But the book also appealed to an uninitiated audience. The authors were eager to explain what, exactly, arugula and pesto were and offered many simple suggestions for how to use them. Sure, they made excellent garnishes, but why not try serving the arugula with a simple garlic-anchovy dressing or scrambling pesto into eggs? Although some recipes, like the cassoulet, ventured into Julia Child territory (has there ever been a cassoulet that doesn’t take at least three days to prepare?), the abundant marginal notes, along with Lukins’s doodle-like line drawings and quotes from sources as varied as Shakespeare and Kay Thompson’s Eloise, gave — and still give — the book a tone that reads as friendly rather than instructional.
“We were good home cooks with peasant tastes,” Rosso told the LA Times in 1993. “Our palates were developing along with America’s, but maybe just a few steps ahead — and as soon as we learned something, we wrote about it.”
This meant the recipes were novel and aspirational, but not entirely out of reach for the average American cook. The ingredients were sometimes hard to find in supermarkets — one of the book’s marginal notes confessed that even the Silver Palate had trouble sourcing truffles, shallots, and asparagus — but the underlying message was, as Auguste Gusteau would later claim in Ratatouille, that anyone could cook. Even a hopeless case who used their oven to store clothing could assemble a nice charcuterie board (or, if finances allowed, a platter of caviar and oysters). Recipes weren’t sacred; they were meant to be used as guides, and to help novice cooks figure out what flavors they liked. “To follow a recipe repeatedly because it is safe, tried, true, and from a reliable source is boring and impersonal,” the authors wrote. “Take our recipes, make them your own, and improve upon them. That will be our greatest pleasure.”
What a relief that must have been after 20 years of the firm discipline of Mastering the Art of French Cooking!
This is not to say that The Silver Palate Cookbook was for everyone. Like all cookbook authors, Lukins and Rosso had definite culinary preferences. They loved big flavors, especially garlic. They were unafraid of booze, butter, cream, and olive oil. They adored mousses and mayonnaise, both Hellmann’s and homemade. They could not resist the urge to dress every piece of meat with fruit, or at the very least, a fruity vinaigrette and some fresh herbs. Their favorite appliance was the food processor.