Everything Old is New Again

I started to draft this post last week, but pressing work caused it to be set aside. On Friday, seeing my friend and author Sandra Gutierrez‘ article in the Washington Post spurred me into action. In “Dated but not forgotten, these old food trends deserve a revival” Sandra brings back crepes, layered bean dip and chicken Marbella.

It is said, “if you wait long enough everything comes back in style”. (My favorite version of that saying is “if you wait long enough to make dinner, everyone will eat cereal”). Trends are cyclical, riding the wave of rebirth. Whether in recipe development or fashion design, trends need several lives as eventually new ideas will dry up.

Recently, I spent some time with a few new books: Diner à la Maison: A Parisian’s Guide to Cooking and Entertaining at Home by Laurent Buttazzoni and Cooking with Miss Quad: Live, Love, Laugh, and Eat by Quad Webb-Lunceford. 

On the surface these two books appear to have nothing in common, Diner à la Maison is a guide to cooking and entertaining like a Parisian from renowned French architect, gourmand Laurent Buttazzoni. Cooking with Miss Quad is the reality show star of Bravo’s Married to Medicine’s debut cookbook. Surprisingly, I am enjoying both of these titles for different reasons. Their one common denominator is the photography contained in each.

The photographs have a retro appearance similar to those cookbooks of the 80’s and 90’s. The  for Diner à la Maison provides a few examples of the recipes and images. We will be working on providing a preview for Cooking with Miss Quad next week. The photo to the left is an example from the look inside feature on Amazon. (Update: the EYBD Preview for Cooking with Miss Quad can be found here)

Diner is pure Parsian with menus and recipes to impress: Creamy bell pepper soup, Salad Niçoise, Neopolitan ricotta cake. Miss Quad is a little bit of  Southern comfort at its finest: Thick-cut fried bologna sandwiches and spicy mustard slaw; Salmon croquettes with creole mustard sauce. 

I’m torn on these photographs. While my nostalgic soul finds a certain beauty in the retro feel, I still swoon over the types of photographs that most major titles provide. What do you think? Should we leave the past in the past or embrace the retro look and retro dishes?

Darcie and I hope that the wobbly gelatin mold doesn’t find a second life and I wish to allow bell bottoms to rest in peace.