Books highlight roots of Acadian cooking

Besides their French heritage, the Acadians of Nova Scotia and Louisiana share an interest in good eating. Since that's so, many of those visitors probably spend some of their time comparing the food of their ancestral home with that of Louisiana. Charles Lief and Heather MacKenzie write in their book, "The Taste of Nova Scotia Cookbook" that "the Cajun food that is so popular today has Nova Scotia roots." I've been to Nova Scotia. While the roots of Cajun cooking may be there (they do cook with local, fresh ingredients and seafood, although it's cod, herring, mackerel, lobster and the Digby scallops), the seasonings are not.

Louisianians wishing to do their own food comparisons might consider trying the Lief-MacKenzie book or the recently published cookbook, "New Maritimes Seasonal Cooking: Delicious Recipes for Light & Healthy Meals, Year Round" by Donna Young and Marg Routledge. (The Maritimes Provinces on Canada's Atlantic coast include Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.)"New Maritimes Seasonal Cooking" features more than 200 recipes that have been modified to meet today's healthy eating guidelines: reduced salt and sugar, less than 30 percent of the calories from fat and high-fiber content. The recipes emphasize fresh fruits and vegetables and readily available ingredients.

The authors, both professional home economists, have organized their 294-page cookbook by season - spring, summer, fall and winter. Each season opens with menu suggestions. There are recipes for traditional Maritime fare such as Seafood Chowder, Salmon Fishcakes and Wild Blueberry Bread and for dishes with an ethnic flair, such as Mariner's Lasagna, Thai Chicken Soup and Lamb Marrakesh.

Interestingly, a recipe for Bananas Foster, which was created at Brennan's restaurant in New Orleans, is included in the book's winter section but the authors call it a "Caribbean recipe." They also include recipes for a Louisiana-style Turkey Creole and for Acadian Chicken Fricot, which the authors explain is a typical Nova Scotia Acadian dish made with mackerel, clams, rabbit or stewing hen. They substituted broiler chicken pieces.

The recipe I tested from the book, Wild Blueberry Cake, calls for the small, wild berries found in Canada or Maine, but I substituted what is available here, the larger Louisiana-cultivated blueberries. Also, the recipe calls for the grated rind of an orange, and I assumed that meant the zest, the colored, outermost skin layer.

"The Taste of Nova Scotia Cookbook" includes the best recipes of eateries which participate in the Taste of Nova Scotia program, a province-wide restaurant marketing program begun in 1989 as a cooperative venture between the provincial government and the hospitality and food service industry. The idea of the program is to increase the use of Nova Scotia fishery and agricultural products in restaurants and to market the province "as a destination known for good food and in doing so to reflect the long cultural and culinary history the province has to offer," the authors write. Restaurants must apply for membership and meet all the criteria. They are listed in a Dining Guide that provides the user with such information as location, prices and specialties.

The 164-page cookbook includes a map of Nova Scotia's trails, which are used in tourism guides to divide the (almost) island province into tourist-friendly sightseeing drives. Each recipe chapter opens with a description of a different route, although the recipes don't necessarily correspond to the foods found in that area. The Evangeline Trail information is found with recipes for Preserves, Breakfast and Beverages, and the Lighthouse Route is paired with Starters, Soups and Salads.

There are recipes for Asparagus with Apple Vinaigrette, Baked Oysters with Arugula and Basil Pesto, Cranberry-Glazed Chicken, Duck with Golden Apple Rings, Fillets of Sole with Lobster Filling, Cape Breton Pork Pies and Summerberry Shortcake.

My family taste-tested Coriander Chicken with Linguine from the book, and everyone loved it. We didn't have tomato juice, so we substituted slightly diluted tomato sauce.

Both of these cookbooks include attractive full-color photographs and large, easy-to-read type.

I enjoyed reading both of these cookbooks, but local readers should be aware that the books include some recipes that call for ingredients that are not easily available here. This is particularly true of the seafood dishes.