Although I spend most of my library time in the children’s department, sometimes it’s fun to browse the cookbooks. Once I was looking for something to flip through at the table that wasn’t too carb-heavy, so I chose Real Stew by Clifford A. Wright. I guess I didn’t read the subtitle — 300 Recipes for Authentic Home-Cooked Cassoulet, Gumbo, Chili, Curry, Minestrone, Bouillabaisse, Stroganoff, Goulash, Chowder, and Much More — because I was surprised by how much historical detail was contained in the book.

To give you an idea of the thoroughness of this cookbook, the introduction discusses types of cooking pots, including:

• Tagine (Tunisia)
• Kiskis (North Africa)
• Greixonera (Menorca)
• Cazuela, caldero, olla, perol (Spain)
• Güveç, tas (Turkey)
• Kakavia (Greece)
• Qidra, kift, halla (Egypt)
• Casseruola, calderiello, calderotto, pigneti (Italy)
• Daubière, tripière (France)
• Glineni lonac (Serbia)
• Bogrács (Hungary)

After the introduction the book is organized according to major ingredients: beef, veal, lamb, pork, fowl, goat, rabbit, fish, shellfish, vegetables, and mixed meats.

Wright explains variations, suggests accompaniments (including how to make preserved lemons, yogurt, rice pilaf, polenta, clarified butter, fried bread, and more), discusses etymology, mentions related recipes, and adds a good dose of personal reminiscences (like visiting Martha’s vineyard as a child, hitchhiking through the Rhineland in the 1960s, learning to cook Tunisian food from his first Arabic teacher, and collecting recipes from his Saab mechanics).

As you can imagine in a book of authentic recipes, there are plenty of obscure ingredients like tripe, chicken feet, marrow bones, veal kidneys, and specific kinds of sausage.

And then there are the historical comments included in many of the recipe head notes.

Some of Wright’s research goes back to the ancient world. About Zuppa di Pesce Siracusana he says that Syracuse has been known for its gastronomy since “the Greek philosopher Plato criticized the city-state’s culinary excesses.” A Greek fish stew called kakavia may be the same stew mentioned by Aristophanes (born 445 BC). In the head note to Tripe a la Mode de Caen Wright writes about William the Conqueror and the Norman conquest of Sicily by one of William’s relatives. At one point he mentions that “Shepherds roamed with their flocks through the summer pastures of the vast, empty plains of Extramadure, La Mancha, and Andalusia in Spain during the Middle Ages.” He also states that goat stews were mentioned in Don Quixote (1605).

With the discovery of the New World peanuts were brought back by Portuguese traders and grew so well in West Africa that they are often found in African stews. Pine Bark Stew from South Carolina has at least two origin stories, one involving two priests who were traveling with explorer La Salle in 1675 when some bark fell into the stew being prepared for them. Wright also discusses competing claims about the origins of Brunswick stew in 19th century America. He writes that Pot Eten is a pork stew from Dutch immigrants in Michigan, where they settled “nearly two centuries after their brethren in New York and Pennsylvania.” A Quebec-style stew included in the book is adapted from Jehane Benoit, who appeared on Canadian radio and television in the 1950s and 60s. The history of chowder is so long you’ll have to read it yourself (pp. 280-283)!

I like it when Wright references old cookbooks. A recipe for lamb stew comes from a 14th century Catalan cookery book and another was found in a 13th century Hispano-Muslim cookbook. Cooking tough old birds in wine has a history dating back at least to the 14th century in the earliest French cookbooks. Wright includes the original version of the first American stew recipe, which was published in 1796 (and also his modern version).

It was fascinating to read the context of stews developed in different parts of the world. I especially enjoyed reading about cholent, a stew eaten by Jews on the Sabbath. Wright talks about the Biblical origins of the Sabbath and how it is observed. In another place he writes about what makes an authentic Hungarian goulash, quoting George Lang, who wrote the definitive volume on Hungarian cuisine. He explains that Austrian and Italian influence are palpable in a “pleasingly bland” Slovenian beef stew. Describing an Albanian recipe he comments that both geography and history have determined the country’s cuisine.

Most likely beef stroganoff was invented by a French chef employed by the Russian Stroganof family; it uses strips of beef rather than large pieces of meat “reflecting a certain French touch to Russian cooking, a phenomenon of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian francophilia.” Wright also writes about how stew was traditionally made and eaten in Kazakhastan, including these delightful details: “The older people got the brain, for wisdom, the children were given the ears, so they would listen, and so forth. The guest of honor got the eyeballs.” He includes Bigos, a Polish stew that is made with all kinds of leftover meats. Traditionally it would be reheated multiple times, eaten in hunting lodges, and even carried in a cask by travelers on their journeys.

Wright often discusses the etymology of recipe names. A veal stew called La Genovesa actually comes from Naples, not Genoa, but “the name is meant to convey the rich kinds of dishes favored by this wealthy and powerful foreign merchant and financier class of Genoese who controlled the purse strings of so many cities in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages.”

I’ve only made one recipe so far (roast pork shoulder and Italian sausage stew), but clearly there is a whole world of stews to explore! (Remember Fesenjan, the Persian stew from Everything Sad Is Untrue? There’s a recipe for that! Though the recipe I’m eyeing next is chicken and butternut minestrone.)

What stew would you make?