Maybe your Mom cooked with Julia Child — and more power to her — but many more cooked with Peg Bracken — and who could blame them?
Bracken, who died Oct. 20, was the author of “The I Hate to Cook Book,” a cookbook published in 1960 that blazed a very humorous, if slightly anarchic, culinary trail for working women who didn’t or couldn’t live and breathe in the kitchen. It sold millions.
In 2000, Bracken was profiled in Good Eating. At 81, she was still writing and still retained that signature acerbic-but-funny tone. (She explained that she had moved to Hawaii and lived there for 14 years, but returned to Portland, Ore., because she liked rain better than sunshine.) Though she faded from the stardom she achieved in the ’60s, we wonder why. Even a skim through one of her books (all are available for sale online) reveals a very talented, very funny writer who tapped into a hungry audience with a theme that still resonates today.
At any rate, her timing was perfect then. The dawning of the women’s movement set the stage for recipes with instructions such as, “Let it simmer while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink.”
“The I Hate to Cook Book” was her second book, written when she was 40. Bracken credited its runaway success to its attitude as well as the doable recipes that she had collected from her friends.
A subsequent comment pretty much explains why she struck such a powerful chord: “The recipes really are simple,” she said. “It made women think that you do not necessarily have to get out the crystal finger bowls when you’re having people over to dinner. Other things are just as important, and frequently more so.”
Green bean casserole
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
* “I think a polite-tasting canned-bean recipe is handy to have,” Peg Bracken wrote in “The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book.” This recipe has been adapted slightly from the book.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 chopped onions
A few parsley sprigs (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup each: cottage cheese, grated Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
3/4 cup soft bread crumbs
2 cans (14 1/2 ounces each) green beans, drained (or 3 cups any cooked bean but canned is easiest)
1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Saute the chopped onions in the oil till they’re tender. Then add everything but the beans and stir it.
2. In a greased casserole dish, layer this mixture with the beans, trying to end up with the cheese mixture, though the sky won’t fall if you don’t. STOP HERE. Bake it, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
Nutrition information per serving:
202 calories, 43% of calories from fat, 10 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 10 mg cholesterol, 21 g carbohydrates, 9 g protein, 1,339 mg sodium, 6 g fiber
