Some Past Articles

Only two posts in and I've already slipped into a pattern of complacency and procrastination. I must snap out of it.

Instead of writing something new this time, I've decided to include some articles I wrote last year for my university magazine. Adelaide's currently in the grips of an extended heatwave and drought, which is not conducive to creativity, particularly after a bottle or two of my homebrew have begun to exert their influence over things.

The first is a blasphemous allusion to two of my favourite cookbooks...

I’m not a religious man by any stretch of the imagination and although I’m no Richard Dawkins (The God Myth), I do have some fundamental issues with the way religion has made a mess of so many things in our world (I won’t go into them here though, this is a cooking column). Having said this, however, there are some elements to our society’s attitude towards food that border on the religious. The ritual of food preparation, the gathering of family and friends around the dinner table, the elaborate uniforms and fancy hats worn by professionals (not to mention the secret languages and alleged deviant sexual behaviour).

Continuing with the religious metaphor, I’ve found during my own career in the kitchen two books have been indispensable, which I refer to as my Old and New Testaments. The Old is the enduring classic, Larousse Gastronomique. First published in 1938, this tome is the first and last stop for many chefs and home cooks if they want to reference anything French or generally European. It’s the Encyclopaedia Brittanica of Euro food, from Abalone to Zuppa Inglese, and one of my most valued personal possessions. It is, however, somewhat mired in tradition and the pompous superiority of French cuisine, and falls short on other, more exotic cuisines. The wide and diverse Asian cuisines, for example, are definitely under-represented.

This is where the New Testament comes into play. My esteemed colleague, P Chi, referred in the last edition to the compendium of culinary wisdom that is Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion. Alexander dispenses with all the fire and brimstone of the gourmet tradition, producing a guide that’s far more accessible to the average domestic cook, written in plain, no nonsense language that successfully conveys the author’s love and lifelong commitment to all things culinary. The caption on the Back of the book says it all; The book for a lifetime of cooking. I can picture myself teaching my children, when they eventually arrive, from the pages of the Prophet Stephanie. The last time I opened the book was just after I’d harvested my in-laws’ Satsuma Plum tree. Two days and a quick flick through the pages of The Cook’s Companion later, two dozen jars of plum jam were cooling happily on the kitchen bench (not to mention 25 litres of plum wine aging in the cellar, but that’s another book for another review).

To sum it up, if I was looking for the definition of an obscure French culinary term, or the name of a three Michelin-starred chef from Lombardy, it’d be Larousse Gastronomique all the way. If, however, I wanted to cook a meal with readily accessible and recognisable ingredients, that I knew would have people drooling the minute they walked in the door, I’d go every time to The Cook’s Companion. For one, it’s Australian, and we should all support Australian businesses and industries, but also because it’s unpretentious, amazingly comprehensive and (I say this without a hint of exaggeration) one of the most important works of culinary literature ever produced, in this country or any other.