As soon as I could read, my nose would be buried into either the Larousse Gastronomique (more on that below) or stories about the early American pioneers. I was not fond of comics, I much preferred words and since it had recipes I would fantasize about the results as I could, at the tender age of ten, knock up a semi-complicated dish in my mind by reading it.
Being surrounded by foodstuffs in the hotel's larder, I devised a simple game: start with two or three basic ingredients, conjure up the main suspect, be it a piece of meat or a product of the sea, add one or two exotic spices and work out the method and the timing. Thus I was able to make up thousands of would-be gastronomic wonders, and in my feverish mind, congratulate myself as the next Escoffier.
Escoffier? Who dat? Well he's responsible for my girth, no less. And I bet quite a few more on this planet as he did play a major role in redefining French cuisine around the turn of last century and ensuring that it became internationalized. What intrigued me more at the time was the fact that he was from my neck of the woods (a small village between Cannes and Nice). Before I go on with the exercise of rhapsodizing my favorite cookbooks, the two most important people in my youth were my great grandmother, who taught me the art of Provencal cooking and Escoffier, whom I discovered in our cooking Bible, Le Larousse Gastronomique, perhaps the greatest food encyclopedia ever produced (the newest edition, came out last year, a heavy tome with some 1,206 pages). I wish I could link to a better site than Wiki as it seems to be wanting a bit more info than given on the page for this gargantuan effort.
Did you know that the average household has some 25 to 30 cookbooks, most of them collecting dust? Some collections would go as high as several hundred. Many people collect cookbooks for their colorful, artistic covers or exquisite photography (and conversely, others manage to accumulate them as Christmas and birthdays presents). Some hone in on a particular category of food, say Eastern cooking, baking or vegetarianism et cetera and some buy them for nostalgic or literary reasons (some of you would have read about the famously lingering scent of freshly baked Madeleines in Proust's Remembrances of Things Past).
For me cookbooks are much more than just an assembly of recipes with interesting pictures: they reflect history and culture. I have read that quite a few historians and anthropologists comb through cookbooks for hints, examining techniques, utensils and ingredients to learn more about a certain time and place in history. For example, you can boil down, so to speak, the entire Roman cuisine to two or three ingredients: Garum, which was made by the crushing and fermentation in brine of the intestines of fish such as tuna, eel, anchovies, and mackerel. If sweet white wine mixed with honey was added to it, it was widely used to enhance the flavor of many dishes. Another one was Defrutum, a sort of a sweet fruit marmalade mainly used to thicken sauces and preserve fruits and vegetables for the long winter.
In my lifetime I came across tons of cookbooks. Still do. Trouble is that it makes a lot of what I call "armchair cooks" for those who only read them. I must have bought my fair share of old (and new) cookbooks as I tend to extract recipes that evoke both the sense of a particular time and place. During my time spent in the film industry I rented houses in various locations and came across gems like "The Prussian Army Cookbook", the "Chicago Police Dept Cooking Manual" and the esoteric "Cooking To Kill" among others (which incidentally describes itself as a cookbook with comic recipes for the ghoul!) Whenever I happened to visit friends I would always check their bookshelves for signs of epicuria. Holidaying or doing business in a new country I would head for bookshops and check out local offerings. I became fascinated with Japanese cooking methods and presentation in the early seventies and began a love affair with Asian cooking, particularly Thai, Chinese and Malaysian. The "Time Life Foods of the World" series remains, in my mind, one of the best series ever produced about world cooking.
What I liked about old cookbooks is that one can learn about kitchens of the past, how they prepared and served their everyday fare. Up until the 18th century or thereabouts, cookbooks were only used by the moneyed class. Servants were mostly illiterate and not supposed to know how to read a cookbook, so whoever ran the household would read the directions. Fast forward a hundred and fifty years later (give or take a decade), cookbooks began to be written specifically for the middle class and became best sellers in their own rights. Which brings me to Escoffier, again. His "Le Guide Culinaire: A Guide to Modern Cookery" was de rigueur in any serious gourmet's household. Though slightly passé, it is still comprehensive and groundbreaking. If you come across an old copy in a second-hand bookshop, snatch it before someone else buys it.
Another important food writer (to me anyway) is Elizabeth David. Her wonderful "French Provincial Cooking" is quintessential reading for those who like elegant simplicity. In this book she explores the authentic flavors and textures of cuisines from Provence, Brittany et cetera, and even the Vaucluse region (upper Provence) gets an in-depth chapter. Her other great work is "Mediterranean Cooking", which needs little introduction. My old copy had a Julia Child intro, if I remember well. I used to have her Italian Cookbook as well which is another delight but if you want to possess one of the definitive Italian cookbook, look no further than "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well" by Pellegrino Artusi, written in the late 1890's (though there is a more recent reprint).
Here are a few cookbook & chefs whose work I have had at one time or another, in no particular order. Please add yours to this imcomplete list:
"Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking" by Giuliano Bugialli; "Tetsuya" by Tetsuya Wakuda (an extraordinary Japanese chef living in Australia); "The Provence Cookbook" by Patricia Wells; "Ma Gastronomie" by Fernand Point (father of the Nouvelle Cuisine); "Catalan Cuisine" by Colman Andrews (which has an affinity to Provencal cooking); "The Nouvelle Cuisine of Jean and Pierre Troisgros", by the Troisgros brothers (I did an unforgettable two-week stage in their kitchen in the late seventies); "Grand Livre De Cuisine" by Alain Ducasse (one of the greatest chefs around); "Madame Chiang's Mandarin Recipe Book" by Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang; "North African Cookery" by Arto der Haroutunian (a great book on the varied cuisine of the Maghreb); "The Cake Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum (a must for dessert lovers); "Thai Food" by David Thompson (if you like Thai food then it's the one for you); "Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook" by Alice Waters (fantastic recipes); "Cooking at Home with Pedatha" by Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain (perhaps one of the best vegetarian cookbook around) and so many others.
The vigilant reader will have noticed I haven't mentioned the new trend, molecular gastronomy, simply because it leaves me cold. Bio-chemists in the kitchen may have their place but not in mine. I have simpler tastes.
I could go on forever, in fact I could write a book about cookbooks. My daughters frequently peruse the various ones we have collected since I moved to Eire, not as many as I used to have but an acceptable 30 or 40. They seem to really like the new crop of writers, such as Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsey and the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver. Me, I'm content to look for the older books on the internet and purchase the ones I like.
Cookbook Trivia
- Hannah Glasse (1708-1770), Elizabeth Roffald (1733-1781) and Maria Rundell (1745-1829) were said to be the first English women to write cookery books aimed at the inexperienced housewife and her servants.
- Hannah Glasse wrote "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy" in 1747 and she is probably the best known English cookbook writer of the 18th century. Unfortunately, it has been revealed that her book was full of plagiarized recipes. This was very common in the 18th century.
- During the 18th century, cookbooks used in the United States originated in England.
- Amelia Simmons wrote the first American cookbook "American Cookery", in 1796, that contained recipes using American ingredients like pumpkin, squash, and corn. It was also the first cookbook that contained recipes using an artificial leavener.
- Eliza Acton (1799-1859) wrote "Modern Cookery for Private Families" in 1845, and it was the first English cookbook that gave ingredients, quantities, and timing of recipes in a uniform and concise manner.
- Isabella Beeton (1836-1865) wrote the famous "Beeton's Book of Household Management" in 1861 and it followed the lead of Eliza Acton's book. She was just 25 years old when she wrote this cookery book that contained an amazing number of recipes as well as information for both the mistress and her servants on all aspects of housekeeping, including advice on lifestyles, morals, and etiquette.
If you have missed some of the Tales from the Larder series, here is a few that I think are ok to look into: Salt, Vinegar, Olive Oil, Mustard, and my favorite, Pepper (so far). This series is supposed to be a weekly one but my workload prevents me from being regular (heh!) so if you like to be notified, email me at pjmandeville@gmail.com and I shall create a folder for the "foodies" on this site.
The next edition is going to be about what I call "nostalgic sauces" like Bechamel, Allemande, Velouté et cetera, so hopefully it will be posted next week.