I tend to buy cook books quite regularly I love going into a bookshop and spending hours browsing books and one section I love is the cookery book section. I buy all sorts of cookery books, some for reference and some simply for pleasure reading. Many of the books sit unused on the shelves after first looking through them and I wonder why I bothered buy them at all. But others cookbooks are invaluable.
Larousse Gastronomique
For guidance there is one book that has the definative answer to any culinary questions I might have and that is ‘Larousse Gastronomique’. It is a tome of a book, the War & Peace of the food world if you will and weighing in at under 3.5 kilos/under 7lbs, and packed with gazzilions of food related stuff that most of us will probably never read in their entirety but still need from time to time. And, if like me, you are a stickler about classic recipes, it is the book you need (smoked chicken in a Caeser salad anyone!). I’d highly recommend this book to everyone who has an interest in food.
In the Preface: “Fifty years ago, in his preface to the first edition of Larousse Gastronomique Auguste Escoffier wrote: “To undertake the task of writing the history of a country’s food, to set out the changes which, through the centuries, have been made in the way in which it has been presented and served, to describe and comment upon the improvements in its cooking, is equivalent to painting a portrait evoking a country’s whole civilization.” This was an elegantly phrased acknowledgement of the monumental work by Prosper Montagne, assisted by Dr. Gottschalk in the compilation of the historical, scientific and medical sections.”
Larousse is an absolute must in any culinary library.
A Day at elBulli ~ Ferran Adria
Another tome, even larger in physical size but a similar weight to Larousse (over 3.5 kilos/nearly 7lbs) is ‘A Day at elBulli. An insight into the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adria’. It is a magnificent book and I spent ages almost drooling over it when I first got it. This book is beyond fabulous in so many ways and a perfect gift for foodies everywhere.
From the cover “A Day at elBulli: an insight into the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adria is an exclusive look behind the scenes at el Bulli, the best restaurant in the world, and into the mind of Ferran Adria, the most creative chef working today. With 2,000,000 requests for reservations every year and only 8,000 places, it is notoriously difficult to get a table there.”
About elBulli: It is a restaurant run by Ferran Adria and Juli Soler at Cala Montjoi near the town of Roses in the province of Girona, northern Spain. It has been voted ‘Best Restaurant in the World’ four times by an international panel of cheffs and food criticst for Restaurant magazine. (Wine lovers will love this place also ~ they have around 1,600 wines on their wine list). I SO, SO, SO want to go there some day.
This is certainly one of the the most fabulous food and restaurant related books in the world.
Back on earth … more recipe books I like:
Bistro Cooking ~ by Patricia Wells
For anyone who enjoys simple, authentic French cooking, this is the book for you. I first saw it a number of years back when it was the property of a friend of ours who is a chef. I kept on about it for so long he eventually gave the book to me. Perserverence pays.
From the cover:
‘Pack a bistro picnic, lay out a sumptuous bistro buffet, or cook up bistro for an easy and delicious weeknights dinner. For all occasions, Patricia Wells’ ‘Bistro Cooking’ provides the kind of uncomplicated good food that cooks everywhere are rediscovering, with joy.’
Along with the recipes, there’s lots of information on bistros and little bits of information on famous bistros and the chefs who invented various dishes in the book. It’s a great little book to read and enjoy and garner information in a relaxed fashion.
‘Million Menus Cookbook’
This book is published by Hamlyn and is unique in that each ‘page’ of the book is split into three sections: Soups and Starters, Main Course Dishes, and Desserts and Puddings. This means you can browse through all the Soups and Starters, pick one and leave open at that ‘page’. Next you pick a main course and that will be just below your starter menu, and finally a dessert choice which will be open at the bottom of the ‘page’. Effectively, this means you can view your entire three course dinner menu at a glance and without having to earmark pages throughout the book, or worse still have a few books on the worktop ~ and all the fuss that creates when you are in the middle of preparing a dinner party.
From the introduction ‘The Hamlyn All Colour Million Menu Cookbook’ puts extra pleasure into meal planning. Its clever split-page layout makes it easy to choose three-course menus for all occasions: just flip over the different sections to mix and match 300 delicious recipes – 100 each for starters, main courses and desserts.’
All the menus are conscise and very simple to follow and each recipe gives hints and tips either to make the work easier or to learn bits of culinary information which are of benefit.
A Guide to Modern Cookery ~ Auguste Escoffier
This is packed with mountains of information for the cook. A little like the Larousse book but without photographs. From the cover:
“When first published in 1907 A Guide to Modern Cookery was heralded as ‘a culinary education in itself’. Begining with the first principles it explains basic techniques and terminology before givine details of hundres of recipes from many parts of the world’.”
The Complete Cook (published by Hamlyn)
Once again a large book. It is packed with easy to read information and lots of great recipes. Indeed if you wanted to buy just one cookery book, this would be a good choice.
“This comprehensive book is aimed at those who, through a love of food or just simple necesity, want to learn about food and cooking so they can produce family meals or entertain with confidence.”
The recipes are fairly conscise and easy to follow with a great selections of recipes from which to chose.
Leith’s Cookery Bible ~ Prue Leith & Caroline Waldergrave
Like the ‘Complete Cook (above) this would also be a perfect book if one was to buy just one cookery book. Lots of information for the cook including vitamins, healthy eating, methods of cooking, larder ingredients, and even wine. It tells you how to make basic stocks and soups together with bread and cakes and so on. Lots of tasty recipes and a small amount of photos.
“What we have tried to do in this book is to reproduce the style of cooking taught at Leith’s School. Frankly, we threw out recipes, however classic and time-honoured, if the teachers and students did not like the results.”
An excellent book.
The Mafia Cookbook ~ Joseph “Joe Dogs” Iannuzzi
I love this little book. It is packed with snatches of the authors inside and outside ‘The Mob’. As it says on the cover, these recipes have been ‘tested by Mob heavy hitters as wells as FBI agents and US marshals’. So if they stood up to those people, I reckon the recipes are good enough for us too.
More from the cover: “In The Mafia Cookbook, Joe Dogs took the quentessential Mob formula – murder, betrayal, food – and turned it into a bestseller, not suprisingly since Joe Dog’s mixture of authentic Italian recepies and colourful Mafia anecdotes is a much fun to read as it is to cook from.”
A really perfect little cookbook for both it’s great Italian recipes and interesting annecdotes.
Mrs. Beeton cookbooks
I collect these but rarely even open them. Maybe I’m missing things by not doing so but a lot of the recipes and writing are just too old at this stage and from a different era. Along with recipes, other subjects covered include ‘The Housewife’ where one can learn such invaluable information such as ‘Management of Servants’! From that section “Where there is a large staff of servants or a number proportionate to the work that is to be done in the house, there should be no need for the mistress to giva any assistance: her duty should be only to supervise or see that each domestic thoroughly does his or her own work.”.
From the back cover of one of her books: “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his great study of married life entitled “A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus” makes his heroine say “Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world. Therefore Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable man.” As I said, from a different era.
Something about the famous Mrs. Beeton that many, including myself until recent times, do not know is that she wrote her cookery books (at least eight books) whilst only in her 20s. I always thought of her as this rounded lady with grey hair tucket into a white cap with her large body wrapped in a large white apron. She actually died at the early age of 28 pueral fever after the birth of her 4th child. But there is still none so famous as Mrs. Beeton.
To conclude. There are so many wonderful cookery books out there and I suppose we cooks all have our favourites. Cutting my down to the shortlist here was a little difficult but not terribly so as I just went for the books I want in my life most. I have others I love, for instance one I bought in Greece a number of years back on Greek cooking. I love that little book simply because it gives authentic recipes rather than Greek cooking recipes that have been changed to suit another market.
It seems it all comes down therefore to the basics: honesty, simplicity and authenticity. Much like cooking.
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