Introduction

Despite the widespread cry for belt-tightening, and the apparent demise of home cooked meals, cookery books seem to be propagating like rabbits. Sadly, instead of cute bunnies, we are presented with an overwhelming array of obese volumes that spew forth recipes we’ve seen and tasted a thousand times.

Those of us looking for inspiration don’t want to read about Nigel tossing tasteless cherry tomatoes (exclusively available in the UK) through a dish of pasta (end of recipe) or see Nigella stick her provocative finger into a cake made of pure fat. Where are the books for those who don’t need another lasagne recipe, even if this one is made with radicchio and refried truffle? What about those of us who want a wow factor recipe without having to use dry ice? Well, I think I may have found the answer. My favourite recipe books all come from charity shops. Hidden gems, lost in the mists of time and forgotten by passing fashions. One has to hunt for these but once found they are worth the effort.

This is not to say that delving into ancient cookery books is necessarily always a sure fire thing. Mrs Beeton, cookery’s greatest fraud and the woman that Clarissa Dickson-Wright blames for ruining British cooking (although it’s her husband who should really take the rap), cannot be described as inspiring. Although she might just sneak in as negatively inspiring. The full technicolour image of a baked haddock with pimento olives for eyes and creamed potato piped in a ridge down its back can surely never have been appetising. Even to the eyes of poor, ration starved, post-war housewives. I don’t know why Family Cookery is still on my shelf. I suppose I bought it for the same reason that I bought Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. The shelf looks naked without it but unless I have a complete mind blank, the internet is down and I have a loose toothed Ancient Aunt coming for lunch who hasn’t changed her diet since 1965, then they remain unused.

The cookery books that I like are the kind that are readable from cover to cover. Books that aren’t painful to carry they’re so heavy with recipes that make you want to rush into the kitchen. Not to entertain others or to indulge one’s hunger but for the pure pleasure of mixing ingredients that you had always thought were mortal enemies or to create something too beautiful to eat but delicious when you do. Things that simply make one cry out ‘Wow, I’d never thought of doing that’. Some books have only one such recipe within their covers but if you’ve found it at the bottom of a bargain bin for 50p then rip it out and throw away the rest. I promise you one of these gems next time. For now, get hunting.

The Renaissance of Italian Cooking

Sitting on my cookery book shelf are several celebrity chef numbers, unread tomes on Italian cooking and two copies of 1001 Recipes, a Christmas favourite it seems. But among the usual offerings are a few gems. Books that are worth reading even if you only ever attempt one of the recipes. My current favourite is The Renaissance of Italian Cooking by Lorenza de Medici which was discovered by a friend of mine whilst she was working in Majorca. Her employees weren’t particularly pleasant so purloining the book was her small stab at revenge and now we can all profit from her thieving.

With a childhood spent learning traditional recipes from the family cook in their Renaissance Tuscan villa, a war spent working out how to stretch paltry rations and a married life spent entertaining and cooking for her family in a small city flat she has spanned several worlds in the kitchen. Worried about the disappearance of a style of cookery that she had experienced as a child the aim of the book is to explore and reignite interest in the traditional recipes of the Italian upper classes, cucina alto-borghese, as opposed to cucina povera, a version of which we today know as Italian cooking. Luckily Lorenza is quite at home with the alto-borghese.

Published in 1989 the author takes us on a gastronomic tour of Italy, region by region, from palazzo to palazzo. Along the way we meet Mrs Medici’s friends and family, joining them for Easter, weddings and saints days, for each of which we are given great descriptions of regional cooking and initiated into individual family traditions. All accompanied by wonderfully dated photographs, my favourite of which is a stuffed fox, tongue out, slavering over a roast guinea fowl.

From Piedmonte to Sicily she wends her ways through twelve of Italy’s twenty-three regions. In Liguria we are invited to Giovanna Cameli’s seventeenth century villa, perched high on the coast of the Ligurian sea with a view all the way down to Portfino. Sitting on the terrace we join the family for “A Menu for an Easter Luncheon”; starting with “one of the epicurian masterpieces of Genoese gastronomy” the torta pasqualina (artichoke pie). A delicious mixture of tender artichokes, garlic, borage, ricotta, Parmesan and whole eggs, arranged between twelve individual and countable layers of pastry, top and bottom. Each layer represents one of the twelve guests at the Biblical Paschal supper. Maria, the ancient family cook, lets us into one of her secrets, the tender green colour of her pesto is achieved by only ever using the leaves of plants no more than three inches high. A true labour of love.

Later we enter Emilia-Romagna, home of a panoply of well known Italian delights; bolognese ragu, sweet proscuttio, pale golden parmesan and Modena’s highly prized balsamic vinegar, which Lorenza recalls drinking as a toast at a local wedding in place of champagne. Guiseppe and Grazia Gazzoni, of the ancient Bolognese family (of course), whose dining room is always full of an eclectic crowd of the region’s top brass, invite us in for “A Menu for an Award Winning Author” and the obligatory “Menu for Intellectual Industrialists” who are fond of veal shank and angel hair tart.

The book ends in Sicily with a “Menu for a Baronial Banquet” of fifteen dishes hosted by Count Guiseppe at his country estate, cooked by the famous Sicilian chef Mario lo Menzo. The feast served at his granddaughter’s wedding, for three hundred guests, was so spectacular that it made column inches in a major national newspaper. The banquet starts with crochette di capelli d’angelo (angle-hair pasta croquettes with cheese) and finishes with cannoli alla cannella, irresistible, heart attack inducing pastry tubes filled with ricotta and candied fruit, via sarde alla regaleali, sardines baked in orange, and insalata di limoni, sliced lemon salad. Delicious.

This book is pure bliss for those searching for something a bit outside the culinary box. As with any recipe book not every single dish seems worth the effort or quite to one’s taste but the whole premise of the book and the real love for original Italian cooking that the author imparts are a joy. So, listen up celeb chefs; we want “Menu for a Riviera Repast” and pictures of bowls of strawberry zabilione being held aloft by statues of elaborately dressed black boys. If only.

This book is available to buy online, simply search for "Renaissance of Italian Cooking".

Torta Pasqualina
12 young, tender globe artichokes
juice of 1 lemon
2 garlic cloves
1 handful borage leaves
4 fl oz/125 ml olive oil
10oz/300g ricotta
4oz/125g Parmesan
8 eggs
10oz/300g plain flour 
salt & pepper


Discard the artichoke leaves, chokes and any stems. Slice the hearts and leave them to soak in water with the lemon juice for several minutes. Drain well before cooking.
Chop the garlic and borage. Heat 2tbsp of the oil in a saucepan, add the artichokes, garlic and borage and cook over low heat. Add salt and pepper, mix in the ricotta, Parmesan and 1 egg, set aside.
Heap the flour on your working surface, make a well in the centre and put in half of the oil, a pinch of salt and enough water to mix to a medium-soft dough. Divide the dough into 12 parts and roll out each one into 9in/23cm round sheets, as thinly as possible.
Brush a spring-clip (springform) pan of the same size with oil. Place 6 layers of dough, brushing each with oil, in the form. Pour in the artichoke mixture, With your finger, make 6 holes in the mixture and break an egg into each one. Cover with another 6 layers of dough, each brushed with oil.
Beat the remaining egg and brush the surface of the pie. Cook in the oven at 350F/180C for about an hour until golden. Serve immediately.

Bavarian Cooking

    One of my recent charity shop buys was ‘Bavarian Cooking’ which caught my eye after a recent trip to Vienna. I know, Vienna is not in Bavaria but there is a strong, sausagey link between the two. I had hoped to find recipes for dishes that had intrigued me on holiday. I found recipes and a lot more. I am now an expert on the Bavarian countryside, people and cuisine, in just 170 pages and for only £3.99.

Written in 1997, the book is designed for English speaking tourists who have sampled the delights of Bavaria and want take a slice of it home. The language and phrasing used by the author, Olli Leeb, is endearing in its mistranslations; “effervescent mineral water” and “free-running” chickens were particular favourites.

After several pages on the history, populace and  topology of Bavaria, including a fold out map of the area replete with illustrations of women in dirndls and miniature local delicacies, we have learnt a lot. Did you know that Bavaria is twice the size of Switzerland, two thirds of Bavarians live in the countryside and that the traditional cooking stove was introduced by an American named Benjamin Thompson in the late C18th? He also introduced the potato, rather late you may say but they’re making good use of it now; the Germanics do the best potato salad without a doubt. Apparently every third brewery in the world is in Bavaria, the first of which was opened in 1040AD, so they know their stuff. According to the experts beer should be drunk at 45F, too warm and it will make you tired. Yes, it’s the temperature of the beer not the six pints that make you want to pass out.

They are also very keen on their food. Good, staple ingredients are the basis for most recipes and the heart of the tradition definitely lies in getting the basics right rather than messing around with superfluous frills. Seven pages of soup recipes include the excellently named Egg Drop Soup, Cheese Diamond Soup and Swabian Crumble Soup (ingredients broth, flour, one egg and one eggshell of water - no frills attached). There are sadly no extravagant pictures but each new section is decorated with an appropriate illustration. The fish chapter has a drawing of a small, rotund child riding a large fish, fishing rod in hand, and the meat section is littered with images of cute, fluffy lambs and goats, juicy and ready for the chop.

As you can imagine the meat section takes up the vast majority of the book, these people are real meat enthusiasts. No part of a calf is left uncooked including knuckle, lungs, heart and brains. But it wasn’t any of these recipes that made me feel slightly ill. There’s usually one that makes me want to retch, this time Roast Meat Jelly did it for me. Pretty inoffensive in name but wait...thin slices of cooked meat are decorated with boiled egg and gherkin “fans” and then covered in meat jelly. I was once presented with something akin to this at a picnic and the textural combination of egg and jelly can only be described as wrong and probably invented by the devil himself. Thank God aspic has gone out of fashion.

The recipe for Roast Goose brings together everything that is great about this book. Pared down recipes but with incredible detail in the preparation, none of which feel pompous or unnecessary. Ingredients; one goose, salt and pepper (mixed). Instructions; soak goose for half a day in cold water. If there are any feathers left on the bird afterwards one must wet a small mound of salt with methylated spirits, light it and singe them off (this sounds both dangerous and incredible, or incredibly dangerous). Rub the goose with s&p, then cover with a cloth and “place it in the cold oven for a night’s sleep”. Cook in a 400F oven, in an inch of boiling water, breast up until browned and then turn over. Prick goose under the legs to allow fat to drain and then skim off and keep. Baste frequently but if adding water “always add it hot and never pour it over the goose!” An unexplained instruction but I will never do this again, I promise. Cook for between 2.5 and 3 hours; it should be possible to move the legs about lightly when done. Towards the end increase the temp to 470F and brush the goose with ice cold, salted water to crisp the skin. Leave to stand and then carve. Serve with raw potato dumplings, celery root and lamb’s lettuce for a truly Old Bavarian experience. 

Despite being virtually carnivorous the salad and veg section is just as interesting. The secret to the famous potato salad starts with steaming, and not boiling, potatoes in their jackets, and then peeling whilst still hot. Finely chopped onion and a vinegar and salt mixture are mixed with the sliced potatoes and then left to draw for an hour or more. Only then is the oil added, along with pepper and chives, and of course, it is served warm. Precision in preparing vegetables for salads is military; cucumber are served immediately as, if left to stand, they are hard to digest, harder veg are left to stand for hours and the tomato just 10 minutes.

I could go on for pages with recipes for Sawdust Potatoes, Nuns’ Buns and Rainworms but if you want to delve further into the delights of Bavarian cooking you will have to buy the book. What is above all charming about “Bavarian Cooking” is the great amount of respect that is attributed to each individual ingredient. One gets a sense of real understanding of how food works and how to get the most out of it without having to drown raw ingredients in tonnes of extras.

Semmelknodel (Bread Dumplings)
This is a personal preference as opposed to raw potato dumplings, and easier to make.

10 stale buns/1lb stale bread
2 cups boiling milk
1 large onion, finely chopped
1oz butter
3tbs parsley, finely chopped
1 lemon, unwaxed
1/2tsp salt
3 eggs
Use plain buns without caraway or poppy seeds. Cut the buns or bread into very thin small slices. In a bowl, pour the boiling milk over the bread, mix, and let stand for at least 1 hour. Saute the onion in the butter until glassy, add the parsley and the finely chopped rind of the lemon, and add the mixture to the bread. Season with salt, add the eggs, and mix well. Wetting your hands, form a "trial" dumpling of approx. 2 1/2 in. diameter. In a large pot bring plenty of salted water to a boil, and try cooking the dumpling in it. If it stays intact and loses none of its substance, add the remaining dumplings. (Should the "trial" dumpling be unsatisfactory, add some flour to the dough.) Bring the water to the boil again; when the dumplings start swimming on top of the water, reduce the heat and let the dumplings simmer gently for 20 minutes, with the pot only half covered. Remove them with a slotted spoon and lightly shake off the water.

*These are particularly delicious if you slice them length ways, into about 3 or 4 slices, when cooked and fry them until they are golden brown. It gives them a bit more flavour and a little crunch.