Cook-Books
I Am in some doubt about Andre Simon's Cheeses of the World (Faber, 30s.). It is attractively arranged and presented, with illustrations luscious enough to make us wonder why we should ask anything more for lunch than bread and cheese. And it gives an encyclopmdic quantity of information about cheeses. It is only on the relevance of much of the information that I am doubtful. Temperatures, export figures, histories, anecdotes are given haphazard: there appears to be no particular reason why cheese 'A' gets described in detail and cheese 'B' left with barely a mention—except, perhaps, that 'A's' publicity hand-out is better.
Savarin's Real French Cooking (Faber, 25s.) is, of course, full of succulent recipes, but the mistake has been made of putting in all the jokes, verses, aphorisms, and quotations with which he interlarded the French edition; many of them are agonisingly corny—jokes about the taste of the waiter's thumb— and others inscrutable outside France.
A long-standing aversion from the jocular approach also preju- dices me against the Esquire Cookbook (Frederick Muller, 25s.); but it repays a quick skim through to collect some interesting recipes before you pass it on as a present to somebody who enjoys facetiae. As for Invitations to Dine (Gray's Inn Press, 30s.), I would rather see a straightforward bookful of advertisements for the London restaurants it describes than these disguised puffs.
Fabulous foods for people you love (Arco, 15s.) is better, in spite of its title: Carolyn Coggins's enthusiasm carries the reader along with her, even if we may be doubtful whether we are ever likely to cook Baked Striped Bass or Barbecued Swordfish. Some of her international ideas are more easily translatable into national terms—or I hope they are : I have not yet had time to try. Susan Lowndes Marques's Good Food from Spain and Portugal (Frederick Muller, 13s. 6d.), too, is a competent guide to Peninsular cooking, if you happen to like Peninsular cooking.
The great merit of Monica Mawson's Carefree Cookery (Heinemann, 15s.) is that it irons out some old cooking wrinkles which have been a nuisance for far too long—old wives' tales, such as the insistence on the need of a very hot oven to start a roast, 'to seal in the juices.' Apparently this—like a great many other beliefs—has no scientific foundation. Anything which makes the cook's labours less hag-ridden by tradition is welcome.
Heinemann's have also put out three books by Marcel Boulestin and Robin Adair : on Potatoes; Eggs; and Savouries and Hors dTEuvres (6s. each). Apart from the fact that they are of a size calculated to slip down out of sight behind the kitchen shelf, they should be useful—particularly in emergencies. And they have pleasant introductions. Why—it is asked—is there no English dish pommes de tern, a to Walter Raleigh? Why not, indeed?
Finally, Louis Diat's French Cooking for the Home, which has the great merit of being written not just from experience in the kitchens of the Ritz, but from memory of his mother's cooking in his home. It has plenty of good, solid Bourbonnais recipes for hashes and stews and such—they will be a revelation to anybody who cannot think what to do with the left-overs. It is published by Hammond and Hammond at 21s. TONI ADRIAN
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