Take a Cookery book and a whole world of food opens out before you. You are transported to the four corners of the world. A French bistro, an Italian Pizzeria, a steaming bowl of Thai noodles, the red glow from a chicken Tandoori, Chinese crispy duck with pancakes, a searingly hot Mexican salsa,. The World is in your hands.
A friend (who was experimenting with Indian food for the first time), borrowed our well used and battered copy of Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey. She returned it with the comment “It was a smellology of India, every page had an aroma of the herbs and spices used for that particular curry” – both Sheila and I have a habit of leaving a “memento” on the recipe page!
We do love cookery books, and they are always gratefully received in Monkvalley. At the last count we were past the 120 mark.
When we got married, Sheila came complete with her Mothers copy of “Mrs Beetons Household Management” and the classic booklet The “Be-Ro” home recipes. (I say classic only if you are of a certain age) Our first cookery book, given as a wedding gift in 1973, was the Colour Cookery Book by The Good Housekeeping Institute.
Our next book was The Readers Digest cookery year book, quickly followed by Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Margeret Costa.
All classic food writers before the advent of the TV Chef.Soon weekend newspapers with their colour supplements and TV cooking programmes fanned a budding interest with everything concerning food.
Many men turn first to the Sports page – me? The food pages win each time!Fanny Craddock, Zena Skinner, Robert Harding and Graham Kerr are a few names that bring back memories.I also remember Dorothy Sleightholme of Farmhouse Kitchen fame! Muriel, Sheila’s mother was a huge fan of this programme and she experimented each week – admittedly only for us because Sheila’s father was ultra conservative when it came to food! So we enjoyed the likes of Stuffed Sheep’s Heart and Queen of Puddings
Our first Indian book was written by a BBC News presenter Khalid Aziz. TV chefs started to appear, and of course they all brought books out to accompany their series.
Our introduction to Chinese was by Ken Hom, Indian food was by Madhur Jaffrey, and of course Delia Smith. Our first Delia book was Frugal Food – a recipe from this book we still use to this day. The recipe is Kidney KIDNEY STROGANOFF
It cannot be underestimated the influence that Delia had on home cooking for several years, but, then a far more relaxed way of cooking arrived with Jamie Oliver and many others followed his easy relaxed style.
These moved away from the school ma’am approach by Delia – more lad about town.
Sat here now looking at the book shelf I see Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fernley-Whittigstall, Rick Stein, Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, Simon Hopkinson, Lindsey Barnum, Valentina Harris, Antonio Carluccio and of course The River Cafe series to name a few.
However things change. Today the selection of recipe books is phenomenal. The range of cuisines out there is varied and really exciting.
Our more recent books are Jerusalem and NOPI by Yotam Ottolengi see recipe and Persiaina by Sabrina Ghayour, see recipe introducing us to new flavours and tastes from the Middle East.
In fact these are the books of choice at the moment. The reason being in that they excite the senses and re-ignite the desire to cook.
Re-ignite the desire??
It never goes away if you love food and sharing it with people.
In another sense yes, it opens a whole new world….
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