Better read and fed: Fearnley-Whittingstall, Blanc, Alexander, Tsaples
Fearnley-Whittingstall, Blanc, Alexander and Tsaples: four exceptional food-related tomes seen through different eyes.
THE FOOD WRITERS’ REVIEWS
River Cottage A to Z (no specific author), Bloomsbury, $85
Text: Listen to me, not look at me. Got it? This River Cottage title is a collaboration between Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and a few like-minded chums, and the work that’s gone into it is extraordinary; the tone is sensible, informative, and ecologically aware. Move over Oxford Encyclopedia of Food, this ingredient-based reference is profound.
Graphics: Lovely classic design, simple photography and illustrations, a joy to look at. Maybe not busy enough for anyone under 30.
Yum: Roast potatoes with radicchio and cheese; meringue with strawberries and sorrel; plaice with rosemary, caper and anchovy butter
Why you need this book: Information and inspiration in one delightful, considered package. A bit like Hugh.
John Lethlean
Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons: The Story of a Modern Classic, Raymond Blanc, Bloomsbury, $95
Text: First and foremost, this is the book of the restaurant. Second, it is the book of the man. Given that Raymond Blanc and his Oxford restaurant have touched so many lives, both personally and professionally, over nearly 40 years, that seems a not unreasonable indulgence. This is a text-heavy story of immigration, assimilation and high cuisine in the French-ish manner that seems to exist outside the all-pervasive modern post-Noma/El Bulli bubble. It is food for serious cooks.
Graphics: Clean, conservative, gloss stock, classical typography with photography throughout that is neither contemporary nor old-fashioned in its styling.
Yum: Le Manoir kippers; quail’s egg ravioli; langoustine tartare; Japanese custard.
Why you need this book: If you have eaten or stayed at Le Manoir, or both, Blanc’s memoir will season your memories perfectly. And if you just want to challenge yourself in the kitchen …
John Lethlean
The Cook’s Table, Stephanie Alexander, Penguin Random House, $69.99
Where would we be without Stephanie Alexander? She is our Alice Waters, our Anna del Conte, with an ex-librarian’s sense of order and precision thrown in for good measure. More than anything our Steph has written in the past two decades, this presents as the natural sequel to the game-changing Cook’s Companion, similar in its ambition yet different enough in format and content to make it a must-have. Yes, her voice can sometimes sound a tad regal (“One does tire of pumpkin soup”), but who else can be as unflinching about the amount of work required to produce food of this standard while still making it all sound rather joyous?
Graphics: The last time I saw such artfully arranged table settings was in the 1980s, but maybe the elegant, floral look is overdue for a revival.
Yum: Celeriac and parsley soup with saffron gnochetti; salmon carpaccio with salt cod and tomato; sour cherry and rhubarb yeast tart
Why You Need This Book: So you can read all the menus faithfully and then mix them all up on a whim.
Necia Wilden
Sweet Greek Life, Kathy Tsaples, Melbourne Books, $49.99
Text: I’m not sure whether Kathy Tsaples’ cookbooks are a great ad for her retail stall (in Prahran Market) or whether it’s the other way around. Whichever, there’s something rather tantalising about the prospect of trying the definitive version of a dish before — or maybe after — you’ve had a crack at cooking it yourself. Whereas in her first book, Melbourne’s favourite Greek home cook cleaved to tradition — souvlaki, spanakopita, potatoes with lemon and oregano and the like — the sequel affords her the chance to add a few of her own iterations, some inspired by customer feedback, such as the recipe for gluten-free dough in the excellent chapter Flour and Water.
Graphics: Big, beautiful pics of the food, one on (virtually) every page. No frippery. Works a treat.
Yum: Linguine with bottarga; wood-fired goat; spinach and feta rolls
Why You Need This Book: Because it takes Greek home cooking a little further, without being silly about it.
Necia Wilden
THE LAYMAN’S REVIEWS
River Cottage
Text: Meet Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his cast of thousands, living in a bright shining cottage perched on a fecund, fresh green breast of some culinary new world where everything is sustainable, ethical and occasionally insufferable. This is cooking for the chattering classes, who want to one-up the Joneses with tales of their daring mission to secure the high street’s finest organic hand-sifted miller’s wholemeal flour and how their line-caught river trout still had the fisherman’s fly affixed and was flapping on the plate.
Graphics: Clean, contemporary, easy to digest and leavened with excellent photography. The colour-coded A-to-Z format is almost encyclopedic and a jolly good wheeze for the inveterate flicker and habitual browser.
Yum: Chilled avocado soup with tomatoes; spiced crayfish tails with cucumber and yoghurt; spotted dick with apple-brandy raisins.
Why you need this book: Bragging rights for the authentically curated, organic and impeccably ethical holier-than-thou foodie wannabe.
Jason Gagliardi
Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons: The Story of a Modern Classic
Text: Set in the rolling hills of Oxfordshire, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons is a bastion of haute cuisine, a beacon of l’art de vivre, and a string quartet of culinary harmony. I know this because it says so on the dust jacket (except for the bit about the string quartet, which I made up). A French moniker puts one’s eatery ahead in the fine-dining stakes and the recipes have a certain je ne sais quoi, oh so very special. I’m just not sure I’m qualified to try them at home.
Graphics: I loved the whimsical illustrations at the start, where a stork flies with a bundle of firm young carrots, an aspiring chef blows bubbles that turn into plates, and people drive zucchini mobiles. Alas, the illustrations end and it’s back to glossy food porn.
Yum: Soupe a l’ail et pomme de terre; ceviche de coquilles Saint-Jacques, huitres, granite d’orange; les scones.
Why you need this book: To read anecdotes such as that of the Queen Mother’s visit and how she sang La Marsellaise in flawless French. Get the Jag fixed up, spend a week in the country. Les scones!
Jason Gagliardi
The Cook’s Table
Text: The Most Powerful Person in Australian CuisineTM is back, with an excellent tome that makes a fine doorstop. Flipping the Chef’s Table concept on its head (whereby diners are enticed into parting with unfeasibly large amounts of cash to be entertained at a private table in a restaurant’s steaming, chaotic kitchen), here we have recipes for entire dinner parties created with the aim of having the chef present at the dinner table, not slaving over the stove. The organisation is second to none, with itemised lists of ingredients broken down into where you would buy them, and a timetable to follow that leaves nothing to chance. Well, except the fact that you are not Stephanie Alexander.
Graphics: The photography is lavish, the recipe pages minimal, uncluttered, and did we mention organised? And the introductory pages for each suite of recipes from Alexander the Great’s dinner parties past feature gorgeous graphic design and Stephanie’s various essays, ramblings and reminiscences.
Yum: Roasted pumpkin with sage and amaretti pangrattato; chilled lemon souffle with Grasmere gingerbread; Christine’s rose petal liqueur.
Why you need this book: Because, you unorganised oaf, this makes cooking seamless, foolproof, even idiot-proof.
Jason Gagliardi
Sweet Greek Life
Text: Greek doesn’t get any bigger, fatter, sweeter, deeper or more authentic than in Kathy Tsaples’ new tome. From its tear-jerking intro about the author’s battle with cancer to its meditation on mothers to the meaning of zoi (life), this book’s homespun manner and lush photography will whisk you away to some exotic Greek isle where hillsides covered in rare herbs topple down to the cobalt Aegean, while you get down like Zorba and smash plates like a boss.
Graphics: From the typewriter-like typeface to handwritten fonts scrawled over delicious imagery, this book is a visual feast, the epitome of food porn, cuisine as art.
Yum: Beetroot and chickpea skorthalia; celebration feta with pink peppercorns; tahini ice-cream with halva.
Why you need this book: So you can run around the kitchen shouting “kali orexi!”, the mellifluous Greek version of bon appetit.
Jason Gagliardi