Adam_Balic

I don't know anything about the site, the book is still on the shelves of some book stores in the UK, but I'm sure you can get it from Amazon. As for posting the recipes, well that would be breaking all sorts of copyright laws and it isn't very fair to the author. No, what I think will happen is that in reading the book lots of details about you grandmothers recipes will come back, which are similar but not the same as the recipes in the book. You should post these, then I can tell you if they remind me of your grandmothers cooking as well.

Very Droll .

Have you ever tried to catch the damn things? Attempted it on the west coast of Scotland, ended up looking very silly and no clams.

Priscilla, yes but of course it is vital to read all avaible information. I was merely questioning Wilfrid on the basis that I respect his opinion on reading material. And I have no problem with reading her work as "fiction" (indeed, I reading Norman Davie's "Europe" in such a vein at the moment. It's a rolicking roller coaster of a novel about a Continent and the people who knew it), I was just interested in what the work was being used for in this context. Actually, I read a lot of cookbooks in this manner, obviously only some can be read in this manner. I suspect that the dark subtextural foreboding stuff was recognisible to most British people it that era. Strange how strongly that comes through in the writing, given I have never lived in even vaguely similar conditions. If you read British cookbooks published one hundred years earlier, you get almost the opposite feeling. Never ending feasts with nothing spared, the bountiful earth will never stop providing.

Salt pork maybe?

Wilfrid - have you read the Lisa Chaney biography of E.D.? Is so, have you a preference between the two?

Diminish? . Oh, I see now, like seeing her writing as works of fiction. . This is post-modernism right? I aways bugger up post-modernism. Note to self: Next time I am cooking the Daube from "French Provincial Cooking", I must try to remember the meta-narrative.

Gavin, I think that E.D. didn't discuss the conflicts and frustrations of the increasingly self-aware proletariat and petit bourgeois classes, because she was writing from her own experiences about food and food culture. Let's face it, she wasn't of the wonderful Industrial classes, but why is that such an issue? Food to assuage hungry? Well it doesn't make for a very interesting cookbook. "Came home from mill, ate something fried, went to pub. Noticed that the summer evening light enhanced the olive green highlights on the mushy peas. Mentioned this to Alf, Alf beat me with black pudding for being a pansy. Recipe for Boudin noir alla Alf to follow." I would define Gastro-porn as food writing that is read for vicarious pleasure, instead of acted upon. Well, certainly there is an element of this, but if there wasn't it would be just like reading Delia Smith. Who would want to do that? Weigh, weigh, mix, mix, remove all interest and joy of the subject, there's you meal. Maybe that is what she has done is to scorch this dreadful British attitude that food = fuel at a time where it was needed the most. I think that her books are instruction manuals for the greater appreciation of the role of food and that is exactly how they should be read.

Gavin - I'm not sure what you mean, when you say you regard her writing as a work of fiction, would you mind expanding? When you say "kitchen sink writers" do you mean that they are cooks rather then chefs? I don't know who Lawrence Durrell is, but I have read Norman Douglas's "Venus in the Kitchen", but of a laugh, but I don't know how it compares to E.D.'s, except that the writing style has certain similarities.

E.D. is my favorite cookbook author. I read her for pleasure and I use her books extensively. I am currently on the look out for a first edition of her Italian Food. The one with all the Guttuso's illustrations (love that Facist pen and ink). Her description of the fish market near the Rialto capture exactly my own experience of the place. I read the passage a few years after my visit and it brought back amazing memories of shrimp hopping like fleas, writhing octopi and briliant blue and silver sardines. This is why she is such an amazing writer, she says all the right things to give you the perfect sense of a time/place. The recipes are also great, very instinctive, but very good.

Have reached new level of stupidity. Roasting a leg of lamb for Sunday Lunch, lamb Very expensive (US$50) so I used a meat thermometer. Lamb done, so I grab the Thermometer with bare hand. Large sizzle, much like when the Nazi grabs the Egyptian medallion in the Indian Jones film. Friends were laughing so hard they were sick. May cries of "it's a THERMOMETER you idiot, there is not excuse for not thinking it was hot!". Lamb was good.

Cabrales - here is some information on the subject. If you have the chance I would highly recommend it. Amazing art, much that I have seen before in Florence, but not together which is quite something else (also the lighting is just right in this instance, so the full potential of the art is apparent). http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/flowerartist.htm

It may not be ever possible to know the truth on this one. Dried beans lend themselves to long slow cooking, so there could be several independent sources. Most of the information I have seen makes the asumption that because one group of people prepare a similar dish, they must have had some influence on the evolution of Boston baked beans. It seems that the Puritan women developed the dish as a way of providing a high energy food without any actually food preparation on the Sabbath. Many Jewish dishes are made using the same philosophy, but that doesn't mean that there was any direct Jewish imput (this is just an example, I have no idea if there is any Jewish imput into BBB).

Dried sour cherries get used in Persian cooking and Alexander Dumas gives a cherry sauce recipe for game (I have yet to make this, as I haven't seen the correct type of cherries for sale in Scotland). I love cherries. While in DC I saw the painting of Medici's cherry collection by Bartolemeo Bimbi. Fantastic, many varieties that no longer exist , including a type which had four little cherries at the end of each stalk, instead of one single cherry.

You might like to track down this book, which is really great read on Persian food/culture, and has many recipes for pilaw/polo. I'm sure that in reading it you would remember other recipes of ou grandmothers as well. http://www.interlinkbooks.com/Leg_Cuis_Persia.html

Suvir - I have two different methods for making Pilaw. The first method (quick method) was shown to me by an Indian friend, the second is an Iranian method. 1). Take rice, fry in oil/ghee until fragrant and the rice starts to turn white, but not all white (rice ends up to soft, with no "bite" if it is fryed to long). Add 1.5 cups of water/stock/coconut milk to every 1 cup of rice. Bring to boil, lower heat then place on lid and leave for 15 minutes (do not look under the lid). Turn off heat, fluff rice, replace lid leave for five minutes. Serve. This method works very well for Basmati and Jasmine type rices, not so well for normal American long grain rice. From this basic recipe you can make lots of different types of pilaw, by adding Spices, dried fruit, nuts, herbs etc. Some types of spice I would add with the oil, some I would add with the stock. Iranian rice (who are reputed to make the best rice). 2) Take rice, boil for five minutes and drain. Mix together yogurt and and small egg yolk, with some saffron. Add some of the rice to this. Heat oil/ghee (or fat tailed sheep, tail fat if you have some!) Add yogurt/rice mix, spread this around the bottom. Sprinkle over the rest of the rice and layer in the flavour ingredients (spice, nuts fruit meat etc). Place on lid, cook on low heat for about 15-20 minutes (until rice is cooked to your liking). Take off heat add leave to steam for five minutes. Turn onto a plate. The idea of the yogurt mix is to give a crisp layer of cooked rice, which is prized (there are other ways of doing this, but the yogurt gives a nice flavour). There should be enough liquid from the initial boiling of the rice to steam and cook the rice. This can be tricky, so I sometimes cheat and cook the rice as in method 1). and then use some of this rice to make the crisp base. This type of recipe when made with lots of colourful ingredients (and large sugar crystals sprinkled over) is know as "Jewel Rice".

Adam - sounds like "La Garrigue" on Jeffrey St., which although newish, has been getting some good reveiws, but I haven't been there myself. Will have to try it. MW is very much cheaper for the Lunch option (three courses for less then twenty quid).

The issue plagued me so that I looked up the etymology of the word. Comes from the Greek "Kampe", which is the shrimp/lobster thing. I wonder if the American usage of the word was originally "Sauce as for Scampi", then the "as for" bit dropped out of popular usage. Anyway I can sleep peacfully now!

I live in Edinburgh, so I can give you a few suggestions. What type of food do you like/dislike and what do you mean by pretentious (my definition of that would most likely be different). For French Bistro type food I like: Le Petite Folie (61 Frederick St), seven quid for three courses at lunch, about fifteen quid for dinner. It is very simple, but good French bistro fare. Petit Paris (38 Grassmarket), more upmarket then the former (still un-pretentious) and better food, still of the Bistro level. Still cheap. Daniel's Bistro (88 Commercial Street, Leith). Food of Alsace, with Scottish twist. I like it, but come hungry and don't expect many Veggie options. There are lots of other choices, maybe you could give me a bit more idea of what you are looking for (ie. Would you like to go to an "ethnic" Scottish restuarant or something else?).

Maybe you like the pain? JW - Nah, I imagine that they just refered to me as another foreign idiot who was begging to have his fingers cut up.

Yes, the chap at Dehillerin tried to sell me a guard, but I pooh-poohed the idea.

Yes, thank you Cabrales.

Yes, that's the plant. You can use the leaves to wrap fish/chicken then grill these packets. The Screwpine gives a nice flavour to the meat. The rice dishes are almost the same (they are both "Pilaw/Pulao"). Mine is a modern Iranian recipe (basically a Persian recipe), so it is interesting how, after some many of years of seperation, the Indian and Iranian recipes remain so similar. Maybe, it isn't so surprising, given how Persian cooking has influenced so many other cuisines.

OHoHoHOH. I have a microwave story too! Although it's not strickly about food, well human food anyway. I was microwaving a one litre bottle of liquified sheep shit and agar (jelling agent) at work (to feed to some parasitic worms I was working on). Lid was too tight, result, large explosion. The door of the microwave was torn off and hot sheep shit lava was splatted on everything in the room, which then cooled and jelled. Took me days to clean up. Still don't trust microwaves. Only last week I was micowaving some tripe and it exploded. Stupid machines really.

Hmmm. The Kennedy must have been the Gate-crasher who tried to feel-up my wife.