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| ISBN-13: | 9781936661411 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | BenBella Books, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2011 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
INTRODUCTION
When we first walked into the offices of Sterling Cooper, metaphorically speaking, we knew Mad Men was going to transport us to another time. It wasn’t the retro look of the office furnishings or the décor, or even the fashions, though they helped. It was the background chorus of a hundred electric typewriters clicking away.
Mad Men’s obsessive attention to period detail also extends to its food: what its characters eat and drink, how they eat and drink it, and where. We grew up in the 1960s just a few miles from Manhattan, so many of the foods and kitchen and restaurant scenes brought back childhood memories. When we saw Betty Draper serve Turkey Tetrazzini and stuffed celery, or Carla, the Draper’s housekeeper, serve potato salad it was as if we had been transported back to our mothers’ kitchens. When the Draper kids watch Don break out another bottle of Canadian Club or the neighbors come over for bridge night, it reminded us of nights we’d sneak halfway down the stairs in our pajamas to take a peak at our parents and their friends enjoying cocktails and cards.
Judy has a long track record pairing food and literature in two previous cookbooks she co-authored, which naturally extended to curiosity about the food in Mad Men. But when friends learned we were writing a Mad Men-themed cookbook, many were surprised: there was food? All they seemed to remember was a lot of drinking, and maybe Betty making breakfast or dinner in her kitchen.
But there is plenty of food and drink in Mad Men. Sometimes it’s front and center, but often it’s a background detail, the visual equivalent of those clicking typewriters, but a detail that lends great authenticity. Think of Don and Roger Sterling’s power lunch at The Grand Central Oyster Bar; Don and Bobbi Barrett’s intimate dinner conversation while waiting for their Steak Tartare at Sardi’s; and the buffet tables laden with holiday treats the staff dances past at the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Christmas Party. When you saw Joan Harris’s Hawaiian-themed New Year’s Eve repast, or Betty’s Around the World Dinner, didn’t you want to pull up a chair?
Our goal was to create a cookbook with recipes for food and drink that either appears in Mad Men, or was served in the 1960s by the bars and restaurants featured in the show. We were delighted by the eagerness of many of those establishments to contribute recipes and photographs to this book. For example, since Don and Roger Sterling ate there, The Grand Central Oyster Bar’s recipe for Oysters Rockefeller has changed: but thanks to owner and executive chef Sandy Ingber we’ve been able include the version they would have been served. Sometimes tried and true recipes have survived the past half-century: the Caesar Salad at Keens Steakhouse remains the same, as does Sardi’s Steak Tartar. Occasionally, we had to go digging for information on a cocktail or dish no longer on the menu at all: the Beverly Hills Hotel identified and sent us the recipe for a cocktail Pete Campbell sips poolside as a Royal Hawaiian, a cocktail they haven’t served since the 1960s. There are times when we aren’t shown what the characters are eating, as is the case when Don and Bethany Van Nuys dine at the elegant Barbetta restaurant near Times Square. Barbetta owner Laura Maioglio contributed two recipes that were on the menu in the early 1960s and which Don and Bethany might have enjoyed.
We also wanted to remain true to how the food and drink we selected would have been prepared in the early 1960s, though we did occasionally use an appliance first introduced in the early 1970s: a food processor.
Period authenticity becomes even more delicious when you have some historical context on the side—information about the restaurants, hotels, foods, chefs, and real-life personalities that feature in Mad Men or that shaped the culinary landscape of the times. For example, Beef Wellington was a favorite of President and Mrs. Kennedy, and their White House once served Avocado Mimosas at a State Dinner for the President of Pakistan in 1961. There are recipes here for both. We explore how public fascination with the 50th state, Hawaii, translated not just into the Hula Hoop craze and singer Don Ho’s stardom, but the popularity of Polynesian-themed restaurants, cocktails and foods and include recipes for several of them. And you can’t fully appreciate the presence of French restaurants and cuisine in Mad Men without understanding the revolution in American culinary tastes spawned by the 1961 publication of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Alfred A. Knopf).
We pored over hundreds of cookbooks, magazines, and advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s in our pursuit of information and ideas. To be true to the era, we looked for cookbooks the characters might have used. When Joan Harris (formerly Holloway) made that crown roast in her tiny kitchen to serve at a dinner party, we turned to The Small Kitchen Cookbook by Nina Mortellito (Walker and Company, 1964) for a recipe. When Pete Campbell asks his new wife to make rib-eye in the pan, we thought a logical cookbook selection for Trudy cooking for her “ad man” would have been The Madison Avenue Cookbook by Alan Koehler (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962).
Those cookbooks and magazines took us back to the 1960s and not only helped us choose and develop recipes, but enhanced our appreciation of how various food-related chores and even the different cocktails men and women favored tended to be gender specific.
Which brings us to those cocktails. There are times when Sterling Cooper might aptly be renamed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (minus the firearms, though who knows what Bert Cooper keeps in his desk). The establishments frequented by Don Draper and his colleagues provided many of the cocktails for this book. For example, the recipes for a Sidecar and a Vesper come courtesy of P.J. Clarke’s where Peggy Olson and others from Sterling Cooper celebrate her early copywriting success, and the Manhattan from The Oak Bar where Don and Roger sometimes stopped for a drink.
To ensure an authentic Mad Men experience every recipe is introduced through a specific scene in the show. And to enhance your enjoyment of the food and drink we scoured period cookbooks and magazines for tips on throwing a successful cocktail or dinner party. We also compiled a small guide to some of the restaurants and bars frequented by Mad Men characters. On your next trip to New York stop by and tell them Don sent you.
We, and a small army of volunteer recipe testers, cracked hundreds of eggs, baked at least a hundred pounds of butter and sugar into various pies and cakes, and poured gallons of gin, vodka and whiskey as we tested and retested recipes for this book (even when some didn’t need retesting). We carved Crown Roasts and hams, shucked dozens of oysters and peeled pounds of potatoes, too. So, we can vouch for both the authenticity and the tastiness of the food and drink on these pages. Whether you like to cook, eat, drink, or simply enjoy devouring all things Mad Men, our hope is that this book will enhance your appreciation of the show and enrich your understanding of the times in which it is set.
—Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin
"Border[ing] on culinary anthropology . . . the cookbook offers an exhaustive history of New York dining in the 1960s, right down to the actual recipes used in Draper haunts like Sardi's and The Grand Central Oyster Bar."
—Associated Press
"Part cookbook, part annotated episode guide, this entertaining read has everything the die-hard Mad Men fan needs to host a fantastic cocktail party."
—Library Journal
"As fun as the book is, Gelman and Zheutlin offer solid, well-researched recipes that can be confidently served to guests."
—Publishers Weekly
"A culinary love letter to the award-winning drama."
—The Boston Herald
"Mad Men isn't all about booze-swilling: There are also meals—plenty of meals. This stylish cookbook offers recipes for food that appears on the show, whether it's Betty's Turkey Tetrazzini or Sal's Spaghetti and Meatballs."
—AM New York
"Surprisingly informative . . . It becomes clear that all the meals and snacks prepared, consumed, offered, and rejected on the series tell a story. . . Use the book as a primer for seasons 1 through 4 while you wait impatiently, bowl of homemade Chex Mix close at hand, for season 5 to air at long last."
—Bookforum
"[I]t is obvious that I would greet the [Unofficial] Mad Men Cookbook with extravagant enthusiasm. And I couldn’t resist [the] recipe for cream cheese and nut balls—the perfect appetiser for your suitably retro cocktail hour."
—Nigella Lawson
"Beautifully put together . . . it has a retro feel with a touch of timelessness . . . a must-have for any Mad Men fan."
—Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
"A treat! It's like going back to our parents' time and childhood with a very different eye in terms of where we are in the culinary world today. A fascinating culinary time warp."
—Evan Kleiman, Good Food, KCRW (NPR) Los Angeles
"offbeat salute to the AMC series"
—The Baltimore Sun
"Why give a ho-hum, everyday cookbook when you could give one that’s Don Draper-approved instead? This book serves up more than 70 recipes from the show . . . as well as oodles of historical detail . . . The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook is sure to appeal to foodies, history buffs, and Mad Men fans alike!"
—BettyConfidential.com
"Season 5 of Mad Men won’t premiere until March, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a jump-start on the festivities by throwing your very own soirée . . . But stiff drinks aside, how do you ensure your retro menu is period-appropriate? For that, turn to The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook: Inside the Kitchens, Bars, and Restaurants of Mad Men."
—New York Post
"While we desperately wait for the new season to arrive and console ourselves by watching AMC reruns and past episodes on Netflix, the book provides a new way of reliving the glory of the past, while building anticipation for the future."
—TheDailyMeal.com
"The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook is so pure: '60s classics like mushroom canapes on melba toast, turkey tetrazzini, chicken kiev. We love it!"
—The Art of Eating Magazine
"Mad Men's seemingly authentic representation of 1960s America stems from its attention to historical detail—in terms of wardrobe, set dressing and cultural references—without ever crossing into kitsch. The food on the show is no exception . . . Happily, every canape, chile relleno and deviled egg has been collected into the The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook—a collection of recipes and historical context for nearly every bite or sip consumed on the show."
—LA Weekly
"A more classic selection of original New York recipes has perhaps never been assembled . . . an entertaining collection, well-researched and ready for your weekend soirees and viewing parties."
—The Bowery Boys
"The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook is a flashback to the days of My Three Sons, Leave it to Beaver, and the Donna Reed Show all wrapped up in a neat bundle with a fun romp through the food of that era. If you wish you had grown up in the 1960s, relish the idea of having a cocktail hour every night or wish it was still appropriate to wear a silk chiffon dress and pearls to go to the grocery store, you will love this book."
—The Heritage Cook
"If you can’t wait for Mad Men and Jon Hamm’s face to get back on the air . . . whet your appetite with The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook . . . It takes home cooks back to the culinary world of 1960s America."
—The Miami Herald
"For the budding chef or burgeoning mixologist the recipes in The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook are a chance to really test your throwback brawn in the kitchen with style, flair, and a touch of mid-century glamor. While for the seasoned foodie it is a walk through the history of the American table. And it is the definitive guide to all the best cocktails and snacks for your Mad Men premiere party—the party for which I am anxiously awaiting my email invitation."
—Girl's Guide to the Galaxy
"[The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook] is like a nifty culinary time capsule . . . it's the next best thing to being there."
—AlDenteBlog.com
"Authors Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin have paid as much attention to period detail as the show's creators by tracking down versions of recipes that would have been served during the Mad Men era."
—San Antonio Express-News
"In a volume that’s equal parts cookbook and historical snapshot of 1960s New York, Mad Men fanatics Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin help readers savor nearly every sip and morsel swallowed by Don Draper and crew during the show’s first four seasons."
—Boston Globe Magazine
"The . . . authors and their team got it right. Thanks to loads of research, testing and attention to detail, The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook . . . will pull you straight into the scenes of the AMC Emmy Award-winning show’s dining and drinking delights!"
—SheKnows.com
"Get the matches, light the stove, chill your glasses. Your menu's right here."
—Jezebel.com
"The . . . authors have immersed themselves in Matthew Weiner's 1960s, keenly examining the series in search of the recipes shared in their book. And the recipes are spot on, from cocktails to canapés, every one introduced with a synopsis of the episode it was plucked from."
—SeriousEats.com
"Like a meal in a fine restaurant, The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook is elegant in its presentation...extra attention to detail is what elevates this book over other cookbooks . . . Even if you never cook a thing, it’s still a good read."
—UltraSwank.net
"[A]s much a history lesson as a recipe collection."
—The Tampa Tribune
"[C]hock-full of recipes and back stories of the show's drinks, deserts and entrees."
—Advertising Age
Cookbooks are among the most popular genres of books, across the board. Even if you never actually get around to trying out any of the recipes in one, they’re so well made, what with the hardbound bindings and the hundreds of glorious food photos, that they still make a great keepsake, gift, or coffee table book. […]
