The recipes for ethnic family fare and modest treats in this bouquet to Brooklyn are steeped in memories of the days ''when Brooklyn was the world.'' In the '30s and '40s along 86th Street under the el, three cents bought the Brooklyn version of a charlotte russe, sometimes called charley roosh or chararoose. In Jewish neighborhoods on Fridays whole blocks smelled of Saturday's pot roasts, made early to avoid cooking on the Sabbath. A little later, on TV's The Honeymooners (set in Brooklyn during the '50s), refrigerator raider Ed Norton pestered Ralph for chowchow and piccalilli-so those recipes turn up in The Brooklyn Cookbook. In all, this inclusive sampler draws on a score of ethnic groups, from the early Dutch to the latest Asian arrivals, and on a roster of Brooklyn-born celebrities and borough institutions. All of which seems evidence enough that Brooklyn was indeed the world, and might as well be yet. A-
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