A new kind of lucky dip

I think I mentioned the idea of looking into the first recipes in various cookbooks when I was talking about Nigella Express. That was some time ago now but I have been mulling the idea over in my mind. I have even checked a couple of my favourite cookbooks. And in the end I decided that this could be a new category of choosing something to write about when inspiration is short. Choose a book - at random, or by some yet to be decided method - and instead of choosing a page at random look at the first recipe in the book. By the end of the project I might have come to some conclusion about the importance of the first recipe or not, as well as learning something else entirely on the side issues raised by that recipe. Like - who started crusting beef with pepper, and why do we now use so much balsamic vinegar? And why did Delia choose this particular recipe to illustrate whatever her topic was?

For the photograph above is of the first recipe in Delia's How to Cook, volume 3. It's for Pepper-crusted fillet of beef with roasted balsamic onions and thyme. I'm not going to talk about it here, it's just an example from a modern kind of cookbook. Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, on the other hand, - a book with no glossy pictures of the recipes provided and much older - begins with Bouillon pour les Sauces (stock for sauces). And you have to get to page 133 before you get to an actual recipe. Nigella begins her first and classic book How to Eat, also unadorned by arty photographs, with Roast chicken. So you can see that even with just three examples there is a huge variation in what's on offer, both in the recipes themselves and also in the way they are presented.

Not to mention the way the book is arranged. There is a massive variety in this, both in the way the entire book is arranged and presented, designed, I should say, in the modern context, and also in the way the individual recipes are presented. I suppose most 'old-fashioned' recipe books began with sauces and soups, progressed through entrées, fish and meat, on to vegetables and then dessert. They followed the progress of a meal in other words. Nowadays there are any number of different approaches from the simplest - an alphabetical approach to ingredients, to a somewhat contrived discussion of what 'simple' means - as in Ottolenghi's Simple.

Some books have no personality at all. They are simply a compilation of recipes - although I guess a personality may be glimpsed through those recipes. Donna Hay is a modern exemplar of this. There are never any personal anecdotes or admonitions - just beautiful presentation and a recipe that lists ingredients and method.

"A recipe, though is only a list of ingredients and the method of combining them. Recipes are like plot summaries of Shakespeare's plays; we know what's supposed to happen but the real pleasure is in the writing.

And it is the same with a classic cookbook. What makes our mouths water when we read a cookbook isn't the food on the table; it's the story about the food on the table." Jeannette Winterson

I'm not quite sure whether that's the whole truth because I also think it's a glimpse of a personality who has devised this recipe - and people are always interesting aren't they? To me I guess these are the most interesting cookbooks - the ones with personal comments throughout, and a distinctive style of writing, but I do admit that there is also a place for a book with none of that but which is clear and easy to follow. After all the first recipes I followed were from women't magazines and none of them had chatty introductions. They might have had a few words about the general topic being covered that week, but the recipes themselves were just recipes. And I learnt a lot from them.

Nowadays though I like cookbooks that are not only pleasurable to regard and to handle, not only have tempting ideas, but also draw me into a world - either into the personality of the author, a place I know nothing about, cultures I know nothing about or just into a pleasing writing style. I read them like I read all books in other words - for pleasure, for enlightenment, the odd flash of empathetic feeling ... I don't just dip into them now and then.

Well there are a couple exceptions to this rule - Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion and the River Cottage A-Z book. Both of these are huge. So I dip into them when I need to know something about a particular ingredient, want inspiration for this blog, or want to cook something with the vast number of carrots I might have in my fridge. And maybe Donna Hay's Modern Classics is like this too - not so much because of the size - more because she does not really say anything - just presents beautifully. I see, as an aside, that she has a series on the television at the moment which is about cooking with children. its rather a surprise to me and not quite what I expected. If I was allowed to watch cooking programs I would watch it. Well I'm allowed to watch cooking programs - but not in the evening, so I would have to record them - and then when would I watch them? I refuse to watch television during the day - unless I was very sick, but then I probably wouldn't feel like it.

So how am I going to choose my books? I could attempt to start with the oldest and work to the present, but I really don't know the age of all of my books. Too hard. I have no intention of sorting them all out into chronological order - besides it wouldn't work because my shelves are all different sizes and some would not fit on the shelf if that kind of order was pursued. Work alphabetically through the authors - maybe a touch boring to spend time on one author. Start at the first book on my shelves and work my way through? Yes this could work although it would mean working my way through several books written by the same author now and then, which is the same as arranging alphabetically. A random selection like my normal lucky dip? Too hard to ensure I covered everything, Every third or fourth book and then return to the start with a different third or fourth book - if you see what I mean. Yes that could work, although it might need to be a bigger number.

So anyway another option for lack of inspiration. Not sure when I shall begin because I do have a few other ideas I'm tossing around in my head.