Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

One of my favorites cakes to make is my mom's Upside-Down Pineapple Cake, which was her mother's original recipe that is close to 70 years old! However, today I wanted something that celebrated the beginning of summer.

With a gorgeous bowl of tart cherries and some sweet fresh peaches smiling at me, I found my inspiration. I added some freshly squeezed orange juice and zest which compliments the fruit and adds another dimension of flavor.

This is an amazingly light, moist cake that is only made more irresistible by a thick, sugary crust that holds the plump cherries and peaches firmly in place. After one mouthful, you'll wish you could eat it every day.

I can never tire of a rustic dessert, especially one made with fresh, perfectly ripe peaches. Fruits like these when at their peak always make the difference, turning a ho-hum dessert into a spectacular one. I'd like to think that peach desserts are an American specialty, particularly a Southern one. There is the traditional peach cobbler, peach crisp, and peach crumble. There are also the peach pie and tart. But when simply baked on a pan with the edges of the dough turned over, you have what the French call a galette and the Italians a crostata. An extra crispy crust sets the galette or crostata apart from pies and tarts.

This crispiness is achieved by baking at high temperature and can not only be attained by professional bakers, but by home bakers too. Preheat the oven with a pizza stone and after adequately heating for a half hour, bake the galette in a pan placed over the stone. This is the foolproof method for the crispiest crust, but what if it's sill soggy? The French secret to keeping the crust from getting soggy is a thin layer of ground nuts between the dough and fruit. The Italians use amaretti crumbs. The nuts or crumbs absorb the excess liquid from the fruit and create a thickened consistency. They almost go unnoticed in the finished dessert.

Recently I was at a dinner hosted by Maille, an award-winning brand of Dijon style mustard that's been around for 265 years. Mustard was used in everything from cocktails to dessert. Mustard adds complexity and brightness and can be used in the background or front and center, it all depends on the dish. It also seems to balance out sweetness, adding pungency and acidity.

As luck would have it, the National Mango Board sent me a box of luscious mangoes and I was instantly inspired. Mangos and mustard! I'm happy to say this recipe for Mango Mustard Chicken was a smashing success from the very first try. The sauce of mango, sautéed onion, mustard and honey is tangy, sweet, spicy and so good you won't be able to stop eating it! The pungency of the mustard is tempered by the sweetness of the mango and honey. I bet it would be good on a roast pork loin as well.

Recently I was at a library book sale and as usual I scanned for hidden treasure among the cookbooks. Browsing cookbooks is nothing short of a history lesson. Here's what I found, as men came back from fighting overseas and Americans travelled abroad for pleasure, their hunger for exotic recipes increased and so did the number of international cookbooks.

Cooking on a budget was a popular theme in times of recession like the 1970's. Curiously the cookbooks from the 50's and 60's were dominated by the use of processed foods. Browsing the volumes, I began to wonder, just how did processed food come to such popularity anyway?

Not long after my shopping trip I began reading Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Not a cookbook at all, but a rich and fascinating history of cooking in America in the post WWII period up until the early 60's. Suddenly it all made sense!