Emeril and grandma know best - keep it fresh, local

Emeril Lagasse is becoming my grandmother.

Don't laugh. I'm serious. Well, sort of serious. You didn't know my grandmother, so that makes this metaphor a bit tricky, but go with me for a few minutes and see what you think:

In Emeril's new book, "Farm to Fork: Cooking Local, Cooking Fresh," (HarperStudio Paperback Original, $24.99) he's pictured on the cover leaning on what appears to be the handle of a hoe or maybe a shovel. The background is a blur of trees and garden soil. He looks relaxed and pleased.

I saw my grandmother strike this pose many times, not on a book cover, but on her farm in southern Arkansas, usually while taking a short break from hoeing weeds in her kitchen garden. She would lean on the hoe, look out over her huge vegetable garden and smile, relaxed and pleased.

On the inside title page, Emeril is holding out a ripe tomato for the reader to see. Again, that's something my grandmother would do. And I knew what it meant when she did it: "Look at what I grew. Isn't it beautiful? Let's eat it."

Emeril's book includes a recipe for making sauerkraut. He says to layer cabbage with salt, mash it down in a crock, cover with a cloth and let it ferment for a few weeks. Almost exactly like my grandmother's method, and my great-grandmother, for that matter. His cookbook also shows how to "put up" a jar of whole figs in syrup and he even suggests serving them on homemade, hot-buttered biscuits. (Mom and Uncle Randy, are you reading this? Doesn't this sound just like Mammaw?)

In fact, just to help put everything in perspective, I'm thinking some of today's major food trends (eating local, backyard vegetable gardens, sustainability, seasonality and frugality) could be lumped together under one name - neo-Mammaw-ism.

Well, whatever we call it, I'm glad that so many chefs, foodies, gardeners and home and garden magazines are putting out new cookbooks on how to "cook local" - from the backyard garden, from the farmers' market, and from the community-supported agriculture. They're making it a lot easier for home cooks to come up with fresh ideas for cooking fresh local produce.

Last week, I took review copies of several new cookbooks home to read and test in my kitchen using ingredients from the farmers' market and from my home garden: "Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America's Farmers" by Sur La Table with Janet Fletcher, Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35; "Cooking Light Cooking with the Seasons: An Everyday Guide to Enjoying the Freshest Food," Oxmoor House, $29.95; "Cooking From the Garden: Best Recipes From Kitchen Gardener," edited by Ruth Lively, Taunton Press, $29.95; and "Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods" by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, Wiley, $29.95.

On my regular visit to the farmers' market that week, I purchased whatever looked best and made my mouth water the most, including a guinea hen, peaches (the first of the season, yay) snowpeas (the last of the season, sigh), blackberries, sweet purple onions, new potatoes, baby yellow squash, fennel bulbs, carrots, and green plums. From my home garden I had a little pile of sugar snap peas (the last of the season), baby round carrots (also last of the season), as well as flat-leaf parsley and mint. Definitely a diverse mix of fresh foods. I was glad I had the new cookbooks for ideas and inspiration.

Unfortunately, Emeril's new book arrived on my desk too late for me to try out any of his recipes for this column. But a quick look tells me there are a lot of recipes here that I will certainly try in the future. Some are in the neo-mammaw-ist vein, but many also feature Emeril's patented "kick it up" attitude, including Sweet Potato Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter (something Mammaw would never have made but I'm sure she would have loved), and Pear Parsnip Purée (made with walnut liquor, mmm).

If you're in need of a little inspiration to fuel your inner Mammaw, you're probably going to like all of these books. Here are a few of the recipes I tried for a recent dinner party using my finds from that weekend's farmer's market.

rstudebaker@statesman.com; 445-3946

Recipes: The flavors in the Spring Couscous Salad are bright and the contrasting textures are smooth and crunchy. It's the perfect side dish for a savory main course, like roasted fowl with root vegetables, or grilled chicken breasts. You can adapt the salad recipe to fit whatever fresh vegetables are in season. And now that we're coming into peach season, try the quesadillas as an appetizer at your next cookout.