Cook Books
VICTOR MACLURE calls himself a gourmand at large—'gourmet,' he feels, is too finicky a description. Good Appetite My Companion tOdhams, 15s.) is part-autobiography, part-peripatetic recipe hook, the author's gastronomic reminiscences being interrupted from time to time so that he can tell us how to cook and eat dishes ranging from porridge (keep the cream and the porridge in separate bowls) to poularde de Bresse demi-devil (much of the flavour comes from the slivers of truffle inserted under the fowl's skin). Entertaining and pleasantly illustrated by the author.
Jean Conil's Home Cookery Book (Methuen, 30s.) is less terrify- ing than I expected from recollection of his Sunday Times recipes --or from his introduction, in which he ranks gastronomy along- side music and literature as an art. There is useful stuff on preservation of food and on kitchen equipment, as well as a fine range of recipes; my only quarrels are with the inadequacy of his index and with the absurd amount of space (the whole of the second part of the book) devoted to sweets. Still, it is a big book.
. Marie Paule Pomaret and Helene Cingria think of cookery not as an art but as a rite ('as a prayer,' according to their translators). A dedicated, at times cruel, rite: I can imagine them working with relish on recipes for Dean Swift's 'Modest Proposal.' Be Bold In your Kitchen (Max Parrish, 15s.) is an invitation not only to experiment ('find a sweet-smelling weed, pound it in your mortar, add it to your béchamel sauce, and pour it over your potatoes'), but also to ignore the advice of countless earlier instructors ('green vegetables do not respond to salt, and harden slightly when cooked with it').
So many cranks have bored its with pleas for better bread that there is every temptation to miss Home Baked (Faber, 6s. 6d.). But George and Cecilia Scurfield are genuine enthusiasts, rather than axe-grinders; they have discovered how simple baking is with yeast : walnut bread, muffins, croissants, pizza, you can take your pick, encouraged by their assurance that 'the great thing about baking with yeast is the difficulty of failure.'
: To judge from the introduction, a weekend chez Fitzgibbon must be quite something: pot only are gueAs given breakfast in bed, they are instructed to stay in bed all morning, to facilitate Theodora Fitzgibbon's preparations for their lunch. The aim of Weekend Cooking (Andre Deutsch, 12s. 6d.) is to provide not
only a set of menus attuned to the seasons, but also to give the appiopriate advance shopping lists, so that there is no risk of the preparations being spoiled, as they so often are, by arrival at Backofbeyond Cottage after the shops are shut without some essential ingredient. A good idea this, well worked out.
In Britain's Wild Larder: Fungi (Faber, 21s.) Claire Loewenfeld demolishes much spurious mushroom-toadstool lore, and replaces it with such easy means of identification that even 1, who have never dared to try a dish of puffballs, will be quite ready for them when they next appear (the author warns, though, they must be skinned). There are also some useful hints on cooking.
I defy anybody to look through the illustrations in Good House- keeping's Family Favourites (The National Magazine Co., 12s. 6d.) without slobbering : even the black and white photo- graphs exude succulence, and the coloured ones are practically edible. If this book, the seventh in the series, did nothing else but remind us how much palate and digestion owe to the eye, it would earn its place on the kitchen shelf; but it will-also help people with insatiable families to feed,.by its numerous variations on even the simplest menus.
The Home Book of Spanish Cookery, by Marina Pereyra de Aznar and Nina Frond (Faber, 15s.), is a good introduction to its subject; uncomplicated, without fussy detail, and not assuming too great a knowledge in the reader. The ingredients, too, are usually obtainable locally. The book is particularly useful in showing how to bring out unusual but not too esoteric flavours in routine dishes, such as sausages and the commoner vegetables.
Andre Simon's Cheeses of the World (Faber, 30s.) is claimed by the publishers to be the really complete, really authoritative guide to the subject; an encyclopaedia of the world's cheeses, topped by some hints on cookery. The illustrations are sufficiently alluring to wish there were many more of them, particularly as the book in its efforts to be exhaustive tends to be exhausting: cheese hardly lends itself to readable cataloguing. But as a reference book it is indispensable.
The Constance Spry Cookery Book, which she has written in collaboration with Rosemary Hume (Dent, 50s.), is a vast and friendly affair; I particularly like the 'Winkfield' chapter on experimental methods. But is the arrangement, beginning with a cocktail party, really calculated (as the authors believe) to 'awaken enthusiasm' for cooking in non-addicts? And one recipe has finally disillusioned me with cookery expertise. Puzzled by the authorities' insistence that a cross should be cut in the stem of brussels sprouts before cooking, I have long looked in vain for an explanation of this curious rite. Now, I see Constance Spry says, 'Do not make a cross-Way cut of the base of the stem as this spoils the shape and allows juices to escape.' Still, I shall forgive her, as hers is, I think, the best all-purpose book of the lot.
TONI ADRIAN
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