Bacon Quentin - Mario Batali big American cookbook: 250 favorite recipes from across the USA

WE THE PEOPLE of Americas most recent vintages have been grappling with our emerging sense of self-confidence and deliciousness. For the first two centuries of our nation, much of our cooking and eating was split be tween regular everyday meals and special celebrations. The weekday meals, the ones we ate the most, very often represented time- and cost-effective no frills ways to gather energy and fuel our bodies. They were not considered a joyous part of our lives, but essential for simple sustenance. They were quite often approached with a workmanlike mentality, rather than a happy moment of culinary expression. In recent decades, weve become more aware of the importance of nutrition, more invested in the delight of impeccable sourcing. Weve turned the act of cooking into something of a sport, but one in which both participants and spectators enjoy the thrill of victory. Our daily bread is no longer mundane; its a pop culture icon. If mealtime used to be about feeding the herd, now its nothing less than tending to our very souls.

The most common celebrations of our family meals have been based on our hereditary culture and, very often, non-American traditions. The food of our religious and cultural celebrations, of our solemn moments, of our annual traditions, and of our family gatherings has often been the deepest well of our most profound memories. Much, although not all of it, was born long before we were, and in a place not very similar to where we celebrate now. The recipes for these celebration dishes have been handed down from generation to generation, from cook to cook, from mother to daughter or daughter-in-law.

RECIPES ARE VERY MUCH A PART OF OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE, AS SIGNIFICANT, IN MY OPINION, AS PHOTOGRAPHS OR LETTERS (OR E-MAILS, KIDS, OR EVEN SNAPCHATS).

Often these recipes were not written at all, but they formed part of the oral history of many families, taught to the next generation by the venerated elders, most often women. (Men have been somewhat involved, although, historically, not often a very big part of this tradition.) Sometimes the recipes were written down, often on smudged note cards, or conserved on well-used and crinkled pages cut from magazines or the local newspapers food section, meticulously filed in a plain but beloved box somewhere near the pantry or stove.

Each of my grandmas kept such a box, and the treasure within was the result of infinite trial and error over years of patient practice. Some of my favorite moments in the past two decades have involved getting a note or a letter, or even a tweet in the last few years, from some happy person who had forgotten about a dish from their family traditions, and who had just seen or read or heard me refer to it or cook the actual recipe. These are very often forgotten recipes from an aunt or uncle or grandma or grandpa or mom or dad or neighbor, and represent the very significant and emotionally satisfying bridge from the past to the present.

THE DISHES ARE OFTEN THE DISTILLATION OF THEIR FAMILYS ETHNIC DNA COMMINGLED WITH THE LOCAL INGREDIENTS IN THEIR FAMILYS HOMETOWN.

Recipes are very much a part of our cultural heritage, as significant, in my opinion, as photographs or letters (or e-mails, kids, or even Snapchats). They are true points in history around which we file the rest of our personal and collective memory. I can look at my grandmas hand-written biscotti recipe on the little 4-by-6 card and can very clearly hear her voice, smell her kitchen, taste her antipasto, and remember things a photograph in an album will not bring me to. She is still very much alive on the little blue card in my wallet, and even more so when I make the annual holiday biscotti the week before Christmas with Susi and our two boys.