"American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes" edited by Molly O'Neill (Library of America, $40).

If you're thinking about curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book, consider "American Food Writing" edited by Molly O'Neill — but don't dare get cozy on an empty stomach. If so, Thomas Jefferson's recipe for ice cream, "The Joy of Cooking's" absolute best almond torte or Ella Rita Helfrich's 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off prize-winning Tunnel of Fudge Cake might just be too mouthwatering for you to take.

Get a snack first and start dogearing recipe pages for indulging in later. O'Neill, former New York Times food columnist and bestselling cookbook author, does a splendid job of serving up the recipes that kept us going all these years, along with notes reminding us why these gems have survived and thrived.

"Originally self-published by a widowed St. Louis housewife struggling to support her family, 'The Joy of Cooking' has sold an estimated 17 million copies in its many editions," O'Neill writes. "When I am asked what cookbook I would like to have on a desert island, I say 'Joy.' If you don't know how to cook, 'Joy' can teach you; if you do know how, 'Joy' can remind you of cooking times and proportions of ingredients."

The recipes include original notes from the authors, too. You get Julia Child's, and co-authors Louisette Bertholle's and Simone Beck's, original wine suggestion for a young, full-bodied red Burgundy, Beaujolais or Cotes du Rhone for Coq Au Vin in their pioneering 1961 publication of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

It's also interesting to see the original styles in which recipes were written through time and customs (still tasty!) — nowhere near as popular as they once were. For example, the 1932 recipe instructions for laying a stuffed codfish atop salt pork and basting it with its grease while cooking. Or instructions in "The Joy of Cooking" to be sure to grind almonds with a nut grinder rather than a meat grinder, which may be news for those modern souls addicted to food processors.

The food is fun. The writing about food is even more delectable. Here we're reminded that popular film director and screenwriter Nora Ephron ("When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," "You've Got Mail") was first a thriving —and often, she admits, neurotic — food writer and home cook.

"One day, I awoke having had my first in a long series of food anxiety dreams (the way it goes is this: there are eight people coming to dinner in 20 minutes, and I am in an utter panic because I have forgotten to buy the food, plan the menu, set the table, clean the house, and the supermarket is closed). I knew that I had become a victim of the dreaded food obsession syndrome and would have to do something about it," Ephron wrote in the introduction to an essay in her first book, "Wallflower at the Orgy," published in 1970.

What's more surprising are the sources from which brilliant O'Neill (who did a similar bang-up job collecting stories of street food history in her few-decades-old classic "New York Cookbook") pulls fascinating food writing. Besides Thomas Jefferson, who was a complete gourmet, get ready to chow down with Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. It's all just more good calories in this tubby tome — weighing in at more than 700 pages — that makes it both a wonderful read and an even more wonderful holiday gift.

"CAPE COD TURKEY" (STUFFED CODFISH)

1 medium-sized codfish

4 slices salt pork

3 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup soup stock

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 small onion

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/4 teaspoon sage

1 hard-boiled egg

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Quartered lemon, for serving

Yield varies according to size of fish.

Prepare (preferably a freshly caught) codfish; wipe well with a damp cloth and rub inside and out with melted butter, salt and pepper. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and add the finely chopped onion. Before the onion begins to brown, add coarsely rolled breadcrumbs and let brown a very little. Moisten with the soup stock and add thyme, sage and chopped hard-boiled egg. Season highly with salt and pepper.

Stuff the fish with this mixture and sew up the cavity. Lay the slices of salt pork in a baking pan and put the fish on top of them. Dredge with salt and pepper and bake in moderate oven, basting frequently with grease from the pork. Allow 15 minutes to each pound of fish, and when done serve on a hot platter with quartered lemon.

— Published in "American Food Writing" from original publication in "The National Cookbook" (1932).

ALMOND CAKE TORTE

Sift: 1 cup sugar

Beat: 6 egg yolks

Add the sugar gradually and beat until these ingredients are very creamy.

Add:

Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon or 1 small orange

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup ground unblanched almonds

1/2 cup toasted white breadcrumbs

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Whip until stiff, but not dry:

6 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon salt

Fold them lightly into the batter. This cake is very light and consequently difficult to remove from the pan. Bake it in an 8-inch tube pan in a moderate oven (350 F) for about 40 minutes. Permit it to cool in the pan.

Spread it with chocolate butter icing, or bake it in two (8-inch) layer pans lined with greased waxed paper. Spread between the layers: lemon and orange filling. Spread the top with confectioners' sugar.

When making a large cake, double or triple this recipe using pans with a removable rim in order to facilitate handling it. Spread the layers with lemon and orange filling, and spread the cake with white icing or chocolate butter icing.

Note from "The Joy of Cooking": "The recipe is the well-known German Mandeltorte. In order to have the right result, the almonds should be put through a nut grinder, not a meat grinder. This recipe must be starred as 'the' nut cake my friends so frequently ask for. It may be baked in a loaf or in layers."

— Published in "American Food Writing" from original publication in "The Joy of Cooking" (1952 edition).

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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