Here's I Heart NY: Ingredients and Recipes by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, the second book in as many years from the team behind New York City's Eleven Madison Park. Their first book, Eleven Madison Park, focused on the foods of their restaurant; I Heart NY is "designed explicitly for the home cook." In the introduction, Guidara says the book stemmed from the duo's ongoing exploration of New York's cuisine — see the restaurant's recent menu makeover. The book is arranged alphabetically by ingredient, and gives some back story on a farmer or artisan before plunging into a few recipes that highlight each ingredient.
In terms of complexity, the recipes lie in an oddly unoccupied space on the sliding scale between accessibility and aspiration: that is, dead center. Are you going to delicately plate all the garnishes for a Corn Soup with Buttermilk and then pour the soup into the bowl tableside, as is clearly suggested by the photo accompanying that recipe? Probably not, but you could. The recipes are full of foams made with hand blenders, confit this, that en gelee, and each ingredient plated just so. Tweezers optional.
They're composed plates for the home cook and quite frankly it's a little surprising this space isn't explored more frequently. It's exciting. It seems fun to cook. And if you get stuck, they've included an email address so you can ask them questions, just like in their first book.
I Heart NY is out from Ten Speed on April 9 (pre-order on Amazon). Here's an excerpt, by Will Guidara:
Excerpt: A Moment in New York Cuisine
We were drinking Manhattans in a Paris hotel bar when Daniel first told me that he wanted to write a book about New York cuisine. It was a statement prompted by an ongoing conversation the two of us had been having, reflecting on trips we had taken over the past couple of years, to Lyon, Paris, Tokyo, Piedmont, discussing how in each of these places, there is a collective pride in place—each city's cuisine a celebration of its home. Yet in New York City, one of the greatest dining cities in the world, it has never been this way. Here, for the most part, our cuisine has always had a sense of place somewhere else in the world. Our city, so often referred to as a melting pot, is brimming with virtually every culture and tradition. As a result, you can get almost everything here simply by going to an ethnic neighborhood—that microcosm of a foreign country—or to a local distributor. It's one of the coolest things about living in New York, but it can also be our downfall. Too often, because everything is available all the time, we forget to look at what's growing in our backyard. In spite of the fact that New York is one of the greatest agricultural regions in the world, we have never fully developed our own identity.
So we decided to write this book—to play our part in the conversation to define "What is New York Cuisine?" and to join the growing local movement that has begun to take shape around us.
We acknowledged early on that a local cuisine begins with its local ingredients. This book, then, we realized, had to be not only a collection of recipes but also a collection of the ingredients that comprise them and of the incredible men and women who work tirelessly to make their existence a reality. There was a lot we needed to learn.
So Daniel and his team spent weeks driving around New York, visiting countless farmers who cultivate amazing ingredients, learning about their land and their crops, tasting their products. What he found along the way was that New York is full of lush farmland and dedicated farmers who are producing some extraordinary things. We found that their stories are compelling, their products outstanding, and their commitment to preserving the New York agricultural tradition exemplary. He chose to highlight the farms and ingredients that he had come to respect the most on his travels throughout the state. The more he learned about these farms and their farmers, the more we became interested in New York's culinary trajectory throughout the ages.This took us beyond the ingredients, to the historical narratives, and more research—and we quickly discovered that although our city's culinary identity is not quite intact, there are some wonderfully unique traditions that have existed over the years. We became obsessed with egg creams and soda fountains and Delmonico steak. We learned about their origins and their evolutions, about the legends that surrounded them and the people who invented them. An entire genre of food that was classically New York—smoked fish, potato chips, the oyster pan roast—all these dishes speak to this city's history not only as America's immigrant melting pot but also as a rich agricultural center. We decided to include these recipes and stories as well, because they had their cultural roots here in New York, but, perhaps even more so, because they had their agricultural roots here, too.
And so it was there in that Paris hotel bar sipping on that quintessential New York cocktail, reflecting on our relationship with New York and our budding fascination with it, that we decided to write this book. But it was through the process of writing it that we learned to fully understand the magnificence of our hometown—not only because of its lush farmland and the people that cultivate it, but also because its centuries-old culinary narrative has left an indelible imprint on American history. And we realized, in the humblest of terms, just as generations of immigrants and entrepreneurs had before us, that we love New York.
· A Moment in New York Cuisine [Ten Speed]
· All Eleven Madison Park Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All Cookbook Coverage on Eater [-E-]