Camille Glenn's Old-Fashioned Christmas Cookbook

Starred review from January 1, 1996
Maybe, as you're contemplating the bill for cognac and bourbon, adding the third cup of cream to a custard of eight egg yolks and two cups of milk for Frozen Vanilla Souffle or starting on the 16th hour in the Country Ham Baked in Cider marathon, you'll have some twinges of guilt. But no one eating the results will. Glenn, a much-respected food writer, cooking teacher and author of The Heritage of Southern Cooking, gathers recipes filled with spices, liquor and dairy fat into 18 seasonal menus for tree-trimming parties, Christmas dinners and New Year's Eve celebrations. The dishes are deftly combined: the very rich sherry-spiked Oysters in Scallop Shells precedes the beautifully herbed (and sherry'd) Roast Quail with Tarragon. Glenn offers her strong culinary opinions freely: "The use of sugar in a vinaigrette (or in mayonnaise) is an abomination!" She's a stickler for the best ingredients, whether bought (like fine bourbon) or made (like her Cognac Vanilla). That doesn't mean she's an absolutist: her Best-Ever Pumpkin Pie calls for canned pumpkin, as fresh can be "stringy." The plentiful tips are genuinely useful: breaking off rather than cutting artichoke stems makes it easier to pull out fibrous strings; covering candy truffles with plastic wrap will make them sticky; allowing gingerbread to cool in the pan for five minutes helps prevent cracking. With her expansive spirit and generous menus, Glenn offers us one of the best holiday cookbooks available.

November 15, 1996
This is a lovely, charming, and unusual book. Glenn, born in 1909, has been a cooking teacher for more than 30 years-and a gracious hostess for far longer than that. She's also the author of the best-selling The Heritage of Southern Cooking (1986). Her Christmas cookbook includes more than 100 recipes, grouped into 19 menus, from Trimming the Tree to A Fireside Holiday Picnic to Ringing in the New Year. Some are old family recipes, but others are not especially old-fashioned; some are unusual, others until now forgotten-but all sound delicious and certainly won't be limited just to the holidays. The text is nostalgic but far from unworldly. Highly recommended.