A Fine Art by Sarah Lisle
In the preface of The Gentle Art of Cookery,
Mrs Leyel explains what makes her book stand out from the crowd. The most striking of these is the statement that the “recipes are arranged in the only practical way, that is, under their principal ingredients”.
If you’ve been following the Kitchen Titbits blog, you’ll know that two of my quite recent book reviews have been Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories (Simon also wrote THE VEGETARIAN OPTION and WEEK IN, WEEK OUT, both published by Quadrille)
and Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, the arrangement of both of these books being just that, by ingredient.
This method of organisation of recipes in a book is still considered novel and yet, even in 1925 when The Gentle Art of Cookery was published, Mrs Leyel was attempting to convince her audience that it made sense “because it is more economical to do as the French do; shop first and then arrange the dinner according to what is most plentiful in the market, than to go out and buy what is necessary for a pre-arranged menu.”
Unusually for a cookery book of the era, the publication contains many unconventional recipes for an English cook of the time as well as a chapter, Arabian Nights, which drew on the influences of her knowledge of Middle Eastern cookery using ingredients such as pistachios, rosewater and pomegranates, which would have been difficult to source but which are quite common today.
Another surprising inclusion for a book of this period is a whole chapter devoted to children’s cookery. Not just cooking for children but recipes which children can make, on their own or supervised. Mrs Leyel(pictured below)
maintained that cooking should be fun, magical and part of a child’s education and she set out to help home cooks get children involved in the kitchen. This is still so relevant today; entire books and TV programmes are dedicated to cooking with and for children.
Whilst cookery books have come a long way since the days of The Gentle Art of Cookery, with the inclusion of tantalising photography, books introducing us to cuisines from every corner of the planet, and even those explaining how to bring molecular gastronomy to our own home, there is nevertheless a place for the likes of this book in our kitchen. There are still lessons to be learnt and good recipes to follow from these classics. Only time will tell if almost 100 years from now the nation will continue to enjoy the wares of Delia Smith, Nigel Slater and other great cookery book writers of our time in the same way we are rediscovering the books in the Classic Voices in Food series.
For more on Sarah’s writings and thoughts, please check out her blog at: http://kitchentitbits.wordpress.com/ or follow her on twitter @kitchentitbits
A note from Quadrille: About Classic Voices in Food
This important new series rediscovers the original heroes of cookery. Reissuing texts that for decades have been available only to collectors of old books, each title has been redesigned giving the original text an updated yet timeless look for today’s reader. These classic voices convey the flavour of their times and yet are astonishingly relevant to the modern reader. With four titles now published, this series will establish itself as an exciting new source of reference and inspiration for all food lovers.
Jill Norman, who created the Penguin Cookery Library in the 1960’s, is the Series Editor. You can get all the latest news on this series by following @classicvoices on twitter at: http://twitter.com/classicvoices
