Tomato-splattered pages
You know your favorite cookbooks. You know which recipes in them are your favorites. They're the most well-worn books, with bent corners and broken spines; pages splattered with the very ingredients listed on their pages. In the internet age you could argue that there is no longer any need for cook books. Indeed most of the time when I want to look for a recipe for something I have not made before I look online before I look at my own library of 50-plus books. But then then the internet can never replace the concept of a recipe book: a collection of recipes, curated by someone (hopefully) knowledgeable about their particular topic and written in an engaging way with beautiful photography, to inspire and entice as much as inform and educate. Indeed, the whole culture of "food porn", where people watch endless cookery programmes on television and buy huge hard-bound volumes to salivate over means that hopefully there will always be cookery books. As much as I love them as practical guides to improve my cooking skills, I love them also as historical documents charting our culinary and social history. Read and Elizabeth David book and you will see how she had to introduced Mediterranean food to the jaded palate of the 1950s British public. Even Delia Smith in the 1970s had to explain what olive oil was and to reassure her readers not to fear pasta.
Most of my books are second-hand, bought from charity shops, although normally they are not the worn-out books I have described. Either they are unwanted gifts foisted onto unwilling cooks, or they weren't very good in the first place. If they're any good then I do the tomato-splattering. Can you judge which cookery books are the best by their availability in charity shops? The Two Fat Ladies three main cookbooks that accompanied their television series in the 1990s are rare delights to find in a charity shop, Nigel Slater is an extremely rare fine in a charity shop. No one wants to give up these useful books to wonderful eating.
Delia, Gordon, Jamie and Nigella are in practically every charity shop in the land. Indeed I once saw Jamie's Fifteen Minute Meals for sale in a British Heart Foundation shop two days after Christmas Day the month it had just been released. I don't think it's previous owner had even held it in their hands for five minutes, let alone fifteen. The writers are of course publishing sensations, the sheer volume of their sales means that of course they will end up with piles of their works in Oxfams, Sue Ryder's et al across the land. But interestingly, certain volumes always crop up while others don't. Delia's Complete Cookery Course is often seen, but I would like to think that's because people are updating it with a newer version where she doesn't have to direct people to the local chemist to purchase olive oil. Ditto why you often see lots of "Volume One" of her Complete How to Cook; it's so good people upgrade to the complete volumes one, two and three (although I would rather have them split into the three separate volumes as it is the most unwieldy cookery book I possess).
I'm looking forward to Paul Hollywood's Bread appearing in my local charity shop. Once all the aspiring bread-makers-to-be decide they haven't got enough time, or go back to their breadmakers or back to their low-carb diet to own a book instructing them in the art of breadmaking. It will then join my cookery book library, next to Elizabeth David's English Bread-making and Yeast Cookery (1977), and reading the two will tell me so much about the society in which I live, as well as tell me how to make a decent loaf.
Most of my books are second-hand, bought from charity shops, although normally they are not the worn-out books I have described. Either they are unwanted gifts foisted onto unwilling cooks, or they weren't very good in the first place. If they're any good then I do the tomato-splattering. Can you judge which cookery books are the best by their availability in charity shops? The Two Fat Ladies three main cookbooks that accompanied their television series in the 1990s are rare delights to find in a charity shop, Nigel Slater is an extremely rare fine in a charity shop. No one wants to give up these useful books to wonderful eating.
Delia, Gordon, Jamie and Nigella are in practically every charity shop in the land. Indeed I once saw Jamie's Fifteen Minute Meals for sale in a British Heart Foundation shop two days after Christmas Day the month it had just been released. I don't think it's previous owner had even held it in their hands for five minutes, let alone fifteen. The writers are of course publishing sensations, the sheer volume of their sales means that of course they will end up with piles of their works in Oxfams, Sue Ryder's et al across the land. But interestingly, certain volumes always crop up while others don't. Delia's Complete Cookery Course is often seen, but I would like to think that's because people are updating it with a newer version where she doesn't have to direct people to the local chemist to purchase olive oil. Ditto why you often see lots of "Volume One" of her Complete How to Cook; it's so good people upgrade to the complete volumes one, two and three (although I would rather have them split into the three separate volumes as it is the most unwieldy cookery book I possess).
I'm looking forward to Paul Hollywood's Bread appearing in my local charity shop. Once all the aspiring bread-makers-to-be decide they haven't got enough time, or go back to their breadmakers or back to their low-carb diet to own a book instructing them in the art of breadmaking. It will then join my cookery book library, next to Elizabeth David's English Bread-making and Yeast Cookery (1977), and reading the two will tell me so much about the society in which I live, as well as tell me how to make a decent loaf.
My most recent find
Strolling through Twickenham on a Sunday morning, (who knew that it had department-store-sized charity shops open on a Sunday?) a good haul was had: Clarissa Dickson-Wright's Game Cookbook and Mary Berry's "Popular French Cookery" (I wonder if she did a poorly-received sequel, "Unpopular French Cookery"?). This book is one for the archives as the photography is beautifully vibrant and the styling is incredibly evocative of late 1960s / early 1970s cookery book publishing, as you can see by the typeface. I bought this primarily because it has a recipe for Isles Flottante (Floating Islands). Now a quite search on the internet you can easily find many recipes for this, but we recently tried a Raymond Blanc one which called for 12 egg whites and in a standard home kitchen with standard-sized pots and pans this is a truly industrial amount of meringue and was a disaster. Hopefully Mary's sanitised and slightly simplified version which uses 2 egg whites will be more manageable. I will update this site when I have made it!
Cookbook Reviews
Over time I will add more reviews of cook books here, new and old alike, as a good cookbook can have an extraordinarily long shelf life. Just pop into your charity shop and see, just avoid all the terrible Microwave Cookbooks that are still lingering on the shelves!
In the meantime, let me know your favourite cook books, and tell me why you like them. Maybe there will be some I've not heard of! |
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