Pot on the Fire

Book excerpt: Pot on the Fire is the latest collection from "the most enticingly serendipitous voice on the culinary front since Elizabeth David and M.F.K. Fisher" (Connoisseur). As the title suggests, it celebrates-and, in classic Thorne style, ponders, probes, and scrutinizes-a lifelong engagement with the elements of cooking, and elemental cooking from cioppino to kedgeree. John Thorne's curiosity ranges far and wide, from nineteenth-century famine-struck Ireland to the India of the British Raj, from the Italian cucina to the venerable American griddle. Whether on the trail of a mysterious Vietnamese sandwich ("Banh Mi and Me") or "The Best Cookies in the World," whether "Desperately Resisting Risotto" or discovering the perfect breakfast, Thorne is an erudite and intrepid guide who, in unveiling the gastronomic wonders of the world, also reveals us to ourselves.