5 FEBRUARY 1954, Page 28

Good Food from Abroad. By Salome £.3 10s.) Italian Cooking.

By Robin Howe. (Andre Deutsch. 10s. 6d.)

Good Food from Abroad is a small, practical, reliable book of fairly cheap and attractive dishes with an East European flavour pre- dominating. A little slight for 10s. 6d., it is nevertheless recommended to the moder- ately adventurous housewife looking around for something different for supper. - The Gourmet Cookbook is a very different concoction. Luxurious in its production as it is in its recipes, it is not, unless for million- aires, an everyday book. It contains a typically American melange of European and American dishes, sometimes a little confused in nomenclature--e.g. " kidneys flambeed." A wedding present.

Mrs. Howe is the wife of a journalist, and her residence in Italy has led her to produce a book of Italian recipes. It is not free from inaccuracies, but it is not meant for native Italian cooks, and English cooks can learn a good deal from it. A great improvement for those cooks who have not visited Italy would be the addition of sample menus, without which one can learn to produce odd dishes only, and not a complete meal.

N. P. R.