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One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking: 600 recipes from the nation's best home cooks, farmers, pit-masters and chefs
From noted food writer Molly O’Neill comes a lavish portrait of our nation’s contemporary culinary tradition with the best recipes from the greatest home cooks.
Ten years ago, former New York Times food columnist Molly O’Neill embarked on a transcontinental road trip to investigate reports that Americans had stopped cooking at home. As she traveled highways, dirt roads, bayous, and coastlines gathering stories and recipes, it was immediately apparent that dire predictions about the end of American cuisine were vastly overstated. From Park Avenue to trailer parks, from tidy suburbs to isolated outposts, home cooks were channeling their family histories as well as their tastes and personal ambitions into delicious meals. One decade and over 300,000 miles later, One Big Table is a celebration of these cooks, a mouthwatering portrait of the nation at the table.
Meticulously selected from more than 20,000 contributions, the cookbook’s 600 recipes are a definitive portrait of what we eat and why. In this lavish volume—illustrated throughout with historic photographs, folk art, vintage advertisements, and family snapshots—O’Neill celebrates heirloom recipes like the Doughty family’s old-fashioned black duck and dumplings that originated on a long-vanished island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the Pueblo tamales that Norma Naranjo makes in her horno in New Mexico, as well as modern riffs such as a Boston teenager’s recipe for asparagus soup scented with nigella seeds and truffle oil. Many recipes offer a bridge between first-generation immigrants and their progeny—the bucatini with dandelion greens and spring garlic that an Italian immigrant and his grandson forage for in the Vermont woods—while others are contemporary variations that embody each generation’s restless obsession with distinguishing itself from its predecessors. O’Neill cooks with artists, writers, doctors, truck drivers, food bloggers, scallop divers, horse trainers, potluckers, and gourmet club members.
In a world where takeout is just a phone call away, One Big Table reminds us of the importance of remaining connected to the food we put on our tables. As this brilliantly edited collection shows on every page, the glories of a home-cooked meal prove how every generation has enriched and expanded our idea of American food. Every recipe in this book is a testament to the way our memories—historical, cultural, and personal—are bound up in our favorite and best family dishes.
As O’Neill writes, “Most Americans cook from the heart as well as from a distinctly American yearning, something I could feel but couldn’t describe until thousands of miles of highway helped me identify it in myself: hometown appetite. This book is a journey through hundreds of ‘hometowns’ that fuel the American appetite, recipe by recipe, bite by bite.”
Ten years ago, former New York Times food columnist Molly O’Neill embarked on a transcontinental road trip to investigate reports that Americans had stopped cooking at home. As she traveled highways, dirt roads, bayous, and coastlines gathering stories and recipes, it was immediately apparent that dire predictions about the end of American cuisine were vastly overstated. From Park Avenue to trailer parks, from tidy suburbs to isolated outposts, home cooks were channeling their family histories as well as their tastes and personal ambitions into delicious meals. One decade and over 300,000 miles later, One Big Table is a celebration of these cooks, a mouthwatering portrait of the nation at the table.
Meticulously selected from more than 20,000 contributions, the cookbook’s 600 recipes are a definitive portrait of what we eat and why. In this lavish volume—illustrated throughout with historic photographs, folk art, vintage advertisements, and family snapshots—O’Neill celebrates heirloom recipes like the Doughty family’s old-fashioned black duck and dumplings that originated on a long-vanished island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the Pueblo tamales that Norma Naranjo makes in her horno in New Mexico, as well as modern riffs such as a Boston teenager’s recipe for asparagus soup scented with nigella seeds and truffle oil. Many recipes offer a bridge between first-generation immigrants and their progeny—the bucatini with dandelion greens and spring garlic that an Italian immigrant and his grandson forage for in the Vermont woods—while others are contemporary variations that embody each generation’s restless obsession with distinguishing itself from its predecessors. O’Neill cooks with artists, writers, doctors, truck drivers, food bloggers, scallop divers, horse trainers, potluckers, and gourmet club members.
In a world where takeout is just a phone call away, One Big Table reminds us of the importance of remaining connected to the food we put on our tables. As this brilliantly edited collection shows on every page, the glories of a home-cooked meal prove how every generation has enriched and expanded our idea of American food. Every recipe in this book is a testament to the way our memories—historical, cultural, and personal—are bound up in our favorite and best family dishes.
As O’Neill writes, “Most Americans cook from the heart as well as from a distinctly American yearning, something I could feel but couldn’t describe until thousands of miles of highway helped me identify it in myself: hometown appetite. This book is a journey through hundreds of ‘hometowns’ that fuel the American appetite, recipe by recipe, bite by bite.”
864 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2010
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970 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
July 30, 2013
I picked up One Big Table by Molly O'Neill a couple years ago on sale. This is a big, heavy book resulting from the author's quest to travel the country and document first hand what Americans are cooking up in their kitchens. It opens with a lovely illustration inside the front cover of the United States and its agricultural products with the products overlaid on a US map to show their origins. These clever and informative old-timey graphics are sprinkled throughout the cookbook and add to its charm, as do the little vignettes on American life and ingredients. Every recipe has its own backstory included, which is useful and entertaining and the patchwork variety of recipes really illustrates the diversity in heritage we celebrate as Americans.
As for the recipes themselves, there are a lot of them. More than 600 in fact. I've made a handful over the years and haven't found a dud yet. This month I dusted off my copy of the cookbook (I have 300+ cookbooks in my collection so rotation among the volumes can be slow paced) and prepared the Makah Indian Slow Cooked Salmon one evening for dinner, Mrs. Dubrow's Carrot Noodles in Buttery Chervil Sauce as a side another evening, and Coletta Boan's Peach Pie in the Pie Day Committee's Crust for a dinner party dessert. Everything was delicious as expected and my guests raved over the peach pie. I just might track down Ms. Boan on Facebook to thank her for sharing her recipe with Ms. O'Neill for the book. The editors have done a great job of making sure the recipes are accurately documented as to yield and that the instructions are clear and easy to follow, which is always appreciated.
Verdict: recommended buy.
As for the recipes themselves, there are a lot of them. More than 600 in fact. I've made a handful over the years and haven't found a dud yet. This month I dusted off my copy of the cookbook (I have 300+ cookbooks in my collection so rotation among the volumes can be slow paced) and prepared the Makah Indian Slow Cooked Salmon one evening for dinner, Mrs. Dubrow's Carrot Noodles in Buttery Chervil Sauce as a side another evening, and Coletta Boan's Peach Pie in the Pie Day Committee's Crust for a dinner party dessert. Everything was delicious as expected and my guests raved over the peach pie. I just might track down Ms. Boan on Facebook to thank her for sharing her recipe with Ms. O'Neill for the book. The editors have done a great job of making sure the recipes are accurately documented as to yield and that the instructions are clear and easy to follow, which is always appreciated.
Verdict: recommended buy.
January 25, 2011
Another amazing book that has been recently released is Molly O’Neill’s “One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking” (Simon & Schuster) O’Neill, the former New York TImes food columnist, has amassed a huge undertaking – leaving her Manhattan life behind to set out on a nearly decade long, 300,000 miles exploration of the localism and regionalism that comprises the American food palate. She has taken on the task of unearthing every nook and cranny of the U.S. culinary map – discovering such gems as Lug Poche’s Smothered Pork Chops from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana or Ila Douglas’s Corton Pate from Sunburst, Montana or Mill Pond Plantation’s Beer and Bacon Quail along with hundreds of other hometown favorites the general public knows nothing of. (O’Neill also dispels many urban culinary myths along the way from the not-so Philadelphia birth of cream cheese to the origins of Thanksgiving that took place a century before the history setting meals of New England.)
Along the way, O’Neill discovers not just the recipes, many of which are multi-generational, but the rich histories of both the dishes and the societal origins from whence they sprang. Labor movements, racial tides, crop histories and population migrations all have a hand in the birth of these dishes and O’Neill’s book digs deep into the historical and geographical factors involved. “One Big Table” is not a book to be dealt with lightly. It is a heavy weight volume that could easily be dubbed “the History of American cooking”, because in unearthing these gastronomical gems, she has chronicled hundreds of years of storytelling as well. A mammoth project with an awe-inspiring result.
Along the way, O’Neill discovers not just the recipes, many of which are multi-generational, but the rich histories of both the dishes and the societal origins from whence they sprang. Labor movements, racial tides, crop histories and population migrations all have a hand in the birth of these dishes and O’Neill’s book digs deep into the historical and geographical factors involved. “One Big Table” is not a book to be dealt with lightly. It is a heavy weight volume that could easily be dubbed “the History of American cooking”, because in unearthing these gastronomical gems, she has chronicled hundreds of years of storytelling as well. A mammoth project with an awe-inspiring result.
February 10, 2011
I absolutely adore this book. I'm posing my review now because it is so behemoth that I'll most likely be savoring it in bits and pieces over my lifetime. The recipes are delicious, tasty, incredibly diverse (just like we are, America!) and it's filled with cool side bars about the history of oysters in the US, etc.
It's a treasure of a cookbook, and one of the first cookbooks in a long time that I pick up just to read for pleasure.
A tome that belongs on the shelf (or coffee table) of every serious or aspiring foodie.
It's a treasure of a cookbook, and one of the first cookbooks in a long time that I pick up just to read for pleasure.
A tome that belongs on the shelf (or coffee table) of every serious or aspiring foodie.
June 25, 2020
I want to cook more!
Barbara Rush's zucchini casserole is still my favorite, though my copy of the book has a stern warning: 12 cups of ingredients do not go into a 1.5 quart (ie 6 cup) casserole. Use a 9x13 casserole or other 12 c. serving dish, especially if taking to a potluck. I do love that casserole though.
Next time I harvest grapefruit for Food Forward, some of the split fruit are going to go into that blood orange cake recipe.
Glad I picked this book up at Powell's last time I went through Portland.
Barbara Rush's zucchini casserole is still my favorite, though my copy of the book has a stern warning: 12 cups of ingredients do not go into a 1.5 quart (ie 6 cup) casserole. Use a 9x13 casserole or other 12 c. serving dish, especially if taking to a potluck. I do love that casserole though.
Next time I harvest grapefruit for Food Forward, some of the split fruit are going to go into that blood orange cake recipe.
Glad I picked this book up at Powell's last time I went through Portland.
June 12, 2018
If you print a cookbook with 864 pages (read "very heavy to pick up," it had better be a heck of a cookbook. There are the usual food sections from appetizers to desserts. Many ethnic dishes, I suppose to show the diversity of American, a lot of traditional old-fashioned recipes (which interested me the most.) plus histories on pickle making, canning, hybridizing seeds, etc. None of the recipes really jumped out as special, but my biggest complaint is the sheer weight of the book.
April 7, 2019
Great book with a unique approach - to talk to local cooks and find their adaptations to recipes that make them unique and american. The book is also a compendium of americana, historical, food oriented, inventions etc. Well worth reading.
not-finishing
September 10, 2019I love this as an anthropological document but not really as a cookbook. [Sept 2019]
December 16, 2021
My wife and I have become casual cookbook collectors (nothing crazy or compulsive). I love to cook and find cookbooks to be a far better source of learning than classes.
One Big Table is a keeper, and will soon have stains and buttery flour fingerprints throughout it's pages.
One Big Table is a keeper, and will soon have stains and buttery flour fingerprints throughout it's pages.
January 30, 2023
Like all of the compendium cookbooks I have read, not all of the recipes or information are to my taste. However, books of culinary travels enchant me. Jane Stern and Anthony Bourdain are only 2 of this genre. I really enjoyed this book.
April 13, 2017
Cookbook club book for this month. I didn't find many recipes that were especially novel - it's more like a balance of traditional staples (from a WIDE variety of traditions) and potluck or dinner party foods. I enjoyed everything I cooked and tasted but can't see this book becoming a go-to on the shelf when others go deeper into specific cuisines or techniques. The recipes aren't very detailed or illustrated, either - it's assumed you already know what you're doing in the kitchen or have a copy of The Joy Of Cooking to guide you.
So, it's a book full of recipes, but I wouldn't call it a cookbook.
The real joy of this book was the story behind every recipe and the bits of US food history. You get a big picture of what food is meaningful to Americans in bite-size bits. I read through even the sections with ingredients I don't eat, because the tales of how great-Grandma's recipe got handed down, or how a dish became traditional at some local event, or how an immigrant chef adapted her dish to American ingredients, were so fun to read. It felt like being at a mega-size potluck full of quirky individuals and you get to walk around asking everyone what they brought. And you walk away at the end realizing you've just learned a decent amount of American history.
So, it's a book full of recipes, but I wouldn't call it a cookbook.
The real joy of this book was the story behind every recipe and the bits of US food history. You get a big picture of what food is meaningful to Americans in bite-size bits. I read through even the sections with ingredients I don't eat, because the tales of how great-Grandma's recipe got handed down, or how a dish became traditional at some local event, or how an immigrant chef adapted her dish to American ingredients, were so fun to read. It felt like being at a mega-size potluck full of quirky individuals and you get to walk around asking everyone what they brought. And you walk away at the end realizing you've just learned a decent amount of American history.
June 6, 2014
This cookbook is, quite simply, a must-have for every kitchen.
First of all, the incomparable Molly O'Neill traveled the United States, collecting recipes from everywhere. Many of the recipes were handed down from immigrants, so this cookbook is also a great representation of the incredibly diverse American food ways.
The recipes are GREAT. Every time I try a new one, it's another hit. So this isn't just a recipe collection. They all seem to have been tested carefully.
Also, each recipe is accompanied by some information on the person who contributed it. It's really cool to see all the different ethnicities and regional influences and "old world" trends in this food, and where the recipes came from.
I must also tell you -- the book is also beautiful. It is filled with photography, illustrations, anecdotes, and the like. A visual feast! If I had to keep just one cookbook, this one would be it. That's how much I like it and use it. Highly recommend.
First of all, the incomparable Molly O'Neill traveled the United States, collecting recipes from everywhere. Many of the recipes were handed down from immigrants, so this cookbook is also a great representation of the incredibly diverse American food ways.
The recipes are GREAT. Every time I try a new one, it's another hit. So this isn't just a recipe collection. They all seem to have been tested carefully.
Also, each recipe is accompanied by some information on the person who contributed it. It's really cool to see all the different ethnicities and regional influences and "old world" trends in this food, and where the recipes came from.
I must also tell you -- the book is also beautiful. It is filled with photography, illustrations, anecdotes, and the like. A visual feast! If I had to keep just one cookbook, this one would be it. That's how much I like it and use it. Highly recommend.
January 6, 2014
This just didn't really turn out to be the book for me. I was overwhelmed by the number of recipes, and they were all a little old-fashioned, and I didn't know what to trust. O'Neill has a more manageably-sized book of New York recipes, which Lissa gave me, and since it's not a library book I can keep it on my shelf as a reference and eventually get into trying those. But I think on the whole I prefer cookbooks where the recipes are primarily created by one author/set of authors, rather than edited from dozens of sources, because then I can get a feel for whether I like this person's cooking style/taste and either dump it or learn to trust it.
Read
February 21, 2011Like the idea. I just don't have the energy for it. This book is BIG.
From the bookjacket:
Molly O'Neill embarked on a transcontinental road trip to investigate reports that Americans had stopped cooking at home. As she traveled...gathering stories and recipes, it was immediately apparent that dire predictions about the end of American cuisine were vastly overstated...[H]ome cooks were channeling their family histories as well as their tastes and personal ambitions into delicious meals.
From the bookjacket:
Molly O'Neill embarked on a transcontinental road trip to investigate reports that Americans had stopped cooking at home. As she traveled...gathering stories and recipes, it was immediately apparent that dire predictions about the end of American cuisine were vastly overstated...[H]ome cooks were channeling their family histories as well as their tastes and personal ambitions into delicious meals.
September 3, 2012
Very well written interesting cookbook that has lots of insightful descriptions of who makes this dish and why. Its a collection of the best home recipes from all different types of people in all parts of the nation. Taken together its a very interesting culinary tapestry. Recipes look good too. I say that I've read it, but I just skimmed it several times. Its one cookbook I'd buy if I could find it for the right price.
January 27, 2013
This book is an absolute joy to read and to cook from. Besides a wealth of unique recipes drawing on various ethnic traditions, One Big Table includes the stories -- family and cultural -- behind the recipes. Interspersed are historical tidbits about the origins and development of certain food customs or terms. All of these "extras" made this a must-own cookbook, not just for the recipes themselves, but because one could actually read the book cover to cover!
February 15, 2011
Like O'Neill's "The New York Cookbook" only on a much broader scale, this book has 600 recipes from cooks, purveyors and foodies all over America. Full disclosure--I have a recipe in it (details here: http://kahakaikitchen.blogspot.com/20...) but regardless it's a fun and very comprehensive book.
June 5, 2011
What a wonderful feast this is. This is a cookbook, yes, and full of recipes but it is also so readable. Every recipe has a story about how the dish came to the US, and each section is interleaved with little histories about food in our country. I gobble this stuff up. Now I want to go back through and figure out what to cook.
September 17, 2012
I have finished reading this door stop. There are some interesting thing in here but it was hard to slog though the boring cookie and cake recipes at the end most of which I will never make...chocolate cake with marshmallows on it? Not going to happen. I may have try those Chocolate-Sauerkraut cupcakes though.
Read
August 23, 2011If you like reading cookbooks, you'll love this book. It has more background and stories for each recipe than almost any cookbook I've seen (the exception being Cook's Illustrated, but this is entirely different). I haven't tried any recipes yet, but the book itself is engaging.
March 9, 2013
I got to meet Molly O'Neill at a book signing at Borders for Mostly True. I have enjoyed reading the back stories in this book and am currently going through all the recipes and noting down the ones I want to try.
February 4, 2011
Great read, the food and the people!
February 5, 2011
Great culinary stories--i.e.the history of the Mason jar and the social history of American stoves--and some rather unusual recipes from across the U.S.
November 4, 2014
A fantastic look at the rich and diverse food culture of this country. This one goes on the wish list! You will want it on your shelf.
August 1, 2011
Currently reading, and reading, and reading. I love food-history-culture-memory and that what this is. A must for all food people and sociologists who need a little nosh.
March 29, 2011
Haven't cooked from it yet, but the stories are wonderful and I want to cook lots!
July 9, 2012
This book is a neat historical record of America's culinary regions. Fun to look through and read, but didn't see any recipes that pulled me in.
August 2, 2013
A fun concept for a book.
Read
August 7, 2013Love this book! I just wish it weren't so heavy. Pretty pictures, nice little stories, yummy recipes, perfect!
February 20, 2016
Local versions of classic recipes and ethnic recipes and unusual recipes that sound very intriguing. Very thick, 850 pages.
March 2, 2018
Wonderful book. Easy read. Awesome recipes. You’d better already know how to cook though. I loved the feel of moving though all the towns as I enjoyed the recipes.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews