A Work in Progress

Penguin Great Food Series Revisited

My, how time flies.  Remember this post?  Probably not and that's okay.  I am almost too embarrassed to mention it since I wrote it at the end of 2012.  Maybe we could almost call it 2013 and then it wouldn't seem as though so much time has passed.  I am always so full of plans, aren't I?

Since this year is supposed to be all about reading from my own shelves and this piles of lovely little Penguins happens to be sitting out and in my daily line of sight, I was thinking maybe it was time to revamp my plans to read through the Penguin Great Food series of books.  What initially prompted it all was reading Agnes Jekyll's A Little Dinner Before the Play, which is a series of columns she wrote for The Times in the 1920s.  I really liked it and knew I had to have the whole set, which I then set about acquiring.  And they have been sitting, waiting and staring at me ever since.

They are slender little volumes, gorgeously designed--usually selections from larger, longer works, so just the perfect length for a taste--literally and figuratively.  A taste of each author's writing and an (imagined) taste of various cuisines from different cultures and at different periods in history.  All in all a perfect sampling of writing for a perfect little reading project.

It sounded good at the time and it still sounds pretty good now.  I think my error was trying to put them in some sort of order and then read them in said order.  I was stuck on the first book--just wasn't quite what I wanted at the moment and so it languished, was set aside and sort of forgotten.  But I have decided to give it another go.  This time, however, I will choose the books on whim and desire--who cares which order.  And I have started with an author I hugely admire--M.F.K. Fisher. 

I read and loved her Gastronomical Me.  She is not only a most impressive author, but a woman of culture and panache.  And while my own palate is pretty unstudied and unsophisticated, I can still love her writing and the things she writes about.  I might not be tempted by all the dishes she writes about, but I certainly can appreciate how she writes about them.  Maybe I will even read more of her work this year (because after I read her I had to have as much of her other writing as I could get my hands on . . . you know how that goes).  But I am starting with the Penguin book, Love in a Dish and Other Pieces, which is a series of culinary essays. 

I've read the first essay and am into the second.  In it she writes about traveling by train with her uncle from California to Chicago in 1927.  I think she must have surely been influenced a little by him.  He was a seasoned train traveler and knew how to navigate the system, especially the dining car.  When presented with the choice of dishes, she responds with an "I don't really care" and is gently castigated.  He tells her she should never reply in such a manner since it is stupid, which she is not.

"It implies that the intentions of your host are basically wasted on you.  So make up your mind, before you open your mouth.  Let him believe, even if it is a lie, that you would infinitely prefer the exotic wild asparagus to the banal mushrooms, or vice versa.  Let him feel that it matter to you . . . and even that he does!" 

"'All this', my uncle added gently, 'may someday teach you about the art of seduction, as well as the more important art of knowing yourself'."

The other bit of wisdom from her uncle Evan--"The only test of a good breakfast place is its baked apple".  I wonder if you can use that test still these days?!

Other books in the series (and in no particular order to be read):

**The Well Kept Kitchen by Gervase Markham
**The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys (based on Pepys' diaries)
**Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving by Hannah Glasse
**Recipes from the White Hart Inn by William Verrall
**The Pleasures of the Table by Brillat-Savarin
**The Elegant Economist by Eliza Acton
**The Chef at War by Alexis Soyer
**The Campaign for Domestic Happiness by Isabella Beeton
**From Absinthe to Zest by Alexandre Dumas
**Notes from Madras by Colonel Wyvern
**Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding by Dr. A.W. Chase
**A Dissertation Upon Roasting a Pig and Other Essays by Charles Lamb
**Exciting Food for Southern Types by Pellegrino Artusi
**A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll
**Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by M.F.K. Fisher
**A Taste of the Sun by Elizabeth David
**Murder in the Kitchen by Alice B. Toklas
**A Middle Eastern Feast by Claudia Roden
**Eating with the Pilgrims and Other Pieces by Calvin Trillin (essays appearing mostly in The New Yorker)
**Recipes & Lessons from A Delicious Cooking Revolution by Alice Water

The Penguin Great Food Series Project

I've finally found a little time to organize and think about my lovely set of Penguin Great Food books.  Now that I've got several longish reads behind me I think I'm ready to begin my next reading project.  The set consists of twenty slim volumes spanning some four hundred years of domestic life and cookery.  I have tried to put them into a loose chronological order.  A few volumes are made up of essays published over a number of years so I had to fudge a little bit, but I think I've got them more or less listed by publication date.  I've decided to start at the beginning and moving through time to see how food, kitchens, domestic life, and social history in general (it's amazing what you can learn from books like these) has changed over time.  If I find myself bogged down, however, don't be surprised if I throw all caution to the wind and choose randomly. 

This is a project with no set rules, and I'm in no  hurry to read through these.  Most of the books are about 100 or so pages and the longest appears to be just under 150 pages, so they should read relatively fast--depending of course on whether or not I get sidetracked by something I read and want to veer off the trail a bit.  It would be great fun to try a recipe from each book, though I make no promises (I have yet to try to make anything from A Little Dinner Before the Play, but there were several that I might just be able to attempt).  I've even got a tab at the top of the page all ready to go and will start filling up the page with links and quotes and (hopefully) pictures of my own cooking attempts, as well posts about each book.  

The order I've come up with:

The Well Kept Kitchen by Gervase Markham, 1615

The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys, 1660-1669 (based on Pepys' diaries)

Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving by Hannah Glasse, 1747

Recipes from the White Hart Inn by William Verrall, 1759

The Pleasures of the Table by Brillat-Savarin, 1825

The Elegant Economist by Eliza Acton, 1845

The Chef at War by Alexis Soyer, 1857

The Campaign for Domestic Happiness by Isabella Beeton, 1861

From Absinthe to Zest by Alexandre Dumas, 1873

Notes from Madras by Colonel Wyvern, 1878

Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding by Dr. A.W. Chase, 1887

A Dissertation Upon Roasting a Pig and Other Essays by Charles Lamb, 1888(?)

Exciting Food for Southern Types by Pellegrino Artusi, 1891

A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll, 1922

Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by M.F.K. Fisher, 1929(?)

A Taste of the Sun by Elizabeth David, 1950(?)

Murder in the Kitchen by Alice B. Toklas, 1954

A Middle Eastern Feast by Claudia Roden, 1968

Eating with the Pilgrims and Other Pieces by Calvin Trillin, 1977-2010 (essays appearing mostly in The New Yorker)

Recipes & Lessons from A Delicious Cooking Revolution by Alice Waters, 2007

I've already got one book under my belt (out of order but that's okay...the urge had to start somewhere).  I'm really looking forward to this--I think it'll be great fun, and I'll be sharing as I read.  First up is Gervase Markham's The Well-Kept Kitchen.  I'll be transporting myself back to 1615 and will let you know soon what I discover there!

A Little Dinner Before the Play

I really love learning about history, and one of my favorite periods (as regular readers will know) that I enjoy reading about is the interwar years--just after the end of WWI and the before start of WWII.  Historical fiction is one way to learn a little about history in an easy and painless manner (or at least being a jumping off place to learn something new), but you can't beat books that deal with social history to give you an idea of how people really lived and what they thought--my favorites being anecdotal or narrative types of writing.

What about learning about history via cookery books?  An entirely different sort of history but none the less fascinating and in some ways more so.  Certainly you can't question the authenticity of someone living in England in 1922 and writing from the immediacy of the moment.  Here's the world of (in some cases anyway) women and the domestic sphere, yet books like Agnes Jekyll's A Little Dinner Before the Play look out on to the broader world as well.

The book is made up of essays originally published in The Times in the early 1920s and she writes in an intimate and cozy manner about a world long since vanished.  Lady Agnes Jekyll, a celebrated hostess, was the sister-in-law of Gertrude Jekyll the famous English garden designer.  Anyone who can claim as guests to her first dinner party the likes of Robert Browning, John Ruskin, and Edward Burne-Jones, surely knows well of what she writes.  I think I would have taken her advice, though she was definitely writing from a certain social strata in which I doubt I would have been living.  Of course it's this strata that I find endlessly (though not exclusively) interesting to read about--the sort of people who might still have servants, have active social lives--plays, dinner parties, weekend shooting parties, holidays in Tuscany and the like, and entrée into homes and places not open perhaps to the rest of the world.  Should note here--don't think I'm snobbish in liking to read about the 'upstairs' sort of folk--only it's a world quite unlike my own and so am curious about it, though I find the 'downstairs' world immensely interesting, too.

Although the War would have been several years past the effects of it can still be felt as Jekyll alludes to it albeit somewhat indirectly.  I imagine her world to be elegant and full of opportunities.  She might have entertained artists and politicians and blue-blood Society matrons.  In her world a meal was something that might be lavish and would certainly have been well thought out and presented with an eye towards sophistication and taste.  But as a good hostess she would also know her "audience".  And there are, too, the glimmers of a changing world in her writing. 

Once again my copy is dog eared since there were so many interesting bits I wanted to go back to and share.  Just as the times were changing socially, so, too was the food that was being eaten.

"A Salad Course as habitually given now at American luncheon parties might furnish a pleasing variety from established usage, and for the central dish a large green bowl containing a mixture of green or sugar corn of the largest shelled variety (as sold in tins by American grocery importers), freshened and flavoured  with a little whipped cream, pepper, and red celery salt, and surrounded by pieces of white endive lubricated with oil and vinegar."

In the same essay, "A Little Dinner Before the Play", she plans her meal down to the last desire of her guests.

"There should still be time for a perfect cup of coffee and a possible liqueur, and, most desired of all by many, for a good smoke, without which there will be no social fire.  Warmed thus and fed, the play-goers will be attuned to enjoyment and ready to appreciate each other, their dinner, their play, and their hostess, 'and to bed with great contentment'."

Oh, my, how times have changed.  A little dinner before the play these days would like take place in a good restaurant, which is likely now smoke free!

Next time I'm ill I want someone to lavish the same sort of attention on me as Jekyll advises her readers to do.  My tray meal has never consisted of "lustre ware of both silver and gold" to give a bit of brightness to the tea or breakfast sets.  As a matter of fact I don't think I've ever had the benefit of a tray meal (sick or otherwise).

"Remember that the whole tone of the day can be set into a happy major key instead of into a mournful minor one by the mere aspect of the breakfast tray.  A cheerful cherry - glacé or fresh - will render irresistible the skilfully-prepared and iced grape fruit on a hot day, a seedless orange halved and treated in the same way, beautified by green leaves of its own, or the nearest resembling foliage (and even villa gardens can boast a laurustinus bush); a gay-pottery saucer of thin slices of banana with brown sugar and cream, a slice of melon, a tiny bunch of grapes, summer fruits in their seasons, and the health-giving apple accompanied by its ingenious little plated corer and wooden platter--all these may render nourishment welcome.  A bunch of violets or primroses, a single rose, a sprig of heather, a spray of lemon verbena would bring a reminder of fresh life and loveliness from the outdoor world."

Spoiled with a tray like that I am sure I'd feel immeasurably better in no time.

One of my favorite essays was "Food for Travellers".  In this case the travellers are going by train, which I have always found to be a hugely romantic way of travelling (and living in the US, something we simply don't do here--hence the attractiveness I'm sure).  Now travellers in Jekyll's day were off to the sunny Riviera or somewhere cold for skiing, or perhaps a little gambling in Monte Carlo.  Adequate provision in the form of a picnic basket was a necessity.  Not having very sophisticated tastes I have to say I would have preferred the children's basket over that of the adults.  I'm afraid home-made foie gras just doesn't hold the appeal for me, though the sandwiches of thinnest gruyère between biscuits sound pretty good.  For the children:

"Sandwiches of fruit for the children are popular.  Round slices of banana sprinkled with orange juice and white centrifugal sugar, or of thinly-cut apple with grated walnuts, sandwiches of cream cheese with a thin spread of currant jelly, of egg with sardine or anchovy, of celery shredded and creamed and sprinkled with plentiful yolk of hard-boiled egg, sandwiches of sponge-cake spread with chocolate or coffee icing, sandwiches of pastry with jam or glazed with thin caramel."

Okay, maybe I would also pass on the sardines!  I wonder what kind of bread she would have used?  One thing that I found interesting reading these essays and the accompanying recipes was the way they are presented.  Her recipes wouldn't have been for the novice.  A certain amount of cooking knowledge would have been necessary I think, as she assumes the reader will already know how to prepare certain dishes, and the directions aren't always all that explicit.  I'll leave you with one recipe, and I wonder if you can guess what it will be?  Not braised sheep's tongue I assure you.

". . . a nice Oatmeal Sunday Pudding for family consumption . . ."

"Take 3 oz. coarse oatmeal, 3 oz. flour, 2 oz. butter (or margarine), 1 1/2 oz. sugar, rind of 1 lemon, 1/2 teacupful treacle, 1/2 teaspoonful carbonate of soda, 1/2 teacupful milk, 2 oz. dried stoned and chopped raisins, ditto candied peel; rub butter into floor, add oatmeal, sugar, soda, fruit, rind, and bind together with warmed milk and treacle.  Turn into a greased mould or basin; steam carefully for 2 or 3 hours.  Turn out and serve with a sweet sauce or a custard made hot."

Delicious.

Now that I have the whole set of these Penguin Great Food books, I think I need to make them into a reading project (the first of several I've got in mind--expect some changes in my tabbed area at the top of my page here).  I plan on reading all 20 volumes, though I am in no rush to get through them.  They are quite short-less than 150 pages or so and it would be easy to read one or two a month and try and finish sometime before the end of next year.  Now I just need to decide whether to read at random or put the books in order by period they were written.  It would be interesting to see how cooking and tastes have changed over time, but then reading at whim is nice as well.  It would be fun, too to try and make at least one dish from each book, though I'm not so sure I will be so faring--will have to think on that aspect of the project.  In any case I'll be deciding soon as I am ready now to pick up another book and hope it will be equally as charming and delightful to read as the Jekyll was. 

October 10: Book & Reading Notes (in pics)

Today, a few books I'm thinking about, a few I'm reading, and a few more I'm thinking about reading.  A post in photos, if you will.

First.

Ooohh, so pretty, don't you think?  I indulged (in a big way) and ordered the complete set of Penguin's The Great Food Series of books.  I had one on my bookshelves and had read it, loved it, and decided I needed to own (and read) them all. So I splurged, but I bought a 'new' used set (sans the box so it was much cheaper than buying them all brand new).  More about what I just read later (and what I'm going to read next). 

I'm so taken with these lovely little books, let me share another photo.

I just started reading Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat for Cornflower's Book Group and am quite enjoying it.  It's unlike the other books I've read by her but unlike in a good way.  Maybe because the setting is England rather than Greece or somewhere else exotic?  There is also the touch of the supernatural about it.  Bryony Ashley is the heroine and as per Stewart's heroine's she's smart and independent and very likable.   

Criminy but Ann-Marie MacDonald knows how to tell a good (and I mean good) story.  800 pages you may think?  Trust me, you don't even feel it.  You welcome it.  It is excruciatingly good.  I know that sounds a little oxymoronish, but it's accurate--that's exactly how I am feeling at the moment.  More about this one later.   

I am such a pushover when it comes to books.  Talk about one in a tantalizing way and I want to read it, too.  You probably already know that about me, though, right?  I belong to an online reading group (à la Yahoo Groups) and they often do readalongs, and tempted though I might be, I usually refrain.  Lately every book they mention sounds so appealing, that I broke down and decided I needed to read Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-Maker.  The idea behind the group (at least when it first formed) was to read from the Persephone Books list, but as I don't have this in the lovely Persephone edition, and my library has the 1924 edition, it will work just as well.  I've heard many good things about it, and just a few chapters in, I think I will have to concur. 

I'm zipping through Joanne Harris's The Girl with No Shadows, or as it was published in the UK The Lollipop Shoes.  It's a sequel to Chocolat (if you click on the link you can see the reissue of this book with its new cover design--I like it very much).  Chocolat is one of my all-time favorite books.  As you can see I had to have the book when it first came out.  I started it, then it was set aside and not picked up for years.  This year I decided it was time to read it finally but it had been languishing on my reading pile once again (not due to the story but the fact that I don't like carrying hardcovers around with me if possible), and was in danger of getting reshuffled back into the 'for later' book pile when I realized my turn had come up for her newest book, Peaches for Father Francis (which I just picked up from the library last night).  So it was press on and read it or get out of line for the new book and just set them both aside for later.  I'm glad I pressed on.  It's a darker than Chocolat, but still has a wonderfully magical quality to it.  More bittersweet than milk chocolate?  Well, I'm two thirds of the way through and should finish in just a couple of days, so we'll see.

And one more.  This is the one I'm 'thinking about'.  I know lots of people read Erin Mordenstern's The Night Circus when it was first released, and I admit that I was smitten with the cover illustration and had to have the UK edition (I know, I am shallow that way).  I'm on Pinterest (and if you are too and I am not following you, let me know and I'll rectify that), and while I've not been updating my boards lately (it can be strangely addictive and I have to be careful or hours will pass messing about with them), I do get emails letting me know when something on my own boards has been 'repinned'.  Guess what book seems to be a hot repin for me?  Yup, The Night Circus.  I feel as though someone is trying to tell me something.  So I finally slipped my copy from its place in the pile and have moved it to my bedside.  Not sure if I'll just dive in or talk myself into waiting, but I'm at least contemplating it.  It would be a good fit for RIP, right?  And a nice magical sort of companion book to go along with Joanne Harris.  So what am I waiting for?

As usual, I am dipping into a (ahem) few other books, but these are the highlights--the books I seem to be reaching for most often this week. 

What have you been reaching for?