Out to lunch.....Episode 2

Posted: 15/06/2010 8:00:45 p.m.

5. The Italian Baker, Carol Field, Harper & Rowe, New York, 1985

If a genie gave me three wishes and I could have anything my heart desired, I think I'd choose an E.U. passport, a smaller set of calf muscles and for Carol Field to write more cookbooks. Loads more. Celebrating Italy and Italy In Small Bites are incredible books and not nearly well-known enough. The Italian Baker is THE seminal work on the subject of bread, cakes, tarts and biscuits from regional Italy, where Field, an American, spent 2 years travelling and researching recipes. Her depth of knowledge is phenomenal and the recipes have an integrity that can only come after cooking side by side with experts. From the robust and rustic (saltless Tuscan bread, pizza by the meter, corn bread from Lombardy) to the more refined (almond paste cookies, latticed chocolate tart from Venice, panettone with dates and walnuts) it's all good stuff. She writes recipes with meticulous care...she's bothered to stick in metric conversions for example. And she spells out alternative methods for making doughs where appropriate ( by hand, using a cake mixer and using a food processor) which makes methods appear frighteningly long-winded....rather like me, really. But hey. At least one has some options and the majority of the recipes aren't terribly complex. They just take time. Some of my all-time favourite bread recipes are in this book- I love the Raisin and Rosemary Buns, the Chocolate Bread (addictive when toasted and slathered with ricotta or mascarpone) and the spectacular Gubana, an elaborate, snail-shaped sweet bread stuffed full with nuts, spices and liqueur.

6. South East Asian Food, Rosemary Brissendon, Penguin Australia, 1996

This list is short on Asian titles which was a hard call really as I adore cooking South East Asian and Indian food. But of all the books on this broad subject this one steadfastly remains my favourite and is where I turn when cravings for lemon grass, fish sauce and kaffir lime set it.... and Sailor's Thai is shut. The version I have is a soft cover Penguin featuring exceptionally cruddy paperstock and a few miserable line drawings; it's surprising that I love it as I detest paperback cookbooks with a passion. But the dog-eared, food-splashed insides attest to heavy use and anything I have ever conjured from it has been a roaring success. The first 80 pages are devoted to techniques and ingredients and there's heaps of other useful and interesting information sprinkled throughout. Chapters are themed by country- Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam etc. I've been to most of these places and I can tell you, Brissendons' recipes taste pretty authentic; all that's missing are a few saffron-robed monks, some inebriated back-packers and Deborah Kerr singing "Whistle A Happy Tune". One of my favourites is for Kai Yang, chicken on the bone marinated in a mix of coconut milk, lemongrass, fresh turmeric, chilli, coriander and fish sauce then barbecued- sublime. Another is for Saku Sai Mu, little balls of steamed sago cunningly stuffed with a fragrant mix of pork mince and roasted peanuts that I serve in iceberg lettuce leaves (there- it's out. I like iceberg lettuce...). Recipes call for all spice and curry pastes to be made from scratch and without compromising on authentic ingredients- fabulous stuff.

7. The Time Life Good Cook Series

Where to start with this lot? Most likely with a deep breath as there are around 28 in this series which was sold via mail order in the late 1970's through to the mid 1980's. Each volume is dedicated to a particular subject- everything from Beef to Beverages to Biscuits. They were all edited by the legendary Richard Olney and subscribers received a new book monthly. They could stop the flow by cancelling any time they liked and presumably many did as some volumes are much rarer than others- the Sauces book and the Confectionery one for example are both hard to find. Often seen for sale in second hand shops or on Ebay, prices vary wildly- recently I’ve picked up a few for a friend and they've ranged from NZD8 to AUD20 each. I scored the entire set for myself years ago in Onehunga and I just love them; they are classics that I turn to time and time again. They're chock full of step-by-step sequences plus informative photos and descriptions of every cooking technique imaginable. Want to know what the soft ball stage of sugar cooking looks like? Or how to fillet a round fish? Need to make Lamb Ham or Green Walnut Ketchup? Can't find a recipe for Tongue and Mushroom Crumble, Pigs' Ears with Olives or Algerian Date Pudding? Want to revitalise your Croquembouche skills or learn how to achieve the perfect crepe?? If yes then you will adore these books. And, as an added bonus, there's the thrill of the chase. Hunting them down is half the fun.

8. Seductions of Rice, Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Daguid, Artisan, New York, 1999

This Toronto based husband and wife team is my kind of authors; they scoop up their kids and cameras and disappear into some interesting bolt hole
for 6 months or so, collecting recipes, photos and stories while they are at it. Then they return home and put together cookbooks based on their experiences. I love all their books and it was a toss-up between this or their first, Flatbreads and Flavours, as to which would make the list. To tackle a single subject like rice is brave but they've bundled the material up in a thoughtful way. Logically, for such a travel-driven book, the chapters are themed according to geography; Central Asia and Persia, India, Japan and Senegal for example. Many of the recipes are for things to have with rice, while the essential cooking instructions for the grain and other useful info is at the front of the book. Who knew there were so many types of rice? I'd love to try them all...Louisiana popcorn rice, Bhutanese red rice....Wehani rice...Chinese black rice....Turkish baldo. Actually I consider rice to be one of the most difficult things to cook well and it deserves so much more attention than most of us care to give it. I could eat rice morning (beef and lettuce congee.....sticky rice rolls)....noon (egg fried rice....pilaf with fresh greens...spinach and mung dahl with basmati)...and night (...jasmine rice with grilled red snapper salad and pork satay....long grain rice with spicy simmered tofu, Yunnan pork sauce and smoky red pepper chicken...) and be a very happy camper.

9. The River Cottage Meat Book, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2004

I don't want to sound mean (well, maybe I do want to sound a little mean) but I loathe the concept of the celebrity chef. These people have far too much influence. Many of them make food that's pretty average but, on account of some X Factor measured by suited non-cooks in media middle-management, there they are on our tellies night after bleedin' night, with their heaving cleavage, golden good looks, sexy voices and mediocre knife skills. Gushing truly banal, misleading statements such as "I would DIE without lemons" (er... no you wouldn't) or "of COURSE you can make proper Hollandaise in a food processor!!" (um, no, you can't..... ). Sigh. Not so Hugh. He's part scruff, part geek and he has an excellent food ethos. The man can really cook; I find his River Cottage programmes riveting. He completely knows what he's talking about. British meat cuts aside, I reckon his Meat book is the best on this subject and it's not for sissies either. It's a text-heavy tome and kicks off with accounts and pictures of Hugh's own beasts being taken to slaughter...this is REAL paddock-to-plate fare, folks. He tackles subjects such as the morality of eating meat and (my personal favourite) takes a big swerve at the notion of a 'Vegetarian Utopia' saying it's a "simplistic" position and a "naive" concept and it "misunderstands the nature of our connection to other species." (" 'Onya mate", as we say Over Here.). The introductory pre-amble to the roasting chapter alone involves 21 pages of dense information; its part technical-speak, part lyricism and it's a jolly great read. Hugh’s' approach is to meticulously describe techniques and processes in order to give the cook confidence. "I'm not going to try and give minute-accurate cooking times for all the meats and cuts" he states in his Barbecuing blurb “because there are far too many variables at play." I like that approach, especially when all those variables are expanded upon and explained well. Oh and the recipes are great too....barbecued rosemary lamb with salsa verde, fritto misto of offal with capers and sage, curry goat, Tunisian lamb...utterly yum-factor dishes that will thankfully withstand foodie trends and fads. Yes, it's true. I do love Hugh- but I still want to tie him down and give him a seriously good hair cut.

10. Chez Panisse Desserts, Lindsey Remolif Shere, Random House, New York, 1985

I used this book devotedly when I cooked professionally and it's still my first port of call when I require a dependably delicious ice cream, pastry, curd or mousse recipe. The upside-down pear and Muscat raisin tart is a cracker, the very rich chocolate mousse is a classic and the almond semifreddo is sublime. The recipes aren't tricksy or daring or ground-breaking. Instead they just simply work and are exactly the sorts of quietly sophisticated offerings you'd want to dish up to whanau or friends. Chez Panisse Desserts emerged in 1985, well before cook books realised they could mate and spawn a plague of glossy-paged, highly designed, gorgeously photographed offspring... but never mind. There's something elegant in the spare layouts and blocks of typography that I find appealingly timeless....I don't need food shots that require the hand of Donna and a $50,000 Hasselblad to be enticed into making Tangerine Oeufs a La Neige, Fruit Compote in Darjeeling Tea with Sauternes or Coffee Ice cream with Chocolate Truffles. Chapters are organised according to the main ingredient; 'Apples, Pears and Quinces', 'Berries', 'Chocolate' and so on. There are no metric conversions but I just work around that; in 1994 a paperback edition was released but who knows if the publishers thought of us languishing down here in MetricVille when the thing was edited. If, like me, you like your cookbooks with hard covers and dust jackets, it's possible to find second hand copies of the original on http://www.barnesandnoble.com or http://www.amazon.com