Lucky dip - part two. Learning to cook from a book

"It is a step-by-step course in cookery which takes you progressively through all the culinary techniques that you need to become a really superb cook, and as you master section after section of the Course, learning progressively all the techniques of gourmet cookery, you will be able to choose your favourite dishes from the whole book to make many memorable meals that will astound your friends and delight yourself." Robert Carrier

My lucky dip experience led me to choosing volume five of Robert Carrier's Cookery Course. I think I bought all five volumes at once and I am ashamed to say I did not work my way through them. They are very much of their time - the early 70s, when Carrier was still relatively young - just look at the photos and the clothes - I mean he surely didn't cook whilst wearing them. But they are full of good advice and and even better recipes. I could not cook the Christmas turkey without it.

They are small paperbacks without a single illustration (other than a few illustrating the various cuts of meat), and so the text has to do all the instruction. Which it does well - as he says - step-by-step. Anyway it made me think about the ways we learn to cook and about cookery courses in print in particular.

I learnt to cook mostly from watching my mother demonstrate how to do things and teaching me certain dishes and techniques. I don't think she had any cookbook other than Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management which was written in Victorian times, but to which she referred every now and then. I also had cooking lessons at school - high school. We had a subject called domestic science (it was a girl's school and the fifties), in which we learnt how to cook and how to sew. I did enjoy those lessons. Funnily I remember most the lesson on how to make pastry and how to rub butter into flour. Do they have such things any more at high school I wonder? I suspect not. But then they have Jamie Oliver, Masterchef, et al on the television I suppose. I also learnt from my trips to France where I watched the French in action in the kitchen and finally from following recipes in the magazines and cookbooks that I bought at an ever-increasing rate. So a mixture of practical experience, formal teaching, observation and reading. Probably by the time I came to the Robert Carrier Cookery Course I knew most of the basic techniques. But it is never, never too late to learn something new.

Having decided to write about cookery courses in print I thought about what I had in my own library, ignoring the specialist things like Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I'm talking about books that purport to teach you how to cook from scratch. Which left me with one definite - Delia's How to Cook in three volumes, one more or less definite - The Way to Cook by Julia Child and Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion which is really more of a reference book than a cookery course per se. So I'm going to do a quick comparison with Robert Carrier's work.

Delia's three volume work is a product of the 90s and is a beautifully illustrated (with photographs) publication. Here are not only photographs of finished dishes (there are recipes to make use of what you have learnt), but also photographs showing how to do things. What am I saying? Of course there are recipes. All these books have recipes - why else would we buy them? Probably, like me, we don't even read the very useful instructive stuff but rush straight to a recipe. But you should look at the instructive stuff - it's useful. And this one also existed as a television series so you could actually see how Delia did these things in person. Nowadays she is still pioneering with her online Cookery School. Take a look next time you need to do something tricky - or even simple. You can learn new tricks - even old hands like me can learn something new. How to keep your pastry in the right shape when rolling it out for example.

Julia Child's massive tome from 1989 also includes instructive photographs and photographs of dishes for which there are recipes. This was possibly groundbreaking at the time, (the photographs I mean), but then again maybe not as we were possibly into the glossy coffee table cookery book by then. The 80s were a glossy decade.

Stephanie Alexander, on the other hand has reverted to no illustrations at all. Well not of the techniques, or the dishes. There is the occasional full-page plate of landscapes. shops and producers. All very arty and beautiful but not helpful. It's also originally a 1990's publication but was revised (my edition) in 2004.

I don't have any other books of this ilk but when I looked online the favourites seemed to be Prue Leith's Cookery Bible, Matt Bittman's How to Cook Everything and Irma S. Rombauer's The Joy of Cooking. I have no idea who Matt Bittman is but his book came up on several lists and The Joy of Cooking is an American classic.

The way my four examples are organised is interesting too. Robert Carrier, in an attempt to make everything super easy and welcoming begins with appetisers.

"The simplest - and often the best - appetisers of all are those you buy - whole, sliced , smoked or canned - and just open (or unwrap) and serve." Robert Carrier

He gives a couple of very, very simple recipes and then continues on to 'Simple Egg Dishes'. Which is interesting because Delia begins her three volume work with three chapters on eggs and what to do with them - including how to boil an egg - as does Robert Carrier, who also has instruction on how to break open an egg. By the time he gets to the end of his five volumes, having encountered progressively more difficult techniques throughout, you finish by being able to cook an elaborate Chocolate Chestnut Bombe, whilst Delia finishes with David's Chocolate Fudge with Roasted Nuts and Raisins. Interesting that they should both finish with something sweet. Like a meal I suppose.

Robert Carrier was one of the first cooks to introduce the notions of fun and easy.

"Cooking is easy; wonderfully easy. And cooking is fun. I firmly believe that every meal we have should be a pleasure, and adventure. And by that I do not mean that we all have to eat complicated dishes and rich sauces every day of our lives; nor do we have to spend all day in the kitchen to prepare the family dinner. But I do believe that we must take advantage of our meal times to produce well-planned, well-presented meals that are delicious to eat."

A sentiment espoused by today's modern TV cooks - Jamie Oliver et al. 'Easy peasy' as Jamie is fond of saying. And it is true. But you can still do the odd complicated thing every now and then - that's fun too - especially if it's successful.

Robert Carrier has good advice, that I should have followed when my children were teenagers and difficult to feed - try at least two new dishes every week to prevent boredom setting in. How I wish I had. And, in fact, I find myself slipping into similar patterns today. Maybe that's yet another New Year's resolution to make note of.

Delia Smith also likes to emphasise the ease of it all. She believes, as do I, that anyone can cook.

"I am hoping to achieve two things in How to Cook: one is to reintroduce people to the pleasure of basic, staple ingredients, and the second is to provide a first-time cookbook, something that will be a good grounding to the simple basics and provide a springboard for a lifetime of learning - not just in how to cook but in how to experience the sheer joy and pleasure of eating good food every single day." Delia Smith

Julia Child too, though she arranges her book somewhat differently. It is more like a standard cookery book in some ways - beginning with soups and progressing through to desserts. However, within this familiar structure she groups her chapters into subsets of similar dishes - thus in her meat section she groups together stews, sautés, roasts, etc. She teaches the basic technique of a type with a master recipe with lots of illustrations and photographs and then gives variants to the master recipe. Her aim is to make it easy and pleasurable and creative to cook.

"While attitudes about food have changed through these last years, fortunately the principles of good cooking have not. The more one knows about it, the less mystery there is, the faster cooking becomes, and the easier it is to be creative and to embrace new trends and ideas - in addition, the more pleasure one has in the kitchen." Julia Child

Stephanie Alexander's massive tome has often been described as a bible and she does have sections on technique and basics. However it's primary aim is not to teach novices I think. It's arranged by ingredients which is useful when you are looking for ideas for what to do with asparagus. And in each of those sections she talks about how to choose and how to prepare. But the main focus of the book is the recipes - which do range from extremely simple to very elaborate. Really I am only including it here as it is so comprehensive, but not really a cookery course. And her introduction turns into a long rant about fresh ingredients and the evils of multinationals and supermarkets. She doesn't really have much to say about why we should cook - just that we should cook with stuff we buy from farmer's markets. I probably simplify here, but that's the general drift it seems to me. The recipes are good though. I've used lots of them.

So should you buy one of these books - or similar - or should you just wing it, relying on what you learnt from your mother? Or nowadays, from the television. Should you buy books? I think so - I truly believe that to be able to cook is just a matter of having the right books. But cookery books are big business and Prue Leith is a bit damning about them:

“Today, if we cook we Google it. New cookbooks lie on the coffee table and we drool over Tuscan landscapes and rustic bread ovens. Before ordering in a pizza. ... I regret to say it’s mostly the middle classes who are fascinated by it. If you live on a council estate and your mother didn’t cook and the supermarket doesn’t stock decent food, why would you waste your benefits on food your children won’t eat?” Prue Leith

I think she is right, but nevertheless there is so much cooking on TV these days that you would think that even those people on the council estates might take a slight interest every now and then.

Robert Carrier, on the other hand thinks that everyone has the capacity to eat well and that everyone in the family should be made to participate and also to eat a varied diet.

"The shops are full of possibilities well within our reach, both gastronomically and economically. So don't get into a food rut. Whether you are feeding the family or special guests, just one or two new dishes a week will make a dramatic different to your culinary vocabulary and will give them at the same time the pleasure of voting on your latest creations."

And that is even truer today. Exciting times as Delia says.