As national food editor for The Associated Press, J. M. Hirsch writes recipes and food stories that are carried in thousands of newspapers around the world. His new book, High Flavor, Low Labor: Reinventing Weeknight Cooking (Ballantine, Aug.) is joining a crowded field, but Hirsch makes the case for why the world really does need another book on easy weeknight cooking.
PW: There isn’t exactly a shortage of books on easy, healthy, weeknight cooking. I’m sure yours is different… right?
JH: It is a big trend in the cookbook industry, and there is no shortage of books on this [subject]. But there is also no shortage of interest and hunger in these books. As part of my job, I generate recipes. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t repeating recipes, so I started watching, and I realized I gravitate toward really strongly flavored ingredients. There’s a reason I did that: if you use really strong flavored ingredients, it takes a lot less time and effort to get something great in the end. I thought, ‘That’s not a bad idea for a cookbook.’ I dislike books that offer a secret code: “master these 10 tips and you’ll be able to whip up dinner in minutes.” I didn’t want to write that sort of book. Regardless of the type of cooking you like, there are so many high-flavor ingredients that can make your cooking much more flavorful.
PW: You report on culinary trends across the country. What’s one of the most promising trends you’ve observed lately?
JH: Most heartening is that people are increasingly interested in cooking. For a long time Americans were going away from the kitchen. The one silver lining to the tough economic times is that people are cooking at home. As we’ve seen from studies, and from common sense, families that eat together are healthier. Even if you’re cooking with bacon fat and deep frying food, food that you make at home is going to be better than processed food that you buy.
PW: What’s one of the most disheartening recent food trends?
JH: Processed food is still part of the American diet. One of the things we need to work on is revising the basic knowledge that our generation has lost. How do you cook? The reality is a lot of people don’t know what to do when they get back to the kitchen. The processed food world is always ready to fill that gap. But cooking from scratch, and cooking real food, is not difficult. I have no training; I have no skills. I’m a dorky dad from New Hampshire and am crazy busy, but I make dinner from scratch every night.
PW: You used to be a vegan and are now a carnivore, which is at odds with the way many people’s diets are going these days. Why did you start eating meat?
JH: I was raised mostly vegetarian. For health reasons I went even more extreme, and about 12 years ago I went vegan and macrobiotic. But even during those times, when I would travel, I would eat everything. The more I traveled, the more I ate, and the more things I discovered. Over time I started adding more meat and dairy. There was no one day—it was a gradual progression. It coincided with the increased availability of organic meats and dairy. I think people should eat what makes them comfortable. I still think vegetarianism is a nice way to eat, but I also like meat if I feel comfortable with where it’s sourced.
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