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[pipsqueak]

i often take a "cookbook" as reading material when travelling by train/bus even though i have no intentions of cooking anything from it! well, i ain't the only one! 


The joy of fantasy food literature

I can't help loving cookbooks. It's not the recipes I'm interested in - it's the lip-smacking prose, and the luscious photography.
Eloise Millar


I have a confession to make. Once or twice a week I like to curl up on the sofa and flick through not Marcel Proust, or Thomas Mann, or Georges Bataille, but ... cookbooks.

I'm not sure why I feel so sheepish about this. Perhaps because it's just a little bit mumsy; perhaps because half the time I'm not even planning on cooking anything. Mostly, in fact, I don't even bother reading any of the recipes. Aside from a cursory glance at the headings all I really want to do is look at the pictures - and this I'll do for hours, licking my lips over shots of sorbets in frosted glasses, grilled goat's cheese nestled in spiky leaves ... Today, when it's been pouring down, for instance, and I've found myself back in Britain, surrounded by floods after seven months away, the winter section of Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries has been a pleasure. Rain can't be so bad, surely: not if it means great mugs of hot chocolate laced with brandy, or - courtesy of Nigel page 346 - steaming pots of ginger-stewed duck ...

Though, as I say, my attention is largely reserved for the photos rather than the words, I do also have to admit to a soft spot for those introductory paragraphs, those ones preceding the recipes where Jamie says "pukka" and Hugh says things like: "I usually have the brains removed from the head whilst making brawn and fry them up with a bit of sage". To me, there's something quite delightful about these asides (even the Jamie ones) - and something delightful, too, about the intimate tones, fake as they may be.

Take Nigel, again, coming over all purple in his garden, breathing in the "wood smoke imbued with thyme" and musing about hummous, which, he says, has "a flavour as old as God" ... Or Nigella, cheerily offering up recipes for nibbles for those tedious but unavoidable drinks parties, and dishing out words of wisdom on what to do with the dregs of leftover bubbly (champagne risotto, in the case of Feast. Though "please", she adds, ever-mindful of the penny-pinching manners of those of us less fortunate, "any fizzy white wine will do. Indeed, I most often make it with Prosecco ...")

I can't help smiling at little snippets like this - although, I know, there are plenty of people who don't share my pleasure. Angela Carter, for instance, found this sort of chatter distinctly bemusing, and the sheepishness I've been feeling has only increased since reading an essay of hers which laid into Elizabeth David and other Domestic Goddess-type lifestyle manuals. Among other things, Carter took (eloquent) umbrage with a passage in An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, where David talks about cooking a hare her sister claimed to "have caught by hand outside the [Vienna] State Opera House".

"A whole world is contained in that sentence," Carter writes, going on to argue that the inclusion of such asides is far from innocent. Rather, she says, they're carefully-timed poison, "contrived to reassure the socially aspiring that emulation of their betters was a game that might legitimately be played hard just because it could not be taken seriously, so that snobbery involved no moral compromise."

Ouch.

On the sunny side, Angela Carter does approve of Patience Gray, whose Honey from a Weed she calls a "baroque monument", and whose writing she admires for its "combination of material asceticism and passionate enthusiasm for the sensuality of the everyday". I've got a copy of Honey from A Weed, too. I'm also sure it's very nice. Trouble is, having no pictures, it's doomed to moulder on the bookshelf ...


http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/fantasy_food_literature.html

[sgusa]

Pips, I am so with you.

PS: Though not technically a cookbook, I loved loved loved Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Also "the man who ate everything" was spectacular.

[colonel]

What a coincidence. I just bought Kitchen Confidential yesterday. I'm about 40 pages down and loving it. You say the other book is also good?

[colonel]

By the way, any other books like Kitchen Confidential you can recommend?

[sgusa]

By the way, any other books like Kitchen Confidential you can recommend?

If you like Bourdain, do check out his "No Reservations" show on Travel channel (or get the DVDs). BRILLIANT STUFF!. He has another book that was good (a cook's tour ?).

[colonel]

Thanks,boss. I'll check these out. BTW, I saw one episode where he went to Calcutta. Man, the roadside purees and aloo masala he was eating sitting down on the footpath would have given you and me cholera. Hat's off. Bourdain's a true foodie. Though for some reason, at least in the first few pages of K.C., he's always playing down his own abilities as a chef.

[sgusa]

Thanks,boss. I'll check these out. BTW, I saw one episode where he went to Calcutta. Man, the roadside purees and aloo masala he was eating sitting down on the footpath would have given you and me cholera. Hat's off. Bourdain's a true foodie. Though for some reason, at least in the first few pages of K.C., he's always playing down his own abilities as a chef.

He ate with the kalahari bushman, anyone with a weaker stomach would puke for days just looking at it on TV! Oh, and his signature "oh yeah? I ate this!" item is raw interstine of a pig (large, not small ) - essentially a pig's ass

the best thign about the show is Bourdain reflecting on something the people in the region are doing - often rather deep insights. OR maybe I just liek the rough, heavy drinking, screw you attitude he has

[prfsr]

So how many cookbooks do the foodies here have? Also, please list your favorites.
-P

[vincent]

I do not have much patience for Cook Books, but I do like to watch cook shows on TV. I do like Jamie Oliver a lot since he always goes after simple but delicious food, influenced either by Indian or Italian  cuisines. I also like his attitude and dedication to help young people (he is one himself) take liking for cooking and eating well. He does not go after Michelin stars like every other master chef in UK. You may not get his shows in the US but he has plenty of DVD's and Books on Amazon.

[feverpitch]

bourdain is a favourite... i also used to like alton brown...
but for eye candy, nothing can beat nigella... the way she licks her fingers to taste food is -- its as if she's having an orgasm!

[vincent]

I do not have much patience for Cook Books, but I do like to watch cook shows on TV. I do like Jamie Oliver a lot since he always goes after simple but delicious food, influenced either by Indian or Italian  cuisines. I also like his attitude and dedication to help young people (he is one himself) take liking for cooking and eating well. He does not go after Michelin stars like every other master chef in UK. You may not get his shows in the US but he has plenty of DVD's and Books on Amazon.

And, here is the website (among others) for the ones who do not know him. There also vegetarian dishes for the ones like Sgusa.

                   http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/

[prfsr]

Jamie oliver is/was definitely in TV here. Food network has changed so much that I have stopped watching it. Now they focus not on serious cooking but on shortcut shows. And their bias towards talkative women is maddening. I am not looking for orgasmic women on the *food* channel (sorry FP  ) so I am not interested in Giada's attire or Rachel's yapping. I did not like Nigella or Ina and I cannot tolerate the old Southern hag.

BTW the pre-Alton Alton was David Rosengarten. He did wonderful shows (better than Alton's, IMO), both cooking and otherwise. Has a few great cookbooks as well.

PBS often has some great cooking shows.

-P

[LosingNow]

BTW the pre-Alton Alton was David Rosengarten. He did wonderful shows (better than Alton's, IMO), both cooking and otherwise. Has a few great cookbooks as well.

David Rosengarten was very very good. He introduced most of America to the concept of "taste".

Also, on PBS.. the best are "The Frugal Gourmet" and "Yan can cook"

[pipsqueak]

So how many cookbooks do the foodies here have? Also, please list your favorites.
-P

i just counted and i have located 35 books so far - a few more are at my cousin's place. they include "meenakshi ammal's cook and see" given to me by a grand aunt of mine when i left the shores of india many moons ago - this is a classic south indian tam brahm cooking guide! it is originally called "samaithu paar" which means "cook and see" and the english translation of this is hilarious including terms like "pinch the leaves" - a direct translation of the tamil term of "kiLLi poDu" and the measurements are in "oLLakkus".

there is a modern version of it now, glossy paged and better written but is just not the same.

i don't usually care much for these celebrity cooks though i watch their shows at times. i find most of them annoying, the way they croon about food. i can't stand Martin Yan.

my favourite books are not from any of these fancy chefs but from The Australian Women's weekly cookbooks series. I find their recipes very clear and if I follow the proportions correctly, it is almost always a sure success. I particularly like their  "Cakes and Slices" book.

also, i am a vegetarian and hence my scope is limited.

[LosingNow]

i can't stand Martin Yan.

he he.. he can be so annoying ..but he is good!!

[prfsr]

My favorite chef is Jacques Pepin. Very professorial

As far as shows go, I liked Two hot Tamales and I like Rick Bayless as well (on PBS). Bobby Flay is very good but I hate his personality. Mario Batali was good but boring. I like Nick Stellino on PBS.
America's Test Kitchen was ok-ish.

Some of my favorite authors (not including Rosengarten and Pepin) are Alford and Duguid, Schlesinger of East Coast Grill in Boston, Susan Purdy, Mridula Baljekar, Sheila Chandra.

-P

[pipsqueak]

oh, how can i not mention "Indian Food: A Historical Companion" and  "A Historical Dictionary of Indian Foods" by Dr. KT Achaya.

they discuss the historical origins of various indian dishes and also the journey made by various "exotic" vegetables to india!

i felt dejected learning that idli was not even an indian invention and has originated from indonesia. cooks who accompanied the indian kings to indonesia learnt the technique of fermentation/steaming from their counterparts.

i strongly recommend his books, esp. the first one.

[vincent]

oh, how can i not mention "Indian Food: A Historical Companion" and  "A Historical Dictionary of Indian Foods" by Dr. KT Achaya.

they discuss the historical origins of various indian dishes and also the journey made by various "exotic" vegetables to india!

i felt dejected learning that idli was not even an indian invention and has originated from indonesia. cooks who accompanied the indian kings to indonesia learnt the technique of fermantation/steaming from their counterparts.

i strongly recommend his books, esp. the first one.

I have not read the book. Perhaps I should read it. There are also other theories (assumptions rather) that it would have been other way around, because of the Cholas and south Indian traders who roamed the South East asian countries for centuries they inflienced also their food habits (to a certain extent also the language). They indeed brought also some spices back to India. For example, Nutmeg was not known in India until it was brought by these traders from the Malayan region.

BTW, also in Philippines they have something similar to Idli except that it is sweetish. But they do it with meat or vegetable sauces like we do.