BAGKLIST
Repast masters
With nights fair drawing in, it could be time to retreat to the kitchen. Catherine Fellows rounds up some recent cookery book releases and offers some inspiration.
Amongst the most interesting food books to appear in this autumn’s crop is The World In Your Kitchen by Troth Wells (The New InternatimzaI/Virago £9.99). As author, or should i say recipe gatherer, Troth Wells explains in the introduction that food is a political issue. What we demand in our shops has direct repercussions for developing nations. Not surprisingly, Wells advocates a vegetarian diet, and she pulls together such an impressive array of arguments for it that it hardly matters that she simplifies the link between Third World poverty and meat eating. which isjust a part of a wider economic imbalance.
The recipes from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America which form the bulk of the book have been adapted for Western use, and dishes such as Ugandan green vegetables with coconut and Chilean bean and pumpkin stew with cumin and basil sound delicious and eminently cookable. But their great appeal is that they are the everyday meals that sustain huge numbers of ordinary people. The sense of the authenticity of the recipes is enhanced by wonderful photos of food preparation around the world, and the
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book is scattered with thought- provoking facts about the economic and social conditions of the countries
‘ involved.
, Quite a contrast is The Real Meat Cookbook by Frances Bissell (Chatto
‘ and Windus £12.99). Bissell, The Times I cook. does not shirk the meat debate. '1 She opens with a provocative quote
1 from Lin Yutang: ‘lfa chicken is killed ! and it is not cooked properly, that
l chicken has died in vain.‘ It is hard to l
l
l
l
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' imagine what consolation a chicken
! would get from being steeped in red
’ wine and bay leaves, but Bissell argues
= persuasively for a more responsible approach to meat eating.
Basically we should eat less of it. she says, and when we do, be prepared to pay the price for the humaner farmed,
organically-fed variety. We should ,» confront the fact that we are eating
i animals, not indulge our squeamishness 3 i i with thyme. cumin and paprika;
by buying sanitised prepackaged supermarket fare, but go to traditional butchers strewn with carcasses and ? feathered fowls. | in fact, Bissell's conscience is so l highly developed, you wonder why she 3 puts herself through the grief of eating meat at all — until you start looking through the recipes that is. Flick 5 through this superb, clearly laid out I collection of classic meat dishes from ; around the world, and you realise how
' ingrained a part of our culinary heritage ‘ f 1 health consciousness and international
FLAVOUH OF THE FORTHIGHT
THE WORLD IN YOUR KITCHEN
; in a little water, turning once, tor tire ; minutes or so. orain. When they are
? cool, remove the pulp with a spoon and cut into small chunks. Keep the
: auhergine strolls.
l low heat the oil in a pan and cook
; the onion until it is soft; then add the
i aubergine and cook these together tor i
. WT
meat eating is. With everything here
' from beef consommé and traditional
pork pie to Provencal estonffade of goat and Eastern tea-smoked duck. as well as instructions on choosing joints.
E carving and storing different meats.
Bissell can justifiably claim to have produced the ultimate, comprehensive book of meat cookery.
Some cookery books are for drooling
over, others you will use and use. One
of the latter is QUICK and Easy Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey (BBC
Books £5.99). Jaffrey already has a
reputation for making lndian food accessible, but with every recipe here
5 taking just 30 minutes to prepare, this is i the most convincing argument yet for
making lndian a part of your everyday
; eating. No lengthy pounding of spices or simmering for 24 hours here. just
j loads of delicious ideas: gingery
cauliflower soup; chicken pieces fried
omelette stuffed with a spicy, garlicky mixture of mushrooms, spring onions . and tomatoes. Enough said.
Another TV cook to have just
5 published a book is Jacques Pepin.
Today’s Bounnet by Jacques Pepin (BBC Books £5.99) ties in with his current Wednesday afternoon BBC 1 24-part series of the same name. Once personal chef to General de Gaulle. Pepin has tempered the best of French cuisine with an awareness of today's
: influences. What is so impressive about ' Pepin is that unlike so many chefs, he
has not drawn upon different cuisines to produce his own homogeneous
hybrid, but in his ‘themed‘ menus, has
IIIBEHGIHES EH PEA" (STUFFED about five minutes.
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This 18 8 8131910 “811188 ‘18" "11501! i it into the onion mixture, adding salt
makes a good light meal on its own or i and 9.”... go m, Mu up
“1111 8 “18¢ ingredients together well and then
remove the pan trorn the heat.
2 “KIWI”. 1'8"“ “warm” 1 Beat the egg in a srnall bowl and pour
1 "10!. it Into the pan containing the onion
2 811608 In“. ‘10“ 80¢ 80*“ Ill 1 and auhergine mix. Add halt the
IND/240 '1 lllk cheese and mix everything together
1 one well.
2 “MW! "0m! lack 0' ch01“! low place the auhergine shells on a
cm. 9'31“ greased oven-proof dish and pile the
2 W 1811108900” WWW”! 0' mixture into them. Top with the
some seeds rernalnlng cheese and scatter the
0“ hreadcrnhs or sesame seeds over.
8311 8“ POW Bake tor 15-20 minutes.
M m to 3500'an 4 . The World in Your Kitchen - The Kerr
cm” Internationalist Vm MM,
8M by boiling the anhergine halves “mg by mu. mu, (um £9.99),
retained the distinctive character of each. What could be more French than garlic soup followed by veal roast with
artichokes, then almond cake, or more New Ehgland than chicken and spinach veloute. cous cous of lobster, and crepes souffles in grapefruit sauce?
Staying in America, Julee Rosse of the celebrated Wichwood Country Inn (in Michigan. actually) has just published Great Good Food (Wiedenfeld and Nicolson £14.99), a huge scrapbook of recipes, kitchen tips, anecdotes and sickly diary entries - ‘Summer‘s here again, must take mother to the Blueben'y Festival.‘ it is just as much a fascinating insight into a certain face of the US as it is a source of culinary inspiration. How’s about crackling corn bread baked with fresh sage and rosemary and a salad of turkey, apples, cherries, celery, fennel and mayo for starters?
Finally, for good food back home, Food lovers Guide To Britain by Henrietta Green (BBC Books £9.99) is indispensable. Produced in association with Derek Cooker's crusading Radio 4 Food Programme. it is an index to the numerous but often hard to track down independent producers and distributors of excellent ingredients throughout the UK. The Scottish section includes such stalwarts as Valvona and Crolla and MacSween‘s in Edinburgh, as well as more remote handmade cheese producers, game farmers, herb growers and smokehouses. it is a comparatively small portion of the book, but most of the outlets listed further afield offer a mail order service and so are accessible to Scottish consumers.
FOR THE BEST VALUE IN MEXICAN CUISINE
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10, anchor close, Cockburn Street
“sensed
LUNCH — 12-—2.30pm EVENINGS — 6—11pm (last orders 10.30pm)
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The List 8—2l October l993 77