Cookbook Watch

I was looking for Swedish crisp bread at Ikea when my eye fell on one of those magic-carpet books that sometimes appears from nowhere. The title was “Crayfish Rhapsody.” It turned out to be a committee effort published in Malmo by Gorman Gruppen/Raben Prisma, and from the first glimpse of a tree-screened lake in the endpaper photographs I was transported to a world I never knew existed. It seems that Sweden’s legal crayfish season has traditionally started Aug. 8. Anyone who can heads for some lakeside spot, lets down traps in the dark by moonlight or flashlight, and consumes mountains of boiled crayfish (al fresco or indoors) with the aid of paper-moon lanterns, party hats and unlimited schnapps. In an endearingly unpredictable English translation, the miscellaneous contributors have great fun with every aspect of this national institution. I fear that nobody could possibly cook any of the several dozen recipes (there’s even one billed as “Crawfish Gumbo”) without preternatural interpretive powers. I’ve never seen this utterly delightful book anywhere but Ikea and there only once in a while. However, it may be ordered for $45 plus shipping from the American Swedish Institute, (800) 5SWEDEN, 2600 Park Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55407.