"Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present" is a book for browsing and reading as well as for cooking. Alice B. Toklas presents over 100 recipes -- some simple, some elaborate, and others that are simply extravagant (mashed potatoes that call for an entire pound of butter). Poppy Cannon's annotation makes the recipes easy to understand and use in the United States, but the recipes themselves appear just as Toklas wrote them -- with a mix of the practical and the philosophical.