Cooking the books

It's great to see Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion has been shortlisted in the general category in the IACP cookbook awards. Luke Nguyen's The Songs of Sapa is a finalist in the international section and New Zealand's Al Brown, co-owner of Logan Brown restaurant in Wellington, is in the single subject finals for his book Go Fish.



In spite of various predictions about the fate of the cookbook, they keep coming out in their hundreds.



Search engine Yahoo! recently launched a survey looking at how much our lives have changed since the Web took hold. Once interesting fact emerged - 75 percent of respondents said the Web had replaced or partially replaced using cookbooks.



Another survey, taken a couple of years ago, revealed a typical British family owns 1000 recipes but the average person will try making only 35 of them. Of the 171 million cookbooks in British homes, apparently a third are never opened.



That has to be disconcerting news for cookbook writers. Why do people buy the books and not use them?



I have several hundred cookbooks and food-related books collected over four decades. That's a lot of them pictured above in my study. Some of them are well thumbed, well used, well loved, well spotted with errant kitchen matter.



During a job relocation few years back, I was faced with having to leave the majority of them in our Wellington home for the duration of our posting. I went through the collection putting red stickers on the ones I would take with me - the books I couldn't bear to be without. Some were frequently consulted reference books, others were books I cook from often.



And the ones I left behind? Several featured some fad diet or another that had never delivered what was promised. (Surprise, surprise!) Others were dated. Others were too heavy to hold for bedtime reading. More were dated, boring or featured food I wouldn't want to eat.



What makes a cookbook that will endure? No doubt we all wish we had that formula. Elizabeth David's books have stood the test of time. They first appeared in post-War Britain where tastebuds had become jaded from rationing and "making do". Read those books and recipes today and they still entice you to cook - Italian, French country, Mediterranean food. All hot items but, in essence, really just good fresh honest country produce cooked where it is grown.



When I buy a cookbook it has to satisfy several criteria. Are the recipes clearly written? Do they sound appetising? Do the photographed dishes look like they have been made from the recipes? Or are they merely a showcase for the food stylist's art and show ingredients and garnishes not mentioned in the recipes? Does the method explain what to do with each ingredient? You'd be surprised how often a cook gets left with an orphan egg or a second measure of flour that is never referred to again. Do the recipes sound like they will work? I recall judging a fish recipe competition some years ago. One entry had a couple of dozen scallops subjected to a lengthy cooking procedure both on the hob and in the oven that would have left them like chunks of truck tyre.





Another thing that is often overlooked in cookbook design is that when cooking from a book the user generally has to read the recipe from a greater distance so the type size, particularly for ingredients, should allow for that. Some cookbooks I've reviewed have fallen down badly on that score.



If I flip through a book and find there are at least six or eight recipes I am eager to try straightaway, this will invariably lead to a purchase. If there is an interesting narrative accompanying each recipe, that also appeals to me. This is particularly so in the case of ethnic fare where I like to be educated as well as introduced to new foods. While I was living with my whittled down collection, I met Sophie Grigson, TV cook and cookbook writer herself. We were discussing favourite cookbooks and I was able to assure her that hers and those written by her mother Jane Grigson were among the favourites that I'd taken with me. Both women have produced books that are a good read, as well as worth cooking from.



Eight out of 10 of the British people surveyed said they were put off trying a recipe that looked too complicated. Once they started making a recipe, many failed to stick to it. Seven out of 10 said they abandoned a recipe because they didn't have the right ingredients.



Sometimes a seemingly complicated recipe is just a matter of a long list of ingredients which, when broken down, isn't so daunting. A curry often looks long and tricky but frequently is quite straightforward once everything is assembled. It may includes several spices already in the pantry. Once one learns the various steps in putting a curry together, it's fairly plain sailing and all those exciting individual flavours add to the pleasure of eating as one bites on a seed, a piece of chilli, a fresh coriander leaf.



If a recipe contains minute amounts of ingredients one may never use again, then it can be off-putting. Sometimes these ingredients aren't vital to the finished product and can be omitted, though the flavour of the finished dish may have less depth. Others - like baking powder - are vital and can't be left out.



Once a person is confident in the kitchen, the need to follow a recipe slavishly becomes less important. Substitutions and omissions come easily. But for the novice cook, a recipe should guide the user through each stage with no mystery or ambiguity - no "I wonder what they mean when they say 'julienne' the carrots."



Other "complicated" looking recipes might merely be the author talking a less experienced cook through some basic kitchen techniques.  Julia Child was a great one for holding one's hand and explaining each stage of a dish, often in minute detail.



Sometimes in this busy world it's easier to throw together an old favourite that doesn't need prompting from a recipe book. But I think it is a good idea to pull one of those cookbooks off the shelf at least once a week and try something new. Or to go out and find a challenging ingredient and search for a recipe. My recent escapade with a pig's head is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Let's keep the cookbook industry going!



How often do you use a cookbook? Who is your favourite cookbook author and why? Please share your thoughts.