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The Best of Mrs Beeton's Easy Everyday Cooking - Isabella Beeton
by GentleGenius
One of the very best wedding presents I was given when I got hitched back in 1975, was a huge Mrs Beeton's household advice and cookery book, first published in the late part of the 19th century. Although some of the ideas within were very old-fashioned, I nonetheless was able to turn to it whenever I needed advice on all sorts of ... domestic things, especially cooking.
At some point, my Mrs Beeton's bible got lost, probably in a house move, and a couple of years ago I spotted a hugely abridged version on sale, namely The Best Of Mrs Beeton's Easy Every Day Cooking, so bought a copy and have off and on used it ever since.
The book is hardback, with a pale green and white paper cover, bearing the title in a font which is supposed to look quaintly old-fashioned, and a small image of a print of Mrs Beeton herself, with one of her quotations printed on the back ("Dine we must and we may as well dine elegantly as well as wholesomely.") There are 250 pages, made of fairly good-quality, semi-shiny paper.
The recipes contained within are, like most cookbooks, divided into sections such as soups, starters, main meals (which in turn are divided into lamb, beef, chicken, fish etc. sections), following on with things such as salads, buffet foods and sauces. There is a comprehensive index at the rear of the book, preceded by a couple of sections which give conversion tables from imperial into metric, microwaving advice and oven temperature conversion tables.
Throughout the book, the font (size and type) used is very readable, with the ingredients lists for the recipes being in bold. Each recipe states how many people it is intended to serve, with some giving a little written preamble, and others offering suggestions on how the recipes can be varied. Scattered through the book are a few tips, originally suggested by Mrs Beeton herself. Sadly, unlike the original Mrs Beeton book, there are no colour plates showing stages of cooking the recipes, or ingredients used. A few black and white line drawings are scattered around, but they aren't very detailed, so I'd not recommend using them as a guide to how a completed dish should look.
A large number of the recipes in this book are originals, just how I remember them from my old and long-lost Mrs Beeton tome, but others have obviously been tweaked, no doubt with the intention of making them more appealing and perhaps more palatable to a modern-day 'foodie'. For instance, various ingredients used in some of the recipes simply weren't available or even invented in Mrs Beeton's era. As an example, one (vegetarian) recipe includes tofu, which I don't think anybody in the UK had heard of until around the late 1970s, and another suggests using a food processor, plus many of the dishes are at least partly cooked in a microwave oven.
Although I haven't tried all of the recipes in this very much abridged modern-day Mrs Beeton offering, I have worked my way through a significant number of them and can say that providing the instructions are obeyed right down to the last full-stop, they do work.
I do miss the household tips and other interesting/useful paraphernalia from the original book though, but if this particular publication were to contain those extra details, it would be much bigger and no doubt much more expensive. There is still a vague olde worlde feeling to the concept of cookery and eating present in at least half of the recipes, but those which have been tampered with to keep up with the epicurean times, have lost some of their original charm and soul. Also, there aren't any dessert recipes present, which I personally find a little strange.
Some of the recipes are more complicated to follow and achieve success with than others - it really does depend on how experienced a cook anybody is, and how adventurous. This is a book which I would guess isn't a good one to start learning to cook from, as it does pre-suppose a certain degree of knowledge.
All in all though, despite some alterations and omissions, The Best Of Mrs Beeton's Easy Everyday Cookbook is a useful collection of recipes which are largely tasty, providing the instructions are adhered to, and I'd recommend it for any bookshelf....you may find yourself consulting it quite often, as I do whenever I want to cook something a bit more upmarket than beans on toast.
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At the time of writing, there are twelve used copies of The Best Of Mrs Beeton's Easy Everyday Cookbook for sale on Amazon, with prices ranging from £12.76 to £43.16, plus a £2.80 delivery charge. I bought my own copy new when it was first published in 2005, paying £5.99 for it in a London branch of W H Smiths. The way prices have leapt astronomically during the few years since buying my own copy and with the cheapest of used copies on Amazon being £12.76, possibly indicates that to buy the book new now, you could be kissing goodbye to £15 at the very least, so despite the advantages, I'm not sure that it would be worth such a price as it probably doesn't contain anything too much different to many other cookbooks. However, if it is possible to pick up a copy somewhere for a significantly lower price, then I'd definitely recommend it to be a good and useful purchase.
Thanks for reading!
~~ Also published on Ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~
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The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain - Hairy Bikers
by Andy.mack
As my desire to cook more has grown, so has my collection of cookbooks to aid me in my quest of making interesting dishes. One of the first books I bought was the Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain after watching the TV series on BBC 2. I liked the look of a couple of the dishes featured on the show and thought that the book would have ... many more recipes that I could try and add to my repertoire. The series itself had been entertaining in the usual Hairy Bikers way and the book, which I paid £10 for from Tesco, has been quite useful, although perhaps not quite as much as I'd envisaged when I bought it.
Food Tour
The series took in 30 Counties around the country and from each of these Counties the book contains a number of regional recipes. These vary from the Bikers own recipes to those belonging to the local chef they featured on the show. Whilst there is on average 3 recipes for each county a lot of them are particular specialities to that area and not something youd fancy cooking in your own kitchen, a perfect example of this is a Cawl from Monmothshire. A Cawl is a Welsh Stew made from the neck of lamb and not something I've really got any enthusiasm to try cooking at home. This is the biggest problem with the book as a number of the recipes are of a similar nature.
It's Not All Bad Though
Even though I've started by focussing on the negatives it isn't all bad with the book. There are a number of recipes that make it a worthwhile purchase. One of our favourite dishes when we have people over comes from this book so it certainly has something to offer. The problem is that a large portion of the dishes are very specialist or require a certain taste and really are dishes you'd try in a pub or restaurant whilst visiting the various regions, rather than cooking them up for yourself in your own Kitchen.
Tastes Good
Whilst I may appear to be quite critical of the contents of the book it does have some very good recipes that taste fantastic. We've now tried about 10 dishes from the book and each of them has tasted far better than we were expecting. My favourite to cook is the Somerset Chicken, which once cooked in the oven has a beautiful blend of tender chicken topped in cider infused sauce. My other personal favourite from this book is the Wild Salmon on a Bed of Lentils from Morayshire. If you get the right piece of Salmon the lentils really compliment it well, whilst the side salad suggested adds a nice accompaniment to a very nicely cooked piece of Salmon.
Now I'm sure if I was to try out some of the more unusual recipes in the book they would come out equally as delicious. Perhaps it's a lack of adventure that's putting me off trying them, but I just feel that there are too many specialist recipes, however really that's what this book is about. It highlights and brings to a much larger audience some of the most delicious offerings from Counties around the United Kingdom. Despite starting this review in a rather negative fashion I do really like this book for the recipes I use and I'm sure some of those I don't really fancy will appeal to many others.
Nice and Easy
As with all of the Hairy Bikers cook books the recipes are very easy to follow. They make the process quite easy to follow and this really helps to build your confidence to try different things. A lot of the recipes are quoted as using local ingredients to that area, however I've found that the supermarket alternatives work out just as well. Each of the recipes allow a little deviation and are suitable for families on most budgets, depending on the ingredients you wish to use.
A Decent Book
Overall I do find that this book is good for those recipes we use. It's not my favourite cookbook due to the high level of specialisation required on some of the recipes but everything we've made from it so far has been delicious. If you're quite adventurous in your eating habits then you'll really enjoy this book. It does have something for everyone. I am determined to branch out and try a few more recipes from the book, just to try a few new dishes and I think when we do I'll be able to up my rating from 4 stars to 5, but for now it's just a little too specialist for me to give it a full 5 star recommendation, despite how good the dishes we've tried have been.
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Cooking with The Master Chef - Michel Roux Jr
by dammy8248
Michel Roux Jnr comes from a long line of chefs. He runs his fathers restaurant, Le Gavroche in london which produces some AMAZZZZZING food. His brother runs his uncles restaurant, the waterside inn. Both his father and his uncle have produced some amazing books in their time. Michel Roux snr's book on pastry is an absolute joy to ... work with.
There's something about Michel Roux jnr that just inspires me with confidence. He comes from this heritage of amazing chef's, yet, he cooks normal food. Whilst he lacks in the skill of his forefarthers, he certainly knows how to cook. I've got a shelf of his books, this is my favourite so far.
The title of this book is slightly decieving, "cooking with a masterchef", that certainly isnt what the book is about. From the title you may expect that it's a book of complicated dishes and hardcore cooking of the kind only found in France. In actuality, this books is just good, hearty dishes that you can cook for the whole family or for simple dinnerparties with friends.
Inside the book you'll find recipes covering all the common things; poultry, fish, meat, dessert etc. I applaud the fact that in this book he hasnt been scared to include things like the roast chicken on the cover image. In his early days he was overshadowed by his father and uncle, It seems to me that now he's finally found his feet and hs own style without havng to impress them . For this, all the ingredients and tools are easy to come by, nothing you can't pickup in tesco, thats a promise.
As for the recipes themselves, they're written well. The benfit of Michel Jnr as apposed to Snr is that Jnr actually speaks fluent english, nothing is lost in translation which was an issue with books such as "the roux brothers on patiesserie" where on occasion things were just plain bizzare.
I'm yet to have a failure with this book. The instructions are so well thought out, and clearly theyve been tested by people, which is rare these days.
Overall, this is great for families or couples. theres atleast 5 dishes from here that I cook on a regular basis and now know by heart.
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