Apart from The Escoffier CookBook and Delia's How To Cheat At Cooking (which I review in this Saturday's Post)  - which cover the gamut of twentieth century cuisine, I have a pared down shelf of cookbooks. Cookbooks have been so plentiful that I found my shelves crammed with books i'd never read let alone used. So I started weeding. First to go the coffee table books because I don't have a coffee table - anyway I want information not pictures. Well not too much info -- I decided I never referred to the Cambridge World History of Food and out it went. I saved the Oxford Companion to Food out of respect to its author, the late Alan Davidson, but the book is after only a few years, literally falling apart so it will have to go soon. Then I dumped the global cookbooks like Joy of Cooking and Gourmet. I want small specific cookbooks.  I began to  weigh books: I found the thinner books and soft covers had more information in them -- with the exception of the bible which taught me how to cook,  Julia Child's hefty Mastering the Art of Cooking I and the far less used II.




And at one point i said to hell with chef's books, they're vanity. But then I realized this wasn't always true and in particular, I have found plenty of use in the delectably modest  Simply French by Patricia Wells/Joel Rebuchon, not only Rebuchon's Roast Chicken Grandmere but his Aromatic shrimp bouillon.





I saved the books which really opened my eyes to foods I'd never tried to cook -- Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern Food and Elizabeth Luard's Old World Kitchen.

And books that are fun to read not only once but twice -   Kettner's Book of the Table, a wonderfully wry and informative dictionary of food/cooking. Lady: If thou be indeed a lady, remember thou art by name a cook, or atleast a baker. La-mean a loaf of bread; -dy means a maid; and lady means the breadmaid."

And another, Roy Andries de Groot's In Search of the Perfect Meal which  includes the recipe for Troisgros Brothers' effulgent scalloped potatoes.

And of course - Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential.  What a relief to read a book that doesn't kiss the hem of cooking's skirt.


More favourites....






I still can't do without Cooking with the New American Chefs (1986) which is now in tatters. I call it early Delia. It's simple, breezy and unpretentious and the recipes are foolproof. Wolfgang Puck's Wild Mushroom Soup has never been surpassed nor Jimmy Schmidt's Caramel ice cream and barquette of chocolate pralinee made in litre milk carton, Patrick O'Connell's rhubarb mousse, Barbara Tropp's grilled chinese chicken wings with orange peel and garlic, Anne Greer's roasted corn soup.

French cooking in Ten minutes by Edouard de Pomiane, slim enough to slip in the pocket and fast food by any other name:   scrambled eggs to hollandaise sauce in a trice.

Susanna Foo's Chinese Cuisine. Where I learned to Tea Smoke and ever since I've never failed making a smoked leg of lamb. Amazing pineapple salsa for deep fried curried chicken dumplings.

Cooking With Master Chefs for two terrific recipes, Lidia Bastianich's wild mushroom risotto and Roberto del Grande's filet steaks in Pasilla Chile Sauce.

Foie gras recipes are everywhere. I was inspired however to try a mi-cuit foie gras by Peter Graham's Mourjou, the Life and Food of an Auvergne Village. I love this kind of book which entwines cooking, food and the culture of a specific small region. I like The Year at Les Fougeres - the esteemed restaurant outside Ottawa -  by  Charles Part and Jennifer Warren Part for the same reason. Also, Graham is an amateur like me.