Read With a Glass of Rum (Top Ten Food & Drink Books)

Member Name: DaisyDuck

Product:	Top Ten Food & Drink Books
Date:	02/11/01 (421 review reads)
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I love to collect recipe books, not only to use them, but often as just to read. My collection starts with a book from the 1970's . Strangely the writer of my first ever cookbook gave inspiration to the author of my most recent purchase.
Most of my choices contain good basic everyday recipes, but a couple have more historical and social values.
Here goes with 10 of my favourites, in no particular order.

Cooking Today by Marguerite Patten.Hamlyn ISBN 0600360075
This book first published in 1971 was handed down to me by my Mum and is the first cookery book I ever owned. Although a little dated, as it was written before the days of food processors, it is still a very useful book. It explains the basic methods of cooking meat, fish, poultry etc. right through to making fudge, lemonade and alcoholic punch drinks. Marguerite Patten became famous during the second world war helping people to make nourishing family meals out of what little was available, although this particular book is out of print, there are many other of her books available as she is still writing today.

New British Classics by Gary Rhodes.BBC ISBN 0563551003
From my oldest cookery book to my most recent.I was listening to an interview with Gary Rhodes recently and he said that a lemon sponge recipe by Marguerite Patten was one of the first things he cooked, and that the wonderful smell and flavour inspired him to carry on with his cooking.This is a book that gives a slightly different twist to traditional British cooking. The recipes are updated versions of classics such as steak and kidney pudding or home made pork pie. I like this book because although you can often find these recipes in old cookery books, you often find that the ingredients or measures are a little confusing and need converting. With this book the recipes are bought up to date with metric measurements and methods using modern equipment.I think that out of todays TV chefs Gary is one of my fav
ourites as he produces food that you can and would want to re-create at home. Lovely hardback book with some great photographs.

Cadbury's Creative Chocolate Cookbook by Patricia Dunbar.ISBN 0600324567
If you want to make cakes and biscuits for celebrations using chocolate, then this is the book for you. This has cakes for all the festivals such as Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Guy Fawkes, Valentines Day, and birthday cakes for both children and adults. All these ideas use Cadbury's cocoa powder and chocolate bars to make and decorate them. I have used many of these, a favourite is the bonfire cake with red and yellow butter icing flames and flakes for the logs.

The Complete Farmhouse Kitchen Cookbook.ISBN 0004112563
Another one from the past, this comes from a Yorkshire Television series of the 70s/80s. Like many of my favourites covers a lot of traditional recipes, many of them sent in by viewers of the programme, things like Sussex Swimmers or Gypsy Bread. This book covers everything starters , maincourses, dessetrs, cakes biscuits, breadmaking, preserves, cheese and butter, even brewing beer and county wines such as rhubarb or damson.

Sarah Brown's Vegetarian Cookbook.Dorling Kindersley ISBN 0863182658
Although not a veggie , this is great for when friends that are visit, or just for a change. I like this one because it explains about all the different kinds of pulses, grains, seeds, herbs and spices, as well as giving both family and dinner party recipes.

Farmhouse Kitchen Microwave Cookbook
This I found invaluable when I first tried my microwave for actual cooking rather than defrosting or re heating. It adapts basic recipes to work in a microwave and tells you what works well and not so well in a microwave.

Classic Cuban Cookery by Andy Gravette.ISBN 1901250383
This is a book for the drinker as well as the eater. This was a present from my Cuban sister in law and is the most exotic
book I own. It covers most Cuban dishes, many of which start with take half a pint of rum. But it is also a little history of Cuba, it's famous visitors such as Hemingway, Brando and Churchill, and its sugar, rum and coffee production. The cocktails section has recipes for the famous Daiquiri and Cuba Libre. This book is a good read whether you cook or not.

Michael Barry's Food and Drink Cookbook.BBC ISBN 0563363134
The good old crafty cook with a selection of 250 favourites cooked with the minimum of effort. I have found some useful tips in this one, but it does rely heavily on you having a food processor.

Reader Digest Classic Favourites.ISBN 0276398246
If you want a recipe for Russian Borshch, Chinese stir-fry or English fish and chips, this covers them all. Classics from all over the world, really handy for reference if asked to prepare a party on a theme such as Mexican .

50 Manx Recipes by Suzanne Woolley.ISBN 0904980030
I bought this while on holiday in The Isle of Man. This is a recipe book, but more than that it is a history book. You can attempt some of the recipes, but many of them you wouldn't want or be able to. An example of something historically interesting yet impractical is a gruel called 'cowree' , made by fermenting a bushel of oats for nine days before boiling it up. I just like to read through this one now and again to remind me how difficult and time consuming food preparation was in years gone by.

Well I hope you found something of interest in my top ten, for those of you who know me you may well have guessed that my all time number one is the Cadburys.

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