I have added an
astore selling cook books to my site .
As I have said previously, books are a large part of my life and the
thought of being able to offer them for sale really pleases me.
Mainly, I am interested in books that teach, those written by cooks and
chefs who have a deep, historical understanding of their craft and of the
skills required to pursue it. Their books reflect this, with lots of
information about food, its origins and how it should be handled, descriptions of cooking techniques and tools,
and if one is lucky, some discussion about the world of the chef and maybe a
little history. Lovely!
Some of the best books
in this genre, in the day, were dedicated to the food of China, Japan and points East. The enthusiasm for cooking exotic foods outside of the
European tradition was becoming evident
in the sixties and the seventies and these books really forced us to re-assess
many of
our cooking ideals and techniques.
They included meticulous directions for using knives and cleavers in the
Chinese style and introduced the concept of cutting small and cooking fast. We marvelled at the fabulously sophisticated
recipes - so different from the fried rice, chop suey and chow mein drowned in
harsh soy sauce, that as students we had eaten in cheap cafes.
(One of the great urban myths - or not - of the time were of
Health Inspectors who, upon opening cool store doors, found skinned cat
carcasses swinging on the inside.)
We found it fascinating that this cuisine rarely demanded
expensive tools for the kitchen. Just chopsticks, a wok 'spoon', said knives and cleavers, a
skimmer, a whisk, maybe a steamer or two and a wok. A far cry from the
elaborate batterie de cuisine of the French kitchen. We learned of new
ingredients, vegetables and flavours. We
learned that Chinese haute cuisine had been strangled by the communist regime
because of its connection to the monarchy and the upper classes and so had
almost been lost to the world. It was only saved because of restaurants in Hong
Kong struggled to keep the tradition alive. Here was food and history marching hand in hand.
Such stories are legion and deserve to be read and
remembered. And so we have books!
