As a rambler, i like Ms. Rule’s one-page rule for online readers.

When i post recipes, which i tend to do at the end of long blog posts, i tend to be all business, figuring that’s what people want at that stage. perhaps there’s a happy medium (not, please note, medium-low;).

Re long recipes, perhaps you see the recipes of some famous writers as works of literature.

Btw, the early Gourmet editors were distinctly not expecting a 99 percent-female readership – it was started not many years previously, in 1941, as a men’s hobbyist magazine, and in 1950 it was much, much closer to Esquire than it was to the Seven Sisters.

“Wash and wipe dry 3 dozen oyster crabs. Roll them in seasoned flour and fry, a few at a time, in hot deep fat (395 F). Drain and serve on a heated platter, garnished with fried parsley and lemon wedges, with remoulade sauce.”

That complete recipe is all of about 65 words. Imagine.

What I find at the same time astonishing, poignant, and perhaps even humbling about this old cookbook, is the way it blithely assumes a healthy modicum of prior culinary knowledge on the part of its readers. The editors were able to take it for granted in 1950 that most women (and, let’s face it, probably 99 percent of the book’s purchasers were women) already knew full well how to go about deep frying, knew backwards and forwards which herbs and spices would probably work well in a flour coating, and dog-gone if those ladies didn’t also have a pretty good idea of just what the heck constituted a decent remoulade sauce! And for those few who weren’t so savvy with a fry pan? Heck, the editors apparently had sufficient faith that they, too, would muddle through and figure it out on their own.

I don’t advocate we go back to those days, in part because that kind of cookbookery leaves far too much margin for error with modern cooks, but isn’t it fascinating to see how far we’ve migrated away from being able to handle that kind of simplicity?

Have we been molly-coddled and hand held into the ground? Hmm . . .

Casey, one of the commenters above, mentioned the desire for a little “poetry” within the text of recipes. I agree with her wholeheartedly. In the yellowed pages of The Gourmet Cookbook, the small poetic flourishes that appear are quaint and charming. The chapter titles alone are whimsical. My favorites are Cult of the Chafing Dish, Song of the Soup Kettle, and The Egg and the Epicure.

I love a cookbook with a quiet sense of humor, and the willingness to at least allow whimsy a foot in the door. Just like people, I want a cookbook with a little poetry in its soul.