Outlander Kitchen | Theresa Carle-Sanders
Outlander Kitchen: To the New World and Back Again.
By Theresa Carle-Sanders
Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: My name is Theresa Carle-Sanders, and my new cookbook is Outlander Kitchen: To the New World and Back Again.
Suzy Chase: For more Cookery by the Book, you can follow me on Instagram. If you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to share it with a friend. I'm always looking for new people to enjoy Cookery by the Book. Now, on with the show. So, for listeners unfamiliar with the Outlander and the Lord John Grey series, can you tell us a little bit about it?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: So, the Outlander series is about a woman named Claire, and she's a World War Two nurse, who after the war goes to Scotland with her husband, Frank, and while they're visiting some standing stones, she actually disappears through those stones and travels back in time to 18th century Scotland, and that's the Outlander story. The story is of Claire and her exploits with the man she eventually meets, Jamie, of course, a kilted highlander who's always a hero. And the story starts in Scotland, eventually, without spoiling too much for those of you that don't know anything, they eventually end up in France and then they eventually end up in the American colonies. And along the way, they meet a number of great characters, one of them being Lord John Grey.
Lord John Grey is the governor of a prison when we first meet him, where Jamie has been interred for the Jacobite Rebellion, and Lord John Grey, although he's tied to the English military, he's a very wealthy man with his own means. And after he's been the governor of the prison, he then goes on in his life to fight in Germany and to govern in Jamaica and his story intertwines with Jamie and Claire's all the time. And so, Lord John Grey books are a series of books that have been taken from the main series and Diana has run with them. So, we see all of Lord John Grey's exploits and adventures when he's not necessarily with Jamie and Claire. And there's lots of good food in those stories and lots of really great fun excerpts that I've decided to include in this book.
Suzy Chase: I heard that you have a two stage love affair with Outlander. What does that mean?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: When I first discovered Outlander, it was after a bit of turmoil in my life. I'd quit a job that wasn't really suited to me, and so I went into a bookstore and I went looking for an adventure and it was Diana Gabaldon's Outlander that stood out on the shelf to me. So, I grabbed that and I ended up reading it all the way through. It really helped me through that quite traumatic time in my life. It was comforting and there's lots of characters and it's a really great escape novel. And I then went on to the remaining books in the series, there were five at that time, all the way up to The Fiery Cross.
There's now eight Outlander books in the main series, and so most of us who are fans, read them over and over and over again. And it was after the first cookbook, I took a little Outlander kitchen break, understandably. It was a lot of Outlander at one time. And then, a couple of years later, I found myself missing some of those characters, and in particular Lord John. And so, I went back and read all of his stories again and that's when I discovered that I hadn't really been paying attention to the food in those novels. And there's so much food and so much travel and adventure, and so many different cuisines, that I really just had to do it.
Suzy Chase: So, Outlander has definitely become a catalyst for your life changes. And let's go to 2010, when you were walking in the woods with your dalmation named Pongo, what happened then?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: It was almost like a message from the trees. I go on a walk every day, it's a mental health thing for me, clears my head, gets my head straight and my thoughts centered. And out of nowhere, a dish from Voyager, which is the third book in the Outlander series, popped into my head and it was rolls stuffed with pigeon and truffle, which sounds quite exotic. And I was absolutely enamored once that thought was in my head, I had to know what they tasted like. And so, by the time I got home, I'd actually had this whole idea in my head, had blossomed, of a cookbook related to Outlander and wouldn't it be a great idea? And so, the first thing I did after I got home and dried off the dog was to write a letter to Diana's publicist at the time.
And surprisingly enough, I got an email back from Diana herself the very next day saying, "What a great idea, a strange idea, but what a great idea, why don't you do it?" And so, I did, I made that first recipe, rolls stuffed with pigeon and truffles and she put it on her blog, and that's really where it all started. The fans really seem to love this extra thing they could do with Outlander, how they could connect with it. And I had a blog for a few years and shared Outlander recipes regularly. And then, the TV show came along and when the TV show came along, they decided that was the time for a cookbook. And so, it all came together from 2010, up to 2013, that's when I started writing the cookbook.
Suzy Chase: So, when did you begin recording every mention of food you came across in Diana's stories?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Right after the email I got from her telling me, "What a great idea." So, it was back in 2010, I didn't have a Kindle at that point. So, I went through my paperbacks and read them all, and I have a journal. I now actually read on my Kindle and I highlight as I go, I highlight the food. And then, I take a moment when I'm finished the book to go back and record everything into that same journal, handwritten, so that I do have it on paper somewhere, sometimes things on computers and iPads and things get lost. So, I do like to have a paper component of it, but most of my planning is now done on an Excel spreadsheet. I get to move things around and I think there's over 800 mentions of food in some of the Outlander novels, in the Lord John Grey novels, so you can see there's a lot of foods.
So, from there, I have to pick the excerpt that fits the best and gives you the most emotional reaction and is the most visceral excerpt that I can find, that mentions that food. There's bannocks, and there's scones, and there's oatmeal and porridge in Outlander and they're mentioned dozens and dozens of times. So, to find that excerpt is really, I think, what I enjoy sometimes the most of putting the cookbook together is to find the perfect excerpt, so that people really connect with the recipe before they've even started it.
Suzy Chase: You started with over 800 notations and then you narrowed it down to 115. I can't even imagine that work. Wow.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: That's why I use this. That's why I use a spreadsheet because I can sort it any way I want and I can move things around and it's really easy. And it's actually, that really, that particular part, finding the excerpts and figuring out the table of contents and what the book is going to look like, is really exciting at the beginning. And it really lights the passion that fuels me all the way through until the book is written.
Suzy Chase: Outlander kitchen is not a Scottish cookbook nor a historical one, it's an Outlander cookbook. What does that mean?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: It means, why I say that, is that if you're not an Outlander fan and you've maybe seen some clips from the show, or you've heard people talking about it, you assume it's a Scottish story and that everybody stays in Scotland, so therefore all the food is going to be Scottish and 18th century. And 18th century Scottish food, I'll be honest with everybody, isn't necessarily translatable to our palates today. So, there's so many other places that they go, the characters go, and foods that they eat, the food in France, as you can imagine, is beautiful. They go down to the Caribbean. There's so many dishes that Diana describes that are new and different, and that are exciting for me to write recipes for.
And, then when we get into the American colonies, the food changes so dramatically from what they've had in Europe, that it's really, it's not Scottish food. And I have to say that when the first cookbook came out, I did get mentioned in a few Scottish tabloids screaming that Tortellini Portofino is not a Scottish dish and spaghetti and meatballs are not Scottish and enchiladas are certainly not Scottish. And so, that clarification is just there for people who don't really know the Outlander story.
Suzy Chase: In the introduction, Diana Gabaldon talks about the Scottish diaspora. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Yeah. It's basically the spread of Scottish culture throughout the world. After the Jacobite Rebellion, the second one in the 18th century, many Scots were forced off the land. They were either transported to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the American colonies, or they immigrated because of financial problems, the land could no longer support them. And so, what you find is that Scottish immigrants into American colonies greatly influenced the beginning of your country, as well as my country up here in Canada. And Diana, in that, is talking about not just the food, but the music, if you think about music and how it's been influenced, dance even, and so many other facets of our culture. The Scots have influenced culture worldwide, greatly, and sometimes aren't necessarily recognized for it by the rest of us.
Suzy Chase: I've heard you say that you had lots of requests for vegetarian recipes to be included in this cookbook. Tell us about the Mocktopus.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Oh, the Mocktopus with tomatoes and olives. So, I do get a lot of requests for vegetarian and for dairy-free and gluten-free. And so, I thought I'd have a little bit of fun with some of the recipes this time. There's a squid recipe in the book as well for calamari. And so, I figured we would take some giant king oyster mushrooms and grill them up, they're nice and chewy. They have the same texture as octopus, and it just allows everyone to participate in these stories and this food, it's food from fiction, so it's fun. It should be lighthearted. It doesn't always have to be historically correct. Some recipes in the book are historically correct, others needed a lot of correction to make them tasty for us. So, they're not necessarily true, but I do think they're adapted from history and they keep Outlander in mind all the time, that's what I say, it's an Outlander cookbook. So, I'm always referring back to the text rather than being too concerned about being historically accurate all the time.
Suzy Chase: Have fans reached out to you?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: They have. It's been a funny time to release a book. We don't have a lot of social media presence going on right now, pushing it, but I've heard from a lot of people that have had the book in their hands for a week or two now, they're really enjoying it. I'm so thrilled that people are enjoying the beauty of the book. Rebecca Wellman from Victoria took the pictures. She's an absolutely gorgeous, talented photographer, and I'm so proud of the book. And so many people have already been sending in photos of what they've been making, which is one of my favorite parts about this, is seeing what people are making and how they get the kids involved in cooking and things like that. And some of the greatest memories I have are cooking alongside my mom and grandma, so that's really special for me.
Suzy Chase: I have to say that the kitchen in the Outlander TV series looks absolutely miserable. There were no windows, it was in a basement with open flames. I can't even imagine the heat. It looked like backbreaking work. And bread baking, I learned from the series, took all day.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Yes. Yeah. There's a reason that women didn't have the vote. It was because they were baking bread and washing dishes all the time before we got some modern conveniences, it was a hard, hard job. And I have to say that kitchen in Outlander, the one you see on the TV is actually very grand. It's a massive kitchen compared to what most people in the era would have had. Certainly, I mean, when you're talking about how Scottish women cooked in the Highlands in crofts, which, a croft was their small house. And the Croft had a tiny hole in the roof where the smoke escaped, most of them didn't have windows. Most of them didn't have a table. So, most of the work was done around the fire in the center of the croft with no other light, other than the peat fire. And if you've ever had a peat fire, peat fires give off almost no light.
If you can imagine sitting with a bowl on your lap, on a low stool in front of this fire, trying to create dinner from most likely oats, maybe some fish if you were on a river or on the sea, and barley and kale, it was quite a drab diet. And it was quite harsh at times, up in the Highlands, which is again, why we don't always want an accurate 18th century Scottish cookbook. We want an Outlander cookbook.
Suzy Chase: That's a good point. So, your editor is a fiction editor, not a cookbook editor.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Anne Speyer at Random House is connected to the editorial team that works with Diana Gabaldon. So, it was the perfect fit from that point of view. This cookbook, I think in the industry, I call it a cookbook and I'm very stubborn. I think many in the food industry would be more prone to call it a souvenir or a piece of merchandise from the series. So, it's not always taken seriously in the food world but that's fine with me. I get lots and lots of feedback from people telling me that Outlander Kitchen is a cookbook they use every day, and that's exactly what I wanted.
I didn't want it to be the type of thing that was merchandise that you bought and then it sat on your bookshelf and you never used it. Working back in those days was hard and I think the cookbook honors that, and I think it should be greasy and it should have stains and it should look just like any other cookbook. Working with Anne is really great because she's got so many ideas from the fiction standpoint, and to be honest, it gives me free reign from a cookbook standpoint, I don't get a lot of harsh guidelines or criticism in these cookbooks, which a lot of traditional cookbook authors would be quite envious of, I think.
Suzy Chase: I made your recipe for herb roasted salmon on page 169 and asparagus mayonnaise on page 62. Can you describe the recipe for asparagus mayonnaise?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: It's really simple, elegant, make-ahead appetizer, that can be plated ahead of time and you can serve it alongside other finger food, or you can also make it as a side dish at a more formal sit down party. So, the first thing to make is the mayonnaise, and I give you instructions for that in the basic recipes at the front of the book. It's a great recipe to have right now when our pantry sometimes are a little bit low and stretched and we can't get out of the house. So, you can make that ahead of time and then you simply steam the asparagus until it's tender and then drop it into an ice bath. And by an ice bath I mean, a bowl of water filled with ice, that when you put the cooking vegetables into it, it stops the cooking immediately. So, that will keep the asparagus bright green and it'll prevent it from going that drab olive green that green vegetables get when they're overcooked.
Suzy Chase: Now, can you tell us about the excerpt that you chose for this and why you chose it?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: It's a strange excerpt and I think it's one of the ones where sometimes being familiar with the stories and the books helps. The expert is taken from A Fugitive Green, which is a short story that Diana wrote to fill in the cracks of some of the missing information of Outlander. It's how Lord John Grey's brother meets his wife, and it's a really great story. It's fast paced, funny. The Gray family are always full of fun. And this is his to-be wife, has been sent to London by her father to find a husband, much against the character's wishes. And her father has contracted a husband finder, basically. And so, the excerpt is the poor woman's schedule from bath to body groomer, to hairdresser, and then to the supper party. And I chose it because it's humorous because it puts this very independent woman in a very awkward situation. She's angry at her father. She's frustrated by this woman who wants to find her a husband, and in the meanwhile, she's trying to solve a mystery.
Suzy Chase: And how does the asparagus come into play?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: It's basically part of the scene. She's been chatting with a duke and they've been chatting briefly over asparagus mayonnaise. So, it's a really brief mention of the food, if you see what I mean, but the entire excerpt, when you bring it together, it will make Outlanders smile at the remembrance of the scene.
Suzy Chase: What's a body groomer? I don't even want to know.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: I have my suspicions. I don't know, particularly in this case, but for example, the Romans had body groomers and they had these scrapers. So, they would scrape the oil down your arms, down your body, and it was something that was done after bathing. I suspect it's something like that. It would hurt. If you can imagine scraping down your skin and hard enough to extract the oils from your skin, that's what's going on.
Suzy Chase: Okay. So, now for my segment called My Favorite Cookbook. What is your all-time favorite cookbook and why?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: I think I'm going to have to go with Julia Child’s Collection. It's one that a lot of cooks my age always reference. And it's important because my dad and I watched a lot of Julia Child on PBS when I was a child. And so, it brings back fond memories for me, it was my dad and I who really had a connection as I got older, with good food and food in restaurants, he loved to dine out, and he loved to watch Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Jacques Pepin, I'm a huge fan of him as well. And it's from my childhood, I find them comforting. I can sit down with a glass of wine and flip through a Julia Child's book and discover what's for dinner. I never, ever, ever follow her recipes to the T though, I'll admit it right now. She uses too many pots and pans.
Suzy Chase: Okay. So, do you want to give us a little hint, a teeny, tiny clue about your next cookbook?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: I'm dying to tell everybody what I've been working on. It's a big, exciting project. I can't quite say it out loud just because we haven't signed the papers yet, but if those of you who are interested want to go to my Goodreads page, if you look at the books I've been reading for the last year and a half, you'll probably figure it out quite quickly, and that's all I'm going to say.
Suzy Chase: Ooh, the intrigue. So, where can we find you on the web and social media?
Theresa Carle-Sanders: You can find me at OutlanderKitchen.com and then I'm also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And you can certainly do a search for Outlander Kitchen, you'll find me there. Also by my name, Theresa Carle-Sanders.
Suzy Chase: Great. Well, thanks, Theresa for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.
Theresa Carle-Sanders: Thank you so much for having me, Suzy. I had a great time
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