2 comments about The Delia Collection: Chocolate (The Delia Collection).

1. If you are a dessert cook, love chocolate and want to impress without having to work too hard, this is the book for you. Delia is one of my favourite cookery authors. Her recipes are always easy, clear to understand and without errors or omissions (unlike some recipes I've tried to follow). And these desserts have NEVER failed to impress. My favourites are: the Squidgy Chocolate Cake that literally everyone raved about, and her delectable Chocolate Mousse.



2. WoW! you can almost taste the delectible chocolate creations Delia has whipped up. The flourless cake is to die for if you are a chocoholic or even have a passing passion for chocolate. The illustrations are inspirational.

2 comments about Celtic Cookbook: Traditional Recipes from 6 Celtic Lands.

1. I bought this book 2 months ago for a Celtic theme party I was doing. I found it facinating what recipes originated from where. It is well layed-out, but there are no pictures for what it should look like when you are done. Overall I liked it.



2. What a pleasure to find this treasure of a cookbook. Helen Smith-Twiddy (who is listed as "an experienced cookery teacher and author" and lives in Wales) has put together a terrific collection of Celtic traditional and popular recipes. The recipes have been adapted and expanded for an American readership. The book is divided into chapters on soups, fish, main courses, breads and cakes and so on. Within each chapter, recipes are sorted according to the six Celtic regions represented: Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales. There is also a full index, sorted by region.

   What amazed me most about this book is how simple the recipes are. Irish Soda Bread directions are one simple paragraph. Likewise the watercress soup, to take just two examples of recipes one would expect to be long and complicated. The Plum Pudding recipe lists ingredients and then has only two sentences of instructions! It's refreshing actually, as Smith-Twiddy not only illustrates her own confidence in the kitchen, but shows a respect for the abilities of her readers. I have made at least two-dozen of the recipes in this book and EVERY SINGLE ONE has come out beautifully! The Irish Stew is simple and tasty, the Whiskey Cake is divine, and the fish dishes are particularly tasty -- and a bit different, well...Celtic!

   A really nice section in this book is Drinks. Of course you'll find Mead and Irish Coffee. But the Tea Wine is quite wonderful and was completely new to me. It's the Ginger Beer that's worth the price of admission, though. It's ready in only 24 hours and it's terrific. Everyone we've offered it to has been impressed.

   I didn't find much in the Game section that fits my cooking style. Pigeon Casserole, Roasted Grouse and Rabbit Hoggan may all be delicacies, but they're not anything I'd be likely to cook myself. I loved reading the recipes though. And next time I travel to Celtic regions, I'll be sure to try some of these specialties. Some of them look delicious.

   Too bad this cookbook is now out of print. Grab a copy if you can find one. You won't be disappointed. It's a perfect wedding gift for anyone with Welsh or Irish ancestry too! These dishes have been passed down through generations of Celtic peoples, and it's such a wonderful link to that past to read and cook these recipes. It's a terrific bonus that everything turns out tasting so good!

No comments about Classic British Cookbook: Over 50 Recipes Inspired by the Flavours of the British Isles (Cookery).

No comments about Eat London: All About Food.

No comments about Tough Cookies: Tales of Obsession, Toil and Tenacity from Britain's Kitchen Heavyweights.

No comments about The Utterly Unrefined Cookbook: Fifty fabulous recipes from Britain's top cooks brought together for the first time in support of Breast Cancer Campaign.

No comments about Harrods Book of Traditional English Cookery.

3 comments about Seven Centuries of English Cooking: A Collection of Recipes.

1. This book is a very well put together cookbook, that I have throughly enjoyed. This book deals with some period recipes as well as more modern ones. The recipe book is simply filled with tons of recipes, she does an excelling job of incorporating a wide variety of recipes into this book. There are no pictures, but she does offer some background info on many recipes.
   This book is worth its price for its Apple Orange Tart, which makes up the best apple pie recipe that I have had the pleasure of enjoying. I would highly recommend this book if you are looking to flesh out your British collection of recipes, or if you are looking for a cookbook that offers a good selection of very good tasting period recipes.



2. Even if you never make a single recipe out of it, just the information and the wording of some of the older recipies makes it a worthwhile and delightful read.



3. This wonderful book is a history of English cooking from the fourteenth century to today, complete with recipes! Each of the five chapters examines how English cooking developed during that time, and is then followed by a great number of recipes organized into: soups, eggs, fish, poultry and game, meat, vegetables, desserts, sauces, breads and cakes, pickles and preserves, and forcemeats and garnishes (though not always in that order). The text is very well written and interesting, and the recipes are very good.

   My one complaint against this book (1973 edition, but purchased here) is that the text runs so close to the binding that you have to stretch the book to read everything, and a paperback will not stand up to that for too long. But, that complaint aside, this is a great book, and I am very glad that I bought it (the Toad in the Hole was great, and I look forward to trying many other recipes). I highly recommend this book!

1 comments about Scottish Heritage Food and Cooking: Capture the tastes and traditions with over 150 easy-to-follow recipes and 700 stunning photographs, including step-by-step instructions.

1. `Scottish Heritage Food and Cooking' by British food historian, Carol Wilson and Myres Castle Highland Hotel chef, Christopher Trotter is a great archetype of how to do an introductory book on a less familiar cuisine. After looking at a few pages, this great format started to look remarkably familiar, when it occurred to me that the same style was used to give us the `The Irish Heritage Cookbook' by Biddy White Lennon and Georgina Campbell.
   
   The book begins with two chapters on Scottish history and cuisine. `The Flavors of Scotland' details the foreign influences on Scottish cuisine and the historically important Scottish food resources. It is not at all surprising that in place of a rhapsody on the country's wines, there are long chapters on the origins, history, and techniques for the production of Scotch whiskey. And, even this humble subject can offer up a few secrets, when I discovered that blended Scotch whiskeys were not only a blend from multiple distilleries, but also a blend from two very different grain preparation and distilling techniques, the old traditional barley malting procedure and `pot stills', and grain whiskeys produced in a `patent still'.
   
   The second is `The Scottish Kitchen' which itemizes the primary ingredients of the Scottish cuisine. These hallmark items are fresh fish, smoked fish, fresh shellfish, game (on hoof, paw, and wing), domestic meats, dairy and cheese, fruits, wild mushrooms, vegetables, oats and barley, and Scotch whiskey. Aside from replacing wine with whiskey, the salient differences between Scotland and Western Europe seems to be the importance of oats, barley, game, and preserved fish. While salted cod is a staple throughout inland Europe, Scotland has many more different fish preserving modalities, since no spot in Scotland is much more than 2 days ride on horseback from the sea, especially on the four Island groups, the Inner Hebrides, the Outer Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, and the Shetland Islands.
   
   I couldn't take the author's claims of foreign influences too seriously, as Scotland is so removed from the main stream, I'm hard pressed to see how much influence the Romans, Scandinavians, and Anglos from England could really have on this very insular landscape. But, the authors do profess some substantial foreign influences. The most important to us may be the `Auld Alliance' between Scotland and France against England. The most prominent event in this history was the tale of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Catholic pretender to the English throne. Unlike some of the very best culinary studies, such as Arthur Schwartz' `Naples at Table' and Coleman Andrews' `The Catalan Cuisine', these subjects are just touched on, just enough to whet one's appetite. One small fault I cite on this book is that it gives no bibliography to assist us in following up this stuff. The authors also claim major influences from the Dutch and the Italians, primarily through trade in the former case and immigration in the latter case. One can probably attribute the Scots' mania for frying anything in sight to the Italian influences on fast food in Scotland, especially with their invention of `fish and chips'. My only other fault with these two chapters is that they end up visiting various subjects twice, such as the history and current state of Scotch whiskey making. They may have done their readers a greater service by treating each subject once, from start to finish.
   
   The very first thing which made me take this book seriously from a culinary point of view was its treatment of Scottish baking. With the smaller resources for raising wheat, bread may not be as big a thing as it is in France and Italy, it is still important, so I was especially happy to see it presented so well here. The centerpiece of breadbaking is the Bannock, which seems to be a cousin to Irish scones and soda bread, in that it's flat and a common part of breakfast, but it is a yeasted bread and not a quickbread like the Irish specialties.
   
   The importance of Bannock and other breads make it all the more easy to understand the discovery that fruit preserves are high on the list of important Scottish culinary products. The authors even go so far as to say that the famous English marmalade was invented in Scotland. It is in the chapter on `Preserves, relishes, and sauces' that we discover that the great Scottish whiskey is an important ingredient in a lot more than the Scotsman's kilted tummy. My only warning on the preserves recipes is that true canning for preservation is a bit more complicated than these recipes make it out to be, so you should either be adept at canning or get a good book on canning (see the `Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving') before attempting these recipes.
   
   While many other influences are cited, I get the constant sense that this cuisine is remarkably similar to great Irish mainstays, especially in their styles of bread and vegetable dishes, featuring potatoes, cabbages, leeks, bacon, kale, and wild greens. In fact, many of the potato dishes look identical to their Irish counterparts, with just a small name change, such as in replacing Colcannon with Kaikenny. The primary difference between Ireland and Scotland seems to be the higher incidence of oats in Scottish `signature' dishes.
   
   With England, Scotland shares a love of a certain kind of sweet pudding and candied fruitcakes.
   
   The most useful chapter in this book may be the one on breakfasts, as it is a prime selection of recipes for a Scottish themed brunch. You even have a dish of lamb kidneys, made famous by association with the opening chapter of James Joyce's `Ulysses'.
   
   The book makes few compromises on calling for local ingredients, especially as it is published in the UK, where ingredients from the British Isles are more common. The only lapse seems to be in its providing little information on sausage making (although some readers may be thankful for being spared the details of blood sausage).

2 comments about Cooking with Shakespeare (Feasting with Fiction).

1. Here are some of the fascinating facts that you'll find in Cooking with Shakespeare:
   
   In Shakespeare's England, spits of meat were sometimes turned at the fireplace by means of a dog attached to a treadmill.
   
   During Lent, people in Shakespeare's England were supposed to stop eating meat. They could, though, keep eating puffins, because those diving birds were actually considered fish. Stranger still, the tail of a beaver was considered fish, but not the rest of that rodent.
   
   Sugar was so popular among the aristocracy that their teeth were often in advanced state of decay. Queen Elizabeth's teeth were described by a foreign diplomat as having thin lips and black teeth. Sugar was even an ingredient in one of the teeth cleansers of the day.
   
   Shakespeare's plays are full of scenes involving food. Banquets play important roles in many plays, such as The Tempest and The Taming of the Shrew. Titus Andronicus concludes with a banquet in which a mother is served a pie made out of her two sons.
   
   Flowers were often eaten in salads, including carnations, rosebuds, cowslips, and violets.
   
   Characters often use food words insult one another. In Henry IV a nobleman is called "dish of skimmed milk," and in 1 Henry VI Talbot is called a ``weake
   
   and writhled shrimpe." On the other hand, food words are often used as terms of endearment. Prince Henry calls Falstaff "my sweet beef," and Perdita is called "The Queen of Curds and Creame."
   
   Shakespeare may well have written most of his plays while slightly drunk. Beer and wine were safer to drink than much of London's water supply. The average person, whether rich or poor, drank about a gallon of beer a day.
   
   Shakespeare never drank coffee, ate a banana, or indulged in chocolate. Those items weren't introduced into England until after Shakespeare died. Tomatoes were known, but were considered poisonous.
   
   Cooking was a sometimes brutal activity. One recipe instructs the cook to ``take a red Cock that is not too olde, and beate him to death, and when he is dead, flay him and quarter him in small peeces.'' Another one says, "``Take a capon and cut out the brawne of him alive.''
   
   The most common flavouring agent called for by cookbooks was rosewater, found in about 20% of the recipes. The most common spices were pepper, ginger, mace, cinnamon, and cloves. Almonds and raisins are called for in about 10% of the recipes, even in meat dishes.
   
   Some advice from a 1578 book about table manners: "When thou has blowne thy nose, use not to open thy handkerchief, to glare upon thy snot, as if thou hadst pearles and rubies fallen from thy braynes." The cookbooks that were published in Shakespeare's lifetime were intended for the aristocracy and the growing middle class. The lower classes ate very differently. For them, a typical meal was bread, cheese, and pottage made from whatever vegetables happened to be in season.
   
   Table forks were not used in Shakespeare's England. People ate with a spoon, a knife (which they brought to the table), and their fingers. Table manners were perhaps a bit rough and ready. One etiquette book advised readers to avoid rinsing their mouths with wine and then spitting it onto the floor.
   
   Many foods were thought to have special powers that could affect one's health. Raisins, according to one writer, would ``increase motion unto venery, and woorke to the erection of the yeard''-- that is, they enhanced sexual desire and gave men a Viagra-like boost. Another author claimed that an infant with the flu should be put to bed on a layer of cucumbers because ``feverous heate passeth into the cucumbers.''
   
   Dietary experts believed that some foods were better for you in certain months. For example, in October, the wealthy were advised to eat apple tarts because they "greatly comforte the stomache." They were also, however, advised to "washe not the head in this moneth."
   
   Bakers were not allowed to sell fancy breads or spice cakes, except during Christmas and Easter, and for funerals. They were also required to imprint their mark on every loaf of bread they sold, so that its maker could be identified if a loaf turned out to be too light or poorly made.
   
   In most households cooking was done over an iron frame containing wood or coal. Wealthier homes had ovens and fireplaces for cooking. The kitchen at Hampton Court had three fireplaces, each one eighteen feet wide, six feet deep, and seven feet high.
   
   According to one legend, Shakespeare died after drinking too much with his friend Ben Jonson.



2. COOKING WITH SHAKESPEARE is part of the 'Feasting with Fiction' imprint and details recipes, table habits, dining and festivities in Shakespeare's times ala his plays and writings. Chapters are divided by food type - mutton and lamb, fish and seafood, vegetables - and provide tips on old-fashioned cooking from Shakespearean times, from how to make Gallantine to making spice cakes. A rich, fun survey of early cooking methods and recipes evolves for modern readers and libraries interested in culinary history.