Receipts and recipes
Elfreda Pownall
THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE'S CHATSWORTH COOKERY BOOK by the Duchess of Devonshire Frances Lincoln,19.99, pp. 192. ISBN 0711222576 THE PEDANT IN THE KITCHEN by Julian Barnes Guardian Books, £9.99, pp. 96, ISBN 1843542390
1 C haven't cooked since the War,' proclaims the Duchess of Devon
Chatsworth Cookery Book. Though it was put to her that writing a cookery book was, in that case, 'like a blind woman driving down the M1', she went ahead with blithe self-confidence. It is audacious for someone who has not cooked in 58 years to collect together her favourite dishes, but not absurd. Dr Johnson said, 'You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table', and some of the finest food writers of the past (e.g. Brillat-Savarin) are known more for their discriminating palates and the encouragement they gave their cooks than for their own dexterity with a paring-knife.
The receipts the Duchess gives (she favours the archaic word), all favourites in her family, have been written by four Chatsworth chefs and are at their strongest in the chapters on eggs and light lunch dishes. Such dishes as Oeufs a la Tripe and My Mother's Gnocchi are familiar from prewar cookery books (most people's lunch these days consisting of a sandwich at their desk) and, like that for Chilled Clear Tomato Soup, which requires 5.4kg (121b) of vine-ripened tomatoes, are completely delicious.
Cakes and puddings are also strong, MaIva pudding and the luscious Duke's Chocolate Cake in particular. But there are some disgusting-sounding ideas too; for example the Salmon Gravlax and Cheddar Terrine with Beurre Blanc Sauce. Some of the main courses, with their heavy use of the deep-fat fryer and tricksy fibo pastry concoctions, though feasible in a well-staffed kitchen will (and should) remain unattempted by the home cook. Other advice on collecting gulls' eggs and making Devonshire cream (you need your own cow) will be of minimal use to most of her readers and, though historical details of catering costs given in the introduction are fascinating, there are sonic pretty tame observations too, e.g. 'I have noticed that people either love puddings or skip them in favour of cheese.'
The larlcy chattiness of the book's tone gives it something of the feel of one of those produced-for-charity compilations whose readers are expected to endure eulogies on the virtues of people they neither know nor care much about, in this case the staff in and around Chatsworth, 331 of whom are employed in food and catering roles. But the main selling points of her 'brand' — her Mitford sisters and eccentric relations, her passion for Elvis and hens — should ensure success in the Christmas market. The book will be bought by some of the 20,000 people who are fed each month during the open season at Chatsworth, snobs, and those who already have too many cookery books.
But how many books is too many? Julian Barnes, in his capacity as The Pedant in the Kitchen, a compilation of his Guardian columns of that name, frets at length over the problem. Fretting seems to be his main mode for much of the book; the persona he presents initially is diffident, blushing and anxious about the 'scary freedom' of recipes that are imprecisely couched. Cookery books and their misleading writers are his main theme. He does not give recipes of his own; the scrupulous following of the recipes of others is his ideal. Nor does he admire those cooks who claim to look at a book just for inspiration. 'Would you use a lawyer who said, "Oh, I glance at a few statutes, but only to get ideas" '? he asks. Instead he praises one of the best cooks he knows (who must have a goldfish-like memory) as she 'automatically gets down the recipe book whenever she roasts a chicken'. This is odd coming from a man who cooks Pomaine's Boeuf a la Ficelle or Simon Hopkinson's Jellied Beetroot Consomme, a man who ordered squirrel from the organic mail-order butchers. He seems too competent a cook to be agonising about what constitutes a medium onion, to spend time scrabbling in his onion basket and comparing all the bulbs therein to find the mean specimen.
This can't last. Quite soon he has moved from the diffident to the downright bossy, laying down the law about cookery books, flouting instructions to flick the seeds from 600 cherry tomato halves (in a River Cafe recipe) and giving lots of fun to those who cook from the same books as he. Jane Grigson is a favourite. He pronounces her 'sound on swede' and is himself sound on the battle that is food shopping, portraying himself as the meek butt of the fishmonger's joshing, the humble accepter of the butcher's lightning legerdemain. Chocolate Nemesis, Heston Blumenthal, the impossibitty of using the term 'dinner party', the furious comments we write next to failures in our cookery books — all those preoccupations of the keen cook are examined with a wry and truthful eye. His assessments of such writers as Richard Olney and Elizabeth David are spot on. He notes the latter's 'In cooking the possibility of muffing a dish is always with us', leaving the implied comment hanging in the air and his reader smiling. The only saccharine in the book is the curdling tweeness of his references to his wife as 'She for Whom the Pedant Cooks'.
Elfreda Pownall is Consumer Features Editor of the Sunday Telegraph Magazine.
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