Straight out of the pages of Lucy Lean’s "Made in America: Our Best Chefs Reinvent Comfort Food," some of Los Angeles’ top chefs will be heading to the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai for "Made in America 2," five days of cooking classes, a farm tour, a fishing trip and sumptuous meals, taking place March 1 to 5.

Joining Hawaii master sommelier Chuck Furuya, Hualalai’s executive chef James Babian and pastry chef Linda Rodriguez on Hawaii island will be Nancy Silverton (Osteria Mozza, Pizzeria Mozza, La Brea Bakery), Matt Molina (executive chef of Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza), Ludo and Krissy Lefebvre (LudoBites) and Josiah Citrin (Mélisse, Lemon Moon Café).

Each of the chefs is featured in Lean’s book, which showcases America’s classic comfort food dishes as reinvented by 100 of today’s top chefs from across the nation.

Lean grew up in England and was fueled by an interest in American cuisine. She says not being American gave her "great perspective as an outsider looking in."

One particular curiosity was why Americans "were very down on English fare, even though so much of American food came from England," she said. "Most of American culinary traditions came from somewhere else because of immigration to this huge melting pot. Even something you think of as being uniquely American, like hamburgers, came from Germany."

Southern fried chicken also combined spices from Africa and a Scottish tradition of frying, representing an enduring legacy of the relationship between slaves and their plantation masters.

As for dishes that are uniquely American, she said, "You could make a case for pumpkin and squash dishes, made from ingredients indigenous to America."

You might say adapting recipes is an American tradition that didn’t necessarily arise from this country’s penchant for individualism, but because of the nature of the New World’s natural resources.

"When Italians came here, they didn’t have access to the same tomatoes they had in Italy, which were very sweet. Tomatoes here had more seeds, where bitterness comes from, so Americans added sugar to their recipes until they became very sweet."

Lean arrived in New York 15 years ago when, married to Didier Lean Rachou, son of Le Côte Basque chef Jean-Jacques Rachou, she found herself in the company of chefs at many of the nation’s best restaurants.

Due to her husband’s work as a Hollywood film composer, she ended up moving to L.A., where she became the editor of Edible LA, part of a network of regional food publications. There, a friend who works in the UCLA library led her to a grand old cookbook, "How We Cook in Los Angeles, 1894." Lean was fascinated by the compendium of 600 recipes, gathered about a hundred years after the city’s founding by the Spanish.

Inspired by the book, Lean came up with the idea of having some of the homespun, turn-of-the-century recipes updated by L.A.’s contemporary chefs. Her publisher, however, had grander plans of taking the concept national, enlisting chefs from Maine to Hawaii.

"I knew a lot of chefs in New York and L.A., and from there started making a wish list of who I wanted to be in the book, and those I didn’t know, I just called up and asked," Lean said.

In Hawaii she called on Peter Merriman and Babian. While staying at the Four Seasons, she was at breakfast one morning, swooning over Rodriguez’s lemon ricotta pancakes, and asked for that recipe as well, as a fresh take on a classic comfort recipe.

Merriman’s offering is kalbi ribs with macadamia nut rice, and Babian shows how to cook up a breakfast of skillet roast beef hash with fried eggs and crispy onions.

For many a chef the old recipes represented a puzzle and a challenge.

"When Ludo (Lefebvre) saw the fried chicken recipe, he thought it was a joke because it was really short," Lean said. It consisted of five ingredients — flour, butter, lard, salt and chicken — and one line of instruction.

Early recipe writers often did not include measurements or how-to steps.

"For a lot of the recipes, you had to bring a knowledge of cooking to it or it didn’t make sense. And when you talk about roasting chicken in early America, before ovens were invented, you’re talking about spit roasting."

Although the book wasn’t intended to be the start of a roadshow, the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai invited Lean back to celebrate its own chefs.

The book has also spawned fishing trips with chefs in L.A., and all the chefs were invited to a celebration at Mario Batali and Joe and Lidia Bastianich’s Eataly in New York.

Lean is now working on an app for cooking with children in conjunction with her blog, Ladles and Jellyspoons (www.ladlesandjelly­spoons.com).

Right now there are no plans for a "Made in America Part 2" book, but if Lean ever wanted to do it, she already has 20 recipes that, for lack of space, didn’t make it into the first book.

LEMON RICOTTA PANCAKES
From Four Seasons Hualalai pastry chef Linda Rodriguez, in “Made in America: Our Best Chefs Reinvent Comfort Food,” by Lucy Lean

Scant cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Finely grated zest of 1-1/2 lemons
3 lemons, freshly squeezed
6 large eggs, separated
3/4 pound whole-milk ricotta cheese
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, clarified, plus more for cooking
Pinch salt
Confectioners’ sugar
Seasonal berries
Good-quality maple syrup

In large bowl, mix together flour and sugar. Add lemon zest, lemon juice and egg yolks and mix just until batter comes together.

Add ricotta but do not overmix. Slowly mix in clarified butter (again, do not overmix).

Whip egg whites with pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks. Before cooking, gently fold whites into batter.

In preheated nonstick pan or griddle over medium heat, add some clarified butter and about 1-1/2 ounces of batter per cake; each pancake will be about 5 inches in diameter.

Cook pancakes until golden brown. Flip and cook through.

Place 3 pancakes on 4 serving plates, sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, garnish with seasonal berries and drizzle with maple syrup.

Makes about 12 cakes.

Chef Rodriguez’s tip: “Because of the ricotta, these pancakes do not bubble like normal pancakes, so you need to watch their color for doneness. (Be) careful not to overmix the batter, or the cakes won’t be as tender and delicate.”

Nutritional information unavailable.

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The Weekly Eater: Nadine Kam is taking a break from reviewing this week. Her column returns Feb. 29.