Round the World in Eighty Dishes: The World Through the Kitchen Window, for Armchair Travellers and Enthusiastic Eaters - Hardcover

Blanch, Lesley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908117184 ISBN 13: 9781908117182

Verlag: Grub Street Publishing, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

This charming little book was first published in 1956 when people in England were still enduring post-war restrictions on both traveling and eating. As Lesley Blanch says in her introduction to a later edition ‘benign fate whisked me elsewhere to follow less restricted ways, traveling widely and eating wildly.’ She said: ‘I don’t belong in England, I don’t belong anywhere, it is rather restful…I have met everybody and known nobody.’ Seductive and piquant like its author, this is ‘an appetizer for enthusiastic beginners’ rather than a basic cookbook. Lesley Blanch’s gastronomic world tour includes eighty recipes each prefaced by an account of where they were first tasted, or with some amusing anecdote. Lesley Blanch was born in June 1904 and died in 2007, aged 102. She studied painting at the Slade, and later designed book jackets for TS Eliot at Faber. She was, from 1937 to 1944, the dynamic and imaginative features editor at Vogue. Elegant and devastatingly pretty, she had many admirers and was married to the French novelist Romain Gary for fifteen years. She travelled extensively, principally in the Middle East, and during her long and extraordinary life wrote 12 books, the best-known of which is The Wilder Shores of Love, which has never been out of print since it was first published in 1954.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lesley Blanch was born in June 1904 and died in 2007, aged 102. She studied painting at the Slade, and later designed book jackets for TS Eliot at Faber. She was, from 1937 to 1944, the dynamic and imaginative features editor at Vogue. Elegant and devastatingly pretty, she had many admirers and was married to the French novelist Romain Gary for fifteen years. She travelled extensively, principally in the Middle East, and during her long and extraordinary life wrote 12 books, the best-known of which is The Wilder Shores of Love, which has never been out of print since it was first published in 1954.

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Round the World in Eighty Dishes

The World Through the Kitchen Window

By Lesley Blanch

Grub Street

Copyright © 2012 Lesley Blanch
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-908117-18-2

Contents

SYMBOLS, 
B – BEVERAGE, 
MM – MAIN COURSE MEAT, 
MV – MAIN COURSE VEGETABLE, 
D – DESSERT, 
E – EGGS, 
P – POULTRY, 
F – FISH, 
S – SALAD, 
MISC. – MISCELLANEOUS, 
SP – SOUP, 
MF – MAIN COURSE FISH, 
V – VEGETABLE, 
Suggestions for Beginners, 
Equipment, 
Specially about Lemons, 
About Cooking in Oil, 
A Few Useful Tips, 
A Few Extras and Spices for the Cupboard, 
A Few Special Cooking Terms, 
Principal Weights and Measures, 
Note on Weights and Measures and Oven-heat, 
EUROPE, 
THE BALKANS, 
THE MIDDLE EAST, 
AFRICA, 
THE FAR EAST, 
THE PACIFIC, 
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA, 
THE NORTH, 
U.S.A., 
EXTRAS, 

CHAPTER 1

EUROPE

PAIN PERDU

(LOST BREAD: FROM FRANCE)

(FOR 6)

(In England this dish is called The Poor Knights of Windsor)

The French nation is celebrated all over the world for its wonderful food. It is true that every country has some special dish, but perhaps the French have more than any other. In any case, they are all deeply interested in good cooking, take a lot of trouble over even the simplest everyday food, and care passionately what they eat. 'Serious' is an adjective often applied to gastronomy. 'Une maison serieuse' they say of a restaurant they recommend: or, of a woman who cooks really well — 'une femme serieuse.' Praise could go no higher. The celebrated French chef, Monsieur Vatel, stabbed himself to death when the fish did not arrive in time for a dinner in honour of Louis XIV. But it is just this fact, that they do take so much trouble over the simplest food, that makes the French such famous cooks; it is far more how they cook than what they cook that has made them celebrated.

I have chosen here some of the simplest dishes; but prepared with a lot of care and attention, they have become famous all over the world. Pain Perdu, for example, is eaten throughout France as a favourite dessert. It is, in fact, a variation of bread and butter pudding, though rather more elegant. I first learned to make it, along with several other good French dishes, when our house in the Midi was swarming with village builders who were taking their own time in repairing its crumbling walls. Although the Midi is not, strictly speaking un centre gastronomique like Strasbourg or Lyons, I always noticed the builders were deeply interested in food, and during their two hours mid-day break they would sit in the shade under the olives, swigging red wine and discussing the merits of one kind of saucisson or another. They never left the house without saying Bon Appétit!, and sometimes they would come into the kitchen, lifting saucepan lids, advising and discussing my efforts most knowledgeably. After a heated argument with the foreman over the respective merits of tchaktchouka and ratatouille (both simmered vegetables, one from Tunis, the other from Provence) I found I was treated with a new warmth. The mason was heard to remark to the plumber that some English cared what they eat: and when the carpenter built new shelves for my modest batterie de cuisine he said 'Tiens! Madame does not content herself with sandwiches, then?'

After that, it was one long, delightful causerie gastronomique. Advice was lavished on me. Elaborate and unpronounceable regional foods were described to me in the bewildering local patois. Out of all the confusion, came such pleasures as Panisse, Pain Bagnia, and Pain Perdu, too.

And once, on a day of overpowering heat, before we had achieved a refrigerator, and when our larder was bare, five unexpected guests descended, all very vivacious, and sat about, getting increasingly glum as they waited to be fed. Tiptoeing to the back door, I confided in the builders, who took over completely. Mario brought in a neighbour's chicken and started plucking it, while Caesar fetched vegetables from his own terre as they call their little allotment gardens. These are often a mile or so beyond the village, where they all live huddled in gardenless houses behind the medieval fortress walls. Marcel, the foreman, clumped into the kitchen to show me how to make Pain Perdu — a dish he had often described lyrically but which I had dismissed as too much trouble.

I shall always remember him, far too large for the kitchen, covered in cement splashes, his huge paws delicately beating eggs and measuring sugar. No doubt he made life unbearable for his wife in her own kitchen; no doubt he was then the one sitting about glumly waiting to be fed. But in my kitchen he was the hero who saved the day and taught me how to make Pain Perdu. Here it is:

6 slices stale while bread
225ml/½ cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons butter
Cinnamon

Take 6 slices stale white bread about 1/2 inch thick. Remove crusts. Bring to a boil the milk with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Pour the milk into a soup plate or flat dish. Cool a little and dip the slices of bread in it. Dip them fast, in and out, so they do not become soggy or break, and lay them on a plate to drain, while you beat up the yolks of 3 eggs. Put these in another soup plate, and dip your slices of bread in the egg mixture, carefully but quickly, so that each side gets evenly eggy. Use a spatula to handle them. Put them to drain on a clean cloth, or a big sheet of paper for a moment or two. Now melt some butter — for 6 slices about 2 tablespoons — in a frying pan. When it starts to smoke, that is the moment to fry the slices very quickly, first one side, then the other. When they are a pale golden brown they are done. Sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon and serve them piled up and wrapped in a clean napkin to keep them warm. 'The dish is none the worse for it, and it looks genteel', as one old cook-book says.

BRANDADE OF CODFISH

(FROM BRITTANY)

(FOR 4)

This takes rather a long time to prepare, but it is superlatively good, particularly as made in Brittany, where the fishermen and their families, living in those austere white-washed villages along the savage, rocky coastline, live largely on fish. Fresh or salted cod spells dullness to me, unless it is transformed, as in a brandade. Personally, when young, I grew to loathe codfish, for we were served nauseous hunks of it at school; and, later, much of my life seems to have been spent cooking cods' heads for my many cats. In retrospect I see myself, like the daughter of Herodias, always confronted by a reproachful head on a platter.

But brandade banishes all such memories. Here codfish undergoes a magical change, and steps up into the class of pâté, and can very well be the pièce de résistance for a party. There are several variations of brandade. Catherine, my Basque cook, at once a tower of strength and an emotional tempest in the kitchen, advocates the Provençal, no-milk way, but I prefer the Breton way. This is how to make it:

675g/1½ pounds codfish, salted or dried
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Grub Street Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1908117184
• ISBN 13: 9781908117182
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 200
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar