

Read and Feed

By Terese Allen 0

Long live the book—especially food-related books written by authors based in or connected to Wisconsin. Here are eleven titles published in 2011 that set to rest any fears that the book is dead. So go on: Fill in your holiday gift list, expand your foodie horizons and support a local author. (Disclaimer: Madison is a city, but it isn’t a big one, so it is inevitable that many of the area’s food writers know each other. I’m on familiar terms with several of the following authors.)

CLUCK: FROM JUNGLE FOWL TO CITY CHICKS
by Susan Troller (Itchy Cat Press)
The tales herein are not so much about chicken as victuals, but chicken as fellow creature. You’ll meet factory fowl rescued from the landfill and hens that swoon for a rooster named Big Tiny. You’ll learn about heirloom breeds, poultry language and chicken jackets (yep, you read that right). You’ll also get recipes for the perfect hardboiled egg, essays by Jane Hamilton, Ben Logan and Michael Perry, and S.V. Medaris’s arresting artwork. The Capital Times’ Susan Troller pulls it all together with affection and humor, and with her own observations about the backyard chicken phenomenon and the pleasures of a life with laying hens.

THE FARMSTEAD CHEF
by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist (New Society Publishers)
In the acknowledgments of their new book about cooking sustainably, the authors thank dozens and dozens of kindred spirits who have influenced or partnered with them. My guess is that those same people are themselves thanking Ivanko and Kivirist for this proficient new cookbook-guide. Chock full of good cooking and good thinking, it blends inventive, low-on-the-food-chain recipes and preservation techniques with inspiring essays and portrayals of fellow visionaries. I don’t think there’s anyone writing about local foods these days with more openheartedness and finesse.

CREATING DAIRYLAND
by Edward Janus (Wisconsin Historical Society Press)
Dairying gets its due from the man who started the Madison Muskies and Capital Brewery, who has worked for two decades as a radio journalist and who unequivocally loves cows. “I believe the dairy cow created Wisconsin,” he writes, and then proves it. Janus explores the industry’s “big bang” creation in Wisconsin, the hard work and commitment of early dairy innovators and advocates, and the connections between our storied dairy heritage of past and present.