Neil Sowerby suggests some food books as Christmas stocking fillers. Just dont expect to see some familiar faces on the covers!
Its that time of the year. The weekend papers are stuffed with every conceivable festive food tip. I call the endless parade of culinary soundbites the Angela Hartnett Must have A Good Agent Factor. Fine, but between hardcovers I want more meat. No, Im not asking Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall to relinquish his latest canny venture, Lets Go Veggie And Feel Smug About Our Lives â Im talking substance.
So lets avoid the the raft of TV-spin off cookbooks, even though thats where the discounts are. An odd new face like model turned cake baker Lorraine to break up the cartel of celebrity chefs and their banks of diligent researchers but otherwise its the usual overload of recycled recipes. Spain, through the eyes of fished-out Rick Stein, offers few deep insights but an affection for the country and workable recipes; the Jamie Oliver celebration of British food is simply a weary cash cow.
I do like tomes that celebrate a particular restaurant and its chef and here are two I heartily recommend, the first a fresh taste of Italy, the second two great English chefs with their culinary roots in classic French cuisine
Bocca Cookbook by Jacob Kenedy (Bloomsbury, £30)
London-born Cambridge graduate Kenedy has produced the most inspiring, as well Italian cookbook I have read in years to complement his hardcore Italian regional eaterie in Soho. (Motto: For when youre hungry like a wolf). Pluck with Artichokes or Little BIrds in Polenta are not the kind of dishes cropping up in you local trattoria, but ingredient sourcing for most of the recipes is straightforward. It is beautifully illustrated and designed, but most importantly the text offers a cunning exploration of Italian food beyond the Chiantishire cliches.
Galvin â A Cookbook de Luxe by Chris and Jeff Galvin (Absolute Press, £25)
Devon crab lasagne. Ive eaten this Galvin signature starter repeatedly at their groundbreaking Galvin Bistrot de Luxe in Baker Street and couldnt resist it at Galvin La Chapelle, when we were there the week before it won its Michelin star last December (sheer coincidence!). This handsomely produced volume is very much a celebration of two brothers who have done the rounds of Britains top-end kitchens and finally forged their own identity. The biographical stuff reads a bit stilted and some dishes are only for the most accomplished amateur chef to emulate. Still a good stocking filler. If it sends you to their restaurants, youre in for a treat.
The Constance Spry Cookbook by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume (Grub Street, £30)
A true kitchen bible from the Fifties, Miss Spry and her Cordon Bleu colleague Rosemary Hume were essentially teaching the upper middle classes how to cope in the post-war kitchen without domestic help. It a supremely practical book, useful still in explaining cooking processes, but you can see how romantics were and are seduced by Elizabeth David. This reissue by Grub Street (www.grubstreet.co.uk) is a handsomely produced slab. Constance Spry gets a namecheck in veteran food historian Colin Spencers From Microliths to Microwaves (£20), another trenchant addition to Grub Streets contemporary roster and a worthy follow-up to his British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years Of History.
Modern Cookery by Eliza Acton (Quadrille, £16.99)
This is the flagship volume in Quadrilles series of reprints of recipe books, called Classic Voices in Food and edited by Jill Norman who created the Penguin Cookbooks series in the Sixties and Seventies. First published in 1856, the full title is Modern Cookery For Private Families. In cookbook term, its the Stones to Mrs Beetons Beatles. Her collection of the nations recipes eventually eclipsed the Acton cookery primer based upon her own experiences, but Modern Cookery remains a better social document to dip into.
Other Classic Voices, all highly recommended: Madame Pruniers Fish Cookbook (1938, £14.99), Simple French Cooking for English Homes by X Marcel Boulestin (1923, £12.99) and and a very user-friendly English rival, The Gentle Art of Cookery by Mrs CF Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley (1925, £14.99)
Comfort And Spice â Recipes for Modern Living by Niamh Shields (Quadrille pb, £14.99)
In contemporary contrast Quadrille (www.quadrille.co.uk) publish a series called New Voices In Food. The best is this spin-off from a food blog, Eat Like A Girl, named one of the 10 best in the world by The Times. London-based Irish ex-pat Niamh is a generous-minded handbook for those who want confront ingredients directly and creatively (no Acton, Spry or Spencer then). Give it to your foodie son or daughter for Christmas.
The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by Garrett Oliver (OUP, £25)
900 pages of often technical, occasionally American-biased information on everything beery, its not in the same league as Alan Davidsons great, great Oxford Companion To Food or even Jancis Robinsons wine equivalent. More a reference to dip into. Still with beer experiencing a golden age across the globe, this Companion was much needed. Pity in a picture montage they have Manchesters iconic Marble Arch captioned as a London pub!
Food Britannia by Andrew Webb (Random House, £25)
Fergus Henderson, no less, said of Webbs beautifully illustrated foodie odyssey: There is much deliciousness in the British Isles; you just have to find it, which brilliantly Adnrew Webb has done for us. A splendid book. An eclectic appreciation of traditional and innovative foodstuffs. A real stuffing for a stocking.