ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES FOOD EDITOR
George Cook knows of a woman who never throws away leftovers - at least not right away.
"She puts them in the refrigerator and lets them turn green, then she throws them away," Cook writes in his "Poor Man's Cookbook - Old-Fashioned Country Cooking for Today's Budget" ($9.95, Howell Press).
Cook normally doesn't throw away leftovers either. But instead of letting them go green, he uses them to help stretch his food dollars and to generate new meals. Cook says he can help people cut their food bills by up to half while still eating tasty, nutritious meals. He was in Roanoke recently trying to persuade Wal-Mart to carry his new cookbook, which explains how.
"You can take what most people normally throw away and make a stew for 25 people," or turn a 20-pound turkey into 100 meals, Cook says.
How to cook from scratch and recycle the leftovers, along with about 100 basic recipes and generous servings of humor, helpful hints and sage advice on food shopping and storage, utensil selection, kitchen design and vermin control make up his neatly formatted paperback.
On the day Cook visited Roanoke, cows meandering across his colorful tie paid tongue-in-cheek tribute to the herd of 100 purebred Limousin cattle the author raises on his Buckingham County farm. The "retired" contractor, construction salesman and occasional movie extra also gardens, tinkers with inventing - including a recent device to unroll barbed wire - and promotes his other writings, including a novel that is under negotiation.
"I have a vivid imagination," the self-proclaimed advocate of creative cooking said.
Cook learned to cook as one of 10 children growing up on a farm in Afton during the Depression. He claims that his mother and mentor, Minnie Cook, could take nothing and make a meal out of it. She remains the standard against whom he measures other cooks.
Cook's cookbook, compiled over a five-year period, reflects his preferences for simplicity and getting back to basics.
"Most cookbooks are too fancy and full of seasonings and complicated," Cook said. "I always thought we needed a book of plain, common, wholesome recipes that anyone can follow."
Toward that end, other than some classic standbys - salt, pepper, sugar, lemon juice, vinegar, ketchup and pickle relish - Cook's recipes use only garlic salt or powder, Worcestershire sauce, chili powder, sage and soy sauce as seasonings for main dishes and cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg for desserts.
Don't look for the book in the low-fat cooking section. Cook likes frying, and he uses real ingredients instead of wimpy reduced-fat versions.
"I believe that we can eat whatever we want, as long as it's in moderation," he said. He also tries to eat his heavier meals by midday and then taper off or eat more fruits and vegetables toward evening.
Experienced cooks may not be challenged, but beginners or people who want to experiment with different cures and cuts, especially of beef and pork, probably will find Cook's simple, straightforward recipes helpful. Even longtime kitchen colonels may learn some lessons.
For example, Cook worked for many years as a kitchen designer and remodeler and in the 1970s wrote "How to Remodel Your Kitchen and Save $$$." He said he found that people generally overload their cabinets and drawers with unnecessary utensils. His cookbook lists 20 items that he says are all you'll ever need. He also offers food for thought about saving money in a section called Shopping Tips: A pound of instant rice costs four times as much as a pound of regular dry rice; you can buy about five pounds of flour for less than the price of two ready-made pie crusts.
Cook cuts corners when he can, pointing out, for example, that a smoked cured picnic ham or shoulder costs about half of what a ham does. The shoulder has a higher fat content. But the two pork cuts taste very similar. Cook warns, however, that cheaper is not always better. For example, he explains that, "A good percent of a T-bone is inedible. So if you buy boneless beef, you get more in the long run."
Besides keeping things simple and basic, Cook's cooking philosophy boils down to a couple of rules, which he assiduously follows:
"To be a great cook, you have to experiment," and "Anyone who has to live off a limited budget should know how to make gravy."
The "Poor Man's Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Country Cooking for Today's Budget" is available through bookstores or you can order an autographed copy for $9.95 from George Cook, Route 3, Box 412, Scottsville, Va. 24590; (804) 983-2366.
Recipes for:
POOR MAN'S GRAVIES
SAUSAGE CASSEROLE
POOR MAN'S SWEET BREAD
OVEN-COOKED CHICKEN WITH TOMATOES
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Certainly nothing poor about the presentation:by CNBMeatlof is one of the popular budget-stretchers suggested in the
"Poor Man's Cookbook." color
2. ROGER HART/Staff George Cook is the author of "Poor Man's
Cookbook - Old-Fashioned Country Cooking for Today's Budget."
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