Cookbook of the week - How to Eat

 

    Cooking is a bit like a game of Pass the Parcel or Chinese Whispers, I think - recipes are handed on by one means or another, adapted according to taste or the ingredients available, their provenance sometimes acknowledged, otherwise unknown or forgotten. The chain of interpretation may be strong and clear and 'pure', then again it can be full of missing links, but if you like to know the sources of things, it's good when one cookery writer acknowledges his or her debt to another.

    So it is with this week's cookery book, Nigella's How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (and indeed next week's, of which more anon), and our featured dish Mushroom Ragoût. As with so many stew-y dishes, my pictures are less than wonderful, so we'll rely on Nigella's text instead:

    "This recipe for wild mushroom ragoût is adapted from a recipe in From Anna's Kitchen by Anna Thomas. I was sent it one year among many other books under review and was surprised to find myself utterly seduced by it. Any description undersells it: in America it would be described as a gourmet vegetarian cookbook. But it has none of the worthiness or pretentiousness which that might seem to suggest. It is fresh and alive and speaks directly and intimately to the reader. I could take so many recipes from it here, since I so often cook, if not exactly from it, then inspired by it (which is more telling)."

    She goes on to say that this ragoût is "a sort of woodsy stew, odoriferously autumnal", and indeed it is, and surprisingly 'meaty', too. If you have either book, do try it; if not, know that it contains fresh and wild or dried mushrooms, Marsala, red wine and vegetable stock, softened onion (both red and white), celery, garlic, thyme, bay and cayenne with flat-leaf parsley to finish, make it as you would a meat-based stew, and you won't go far wrong. Nigella suggests serving it with oven-cooked polenta "if you don't feel that's a bit too Notting-Hill-restaurant-circa-1995"; we didn't, so we did.

Comments

[Dark Puss]

Now this interests me greatly. This cookery book is probably my "Desert Island" choice and almost nothing I try of hers fails except this recipe. I've made this at least twice (may be three times) and I'm never making it again! Dull, boring, not worth the effort, and a waste of good ingedients are all comments that I (and J and R) have made upon eating it.

So where am I going wrong? If she puts in the otherwise wonderful How to Eat and if you and your family liked it then the errors are surely all mine.

[adele geras]

This is a cookbook that I've had ever since it first came out and it made me into a lifelong Nigella fan. I've never made the ragout but I love the book. She just writes so well and SHE comes over in every single line. It's like having her in the house with you. Superb!

[Cornflower]

Gosh, I am surprised! I can't think you've done anything wrong so how you could get disappointing results I don't know. We all commented on how good it was: rich, flavourful, savoury, really 'meaty' to the point where you'd almost think you were eating an excellent boeuf en daube. Nigella is right about its autumnal nature - just the thing for a very cold, un-springlike day!

[Cornflower]

I agree!

[Dark Puss]

Miaoowwww! I was hoping you would point out a stupid error on my part.

[Lisa]

I have The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas...(Penguin)copyright date for North America is 1972, so I am not sure when first it was printed.
I have used this book so much it is now in a state of almost total ruin;pages falling out, glued in, cellotaped in.
I use this book all the time. The glossy modern full of photographs books I borrow from the library to look at.

[Cornflower]

I love to see well-used cookbooks!
I hadn't come across Anna Thomas' work before but thanks to you, Lisa, I looked her up and found her website: http://www.vegetarianepicure.com/index.html

[Lisa]

Crikey, I had no idea of her background 'till you gave the website...thanks for that.I had assumed that perhaps she was of Polish background from the recipes.I am now looking at my almost worn out book with new eyes and admiration. What an amazing woman.
Her book sits on my shelf alongside Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern Food, Jocasta Innes's Paupers Cookbook (both Penguin)and Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery book.(Sphere Books).All worthy.

[Cornflower]

That's one of the lovely things about writing and reading blogs, the discoveries made along the way!