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Compulsory reading for PG members:
Jeffrey Steingarten - The Man who ate Everything
This
book is a real gem!
Surely any book which contains chapters beginning with "For weeks I had been preoccupied with horses. Every time I saw a horse dragging tourists across the snow in Central Park, or standing under a policeman on the cobblestones of SoHo, I began to salivate. In truth, it was the fat of the horses, the fat around their kidneys, that excited me" must be worth reading. And indeed, Jeffrey Steingarten's collection of short essays on world cuisine and food science is an absolute delight.
It is not only his style of writing that is so captivating, it is also the extraordinary lengths to which he will go in his quest for culinary perfection. Who but Steingarten would discover that "when you have eaten choucroute garnie a l'Alsacienne twice a day for five days, your wife's face turns green, she claims yours has too, and you both lie immobile in a netherworld between sleep and wakefulness for the next eighteen hours"? Who else would tour the island of Sicily in pursuit of every conceivable recipe for Granita? Travel half way around the world to find out how to cook Wagyu? He even does the world a favour in dispelling the global myths that salt is bad for you, diets work and fat is a killer.
To cap it all, the book includes numerous recipes, making it the most interactive book I have read in some time!
Ignore this book at your peril! But be warned. It'll leave you feeling decidedly peckish…
More
of the same can be found in It Must Have Been Something I Ate, the hugely
entertaining sequel to The Man Who Ate Everything, in which Steingarten debunks
myths about Chinese food, seeks out the perfect baguette, kills a pig and feeds
his dog, among many other mouthwateringly hilarious stories. And don't miss his
superb recipe for gratin dauphinois...
Peter Mayle - Bon Appetit; Travels through France with knife, fork and corkscrew
As
the subtitle of the book suggests, this is a culinary expedition through France,
where Peter Mayle, widely regarded as one of the best-informed English-speaking
writers on France, sets out to discover the roots of many French culinary
traditions, seeking out, among other foody delights, the perfect frogs' legs in
Vittel, snails in Martigny-les-Bains and chickens in Bourg-en-Bresse, as well as
getting an insight into the workings of the Michelin star by meeting the editor
of the Red Bible, and finishing off, appropriately enough, in one of the finest
spas in France. A must-read if, like myself, you hold French culinary traditions
in high esteem...
Mark Kurlansky - Cod, a Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Winner, Best Food Book, Glenfiddich 1999 Food & Drink Awards
Who would ever have thought that a book about the humble cod could be so
interesting? Then again, I had never realised the cod's contribution to world
history. In this marvellous book, impossible to put down, Mark Kurlansky
outlines the history of cod fishing, and its context in the world we inhabit
today. Who discovered the New World? Why, Columbus. Or was it? It would appear
the Basques got there first in search of rich cod-fishing grounds, but (wisely?)
kept quiet about it. Would the people of New England have been so keen on independence from Britain
had they had not had an economic interest in it due to their cod fisheries? And
what exactly were the Anglo-Icelandic Cod Wars, and why were they fought? For
those less interested in the historical aspect of this most prized of
foodstuffs, the book also contains a host of recipes for salt, dried and fresh
cod. While you might feel a little eccentric going out and buying this book, it
is a worthwhile investment.
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Last Updated on Monday, 08 December 2003