Jamie’s America
Jamie Oliver is important. I’ll admit that’s not the first word that pops into my head when he comes up in conversation but upon some recent reflection, I think that he is. He defines an era of sorts and at the turn of a decade, it seems a better time than most to cast a brief retrospective glance over his work, before diving into his latest book.
He has been at the vanguard of commercialising our nation’s increasing interest in the food we eat for the last ten years or so, and to a certain extent even spurring this interest on. Along with Ramsay, he has lead this charge with resounding success; demolishing the fourth wall in TV cooking (”ere camera-man, whatdyoufinka vis lamb? Laavly!”), simplifying in home cooking what had been made prissy and overly-complicated by the likes of Gary Rhodes, his now formidable and accessible publishing repertoire, his restaurants and his slightly baffling but very profitable tie-up with Sainsburys. Most vitally though, there have been his very public projects.
I think we can already look back on his work on school dinners, getting jobless youth to work in his restaurant 15 and most recently his home-spun initiative The Ministry of Food as typifying a dichotomy of modern times: on the one hand we know more about food, we understand more about the relationship between diet and lifestyle yet on the other obesity has become a serious health concern of modern times. While we are increasingly conscious of fair trade, freedom farming and free-range eggs, we also ‘Go-large’ and consume more instant meals than ever before. Throughout this, Jamie has captured the zeitgeist of this uncomfortable relationship by trying to give some of this knowledge to the have-nots. In this his newest book on American cuisine, he continues this pattern by following the gaze of one nation which already rests upon another; that of the Brits on the new nation of hope across the pond. In so doing, while not meddling so directly in the social side of educating the UK in the ways of food, he does show us a new side to himself.
So what does Jamie’s America offer us? In short, it’s a recipe book and travelogue based on his recent TV series. I must admit I didn’t warm to the TV series much, mostly due to his attempts to empathise inauthentically with a gang who had been dragged-up in some serious hardship on the streets of LA, but I was pleasantly surprised by the book. It is an inviting, warm and genuinely enjoyable collection of recipes punctuated with commentary about his travels (with maybe the odd posed picture of himself too many). It owes some presentational elements to the likes of Nigel Slater’s Kitchen diaries a few years ago with its daylight lit reportage-style photography (done in this case by David Loftus) with a similar ‘wax-paper from the larder’ style of reproduction. Its mixture of recipes strikes a nice balance between tributes to those who he met along the way and ones which he has added his own distinctive accent too.
His enthusiasm and interest for ‘real’ American food can be quite entertaining and even inspiring - whether that’s to make your own BBQ rub or a Fresh Broccoli salad.
The book can feel a little over-produced at points; photography, collage, montage, punchy copy-writing, pithy little tales and lots of self-reference. It may be cookbook-making by numbers, but it is done well and it has lots for the casual reader to dip in and out for. The good news is that whatever your style of cookery, area of interst or personal taste, there’s plenty for everyone. He visits six culinarily distinct areas of the USA from NYC to the Navajo reserves of Arizona resulting in a bright and colourful spread that ranges from a Chilli Con Carne made with coffee to Beer-Butt Chicken (which is exactly as it sounds) via Breakfast Tortillas, with a few more subtle re-tellings of traditional American dishes like Pumpkin Pie.
The Navajo section of the book is for me the most interesting as its the closest thing he finds to indigenous, as opposed to European-settler influenced cookery. He clearly has a passion for discovering ‘authentic’ food, and does so impressively here, albeit with his inimitable interpretations, additions and ‘twists’; Chicken mole with chocolate, Peach Cobbler, and Hot Churros (small dipping donuts). It’s a great book for anglicising some classic American recipes like Pumpkin pie where Jamie roasts the pumpkin to keep in the flavour (rather than boil them) and reduces the added sugar content to levels we might feel less guilty about.
The point of any cookery book should be to get the author’s take on food, for their methods, approach to life and personality to shine through and ideally to infect the reader with a little of that passion too. I’m glad to say Jamie does that here - for me at least. Not since his early books have I felt the need to attack one of his recipes but I’ll be giving the quirky, frugal and efficient-looking Beer-Butt Chicken a bash come summer BBQ time and Chocolate Bread Pudding with Beer Sauce as soon as I get the chance.
It feels like after a number of years as something of a food missionary in this country, Jamie has gone back to what he enjoys most by bringing us an entertaining, interesting and fun book showcasing a diverse selection of food from the country which continues to hold fascination for us. It’s easy reading and importantly is likely to help you out of a tight spot when you’re bored of knocking up another roast chicken or spag-bol for your friends and family. So long as you do it without the assistance of a Jamie Oliver patented Flavour Shaker, you can even do it with your head held high.
Pukka!
Doing without Delia: Tales of Triumph and Disaster in a French Kitchen by Michael Booth
You have to give Michael Booth some serious credit for this escapade. Rather than just refusing to use recipe books, he ritualistically burns all those he owns (except one) and moves along with his young family to Paris, a notoriously difficult and inhospitable place in itself to live or even get a flat in, and enrol in the world’s most highly acclaimed, difficult and expensive cookery courses in the world run by some of Europe’s grumpiest men; Le Cordon Bleu.
It’s quite the adventure as you see his progress, his daily stresses, his myths being busted and some of his dreams dismissed, although, as with many books in the travelogue/adventure genre one never knows as a reader how much of the background is kept from you - like just how poor are they really if they can afford to move to an apartment which sounds like it would make Carrie Bradshaw swoon in a heartbeat?
Michael Booth describes in great detail not only his personal motivation for the course itself and place he may go beyond it but also how it unfolds at every step in some detail. From being taught how to wash his hands properly to what it is like working for free, but on very public display in a Three Michelin Starred Paris restaurant. One of the most telling comments for me comes from a chef at this establishment whose view of the production-line nature of such cooking - all beit prepared by highly trained professionals and presented in pristine surroundings - is ‘like McDonalds but with better ingredients’.
Fans of Masterchef - which personally I don’t count myself among due to the overly clinical way that food is judged out of any
Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture
This is not about coffee. Nor is it about its tastes, its modern gourmet guise or its effects on us. It is about big business, and how one came to dominate high streets throughout the world, driven by the design and determination of one man. It is about how one man can take a product which is undergoing a race for the bottom and with the right marketing turn it into the planet’s largest franchise. If you’re looking for a gap in the market to fill with your next business idea, this book is for you.
Starbucks’ ubiquity in The States is not something I was really cogniscent of before I read this. While they are market leaders in the UK, Costa Coffee are not far behind - with Caffe Nero not far behind them. Yet in the great US of A, if you added-up the number of coffee shop branches owned by all the other chains, they do not come to more than half of Starbucks’ outlets. This book was an education for me in the current state of play on the other side of the pond – it really is a different world over there. McDonalds bears the brunt of our anti-capitalist and anti-American protestation in this country, with an interlude several years ago of anti-anti-competitive practices which Starbucks were involved in passing once we realised how much we appreciated a convenient latte on our way to work (that excludes most of the chavs and reflective-jacket clad workers).
The story of Starbucks presented here is quite an interesting one, which in this book is given just enough room to breathe among the business stats and talking heads from those involved. The now famous (in business circles at least) Howard Shultz was a travelling salesman who noticed an upturn in espresso machine sales and so latched onto this trend, doing some research along the way over in Italy, where they actually know how to make strong coffee well, and opened up his first coffee chain Il Giornale. As you may have gathered from the fact that you’ve never heard of it, this failed to have the desired effect. His role in the growth of an existing coffee house named Starbucks (named after a character in Moby Dick) began soon after with a fair share of false starts. This was then followed by the kind of growth plan which would make Hitler’s annexing of the Rhineland look like a family day-out to Margate.
He comes across as an ambitious, slick and probably quite unpleasant man. While his shareholders love him – no surprises there then, “Go Starbucks – whoo yeah!” - he appears to achieve this by pumping out the kind of fanciful rhetoric that would not go down so well over this side of the Atlantic. As the author points out, Schultz’s retrospective description of the first time he tried a Starbucks coffee – ‘wowing him, causing him to convulse, his head tipping back in involuntary shock and awe etc’- just smacks of high-fiving corporate American nonsense. But he is clearly not in love with Starbucks or coffee so much as he is with the heady aroma of freshly-ground success. He is a businessman who seems unlikely to me to break the first rule of marketing; to never fall in love with your brand as it will blind your judgement.
The Americanly named author Taylor Clark strikes a readable tone of objective cynicism. He gets as far an conducting an interview with the great man - which neither party seem that impressed with. The most fascinating part for me was about the state of the coffee market in the USA before Starbucks hit their stride. It was so terrible, that it makes their success seem almost inevitable. For me, it made sense of all those movie references to pots of diesel-like black, treacly coffee in truck-stops and offices. The bottomless coffee pot offered by so many US establishments since the consumer boom of the 50s is incidentally one of the suggested causes of the plummeting of coffee quality, and it’s not hard to see why.
Fascinating marketing, but then when post-rationalised, almost all successfully marketed companies look like they had a genius at the helm. Clearly fallable, Howard Schultz has created a world-wide monster which, after reading this, I cannot help respect – in the same way I respect someone like King Midas. It is interesting to read from a UK perspective as it highlights some clear differences; that while the US market was enduring some awful, instant, steamed, dyed, flavour-injected, freeze-dried, robusta-filled blends, we really weren’t doing that badly. McDonalds brought us the hamburger in the 70’s, which was never that widespread before. But being closer to Europe than our colonial cousins, we had access to decent coffee if we so desired, though mostly after dinner of course.
So a story of the modern giant with some good interviews, and well-researched to boot. But if you want to know your Mocha from your Java, Arabica from Robusta and how the Croissant made it to France (trust me, that one’s interesting), then I recommend you read The Devil’s Cup. It is a travelogue history book by a young American writer who ventures around Europe, the Middle East and Africa in search of the bown bean’s origin. He entertains various theories about its link to civil unrest and which countries have done better in through the ages as a result of their tipples; the ones drinking tea, coffee or cheap ale for breakfast (place your bets now.!).
There is a section in Starbucked which gives you a potted history of coffee, with both authors pretty-much agreeing – at least on the most popular myths and explanations - but to really broaden out the picture on where coffee sits in western society, this second (though much older book) makes for excellent reading. The fact that the ballot box, the notice board and Lloyds shipping insurance were all born in London coffee houses was enough to get my attention alone, but there is much more where that came from. It not only expands upon some important points, it does so with personal interest and a little adventure tossed in. Our author finds himself on a boat full of refugees entering Yemen in a less that legal fashion at one point. When he encounters border police who arrest and interview him, he is very happy about it on the grounds that he will at least have a comfy bed. Has he never seen an Amnesty International advert? This volume was in all fairness written before 9/11 when I think the US traveller could enjoy more of a feeling of international protection.
This history of coffee is woven with his travelogue-style exploits which you would expect of a writer trying to make his book more interesting. And he succeeds in this, but only to an extent. There is no romantic involvement, no real aim to journey (other than to write the book itself) and no real opinions given on anything. As a fact-based venture, it is interesting and quite fun, but Around Ireland with a Fridge, it is not.
Right, I’m popping out for a fredo-fresca triple-shot cinnamon-whip no-foam venti latte with a hazlenut twist. Except that I’m not really. Because I’m British and it’s a Sunday, I’m going to dig the cafetiere out of the cupboard to enjoy with the Sunday papers.
Recipe Roadtest: My First Cake, Nigel vs Delia
We all love a bit of cake, don’t we? And it’s pretty cheap to buy: even a posh, moist, rich chocolate cake from a stall or bakery would set you back less than a tenner. So why would we want to make one? Well if you enjoy your cooking, the feeling that you couldn’t make a Victoria sponge if you want to can be somewhat frustrating. It’s like being a good tennis player with the backhand of an old man swatting a fly.
I don’t mind sharing that I already have some notches in the wooden spoon of failure. Trusting Nigel Slater, as have done for so long, to help teach me in all ways culinary, I thought he’d be the man to help locate my very own baker within. I was a little disappointed however, when a year ago I selected from his book Appetite, a recipe for ‘a simple cake to be served with summer berries’. I invested in the requisite equipment - springform tin, greaseproof paper, spatula - and of course the basic ingredients. I followed the recipe word-for-word, pre-heated the oven and slammed it in, bristling with pride and anticipation following my (by this stage, many hours of) planning, toil and well-floured sleeves. It came out smelling great and looking like someone had run it over. I simply couldn’t understand.
The answer was simple - I had estimated my quantities, which as any baker will tell you is pure suicide. Neither did I own an electric mixer at the time so resorted to the old-fashioned bowl and spoon approach. (There was just something about all those arty pictures in his books of wooden-handled vegetable knives handed down through the family and chopping blocks which have been in use since the Crimean War that lulled me into thinking this would be a charming, yet still workable option.)
So then - a year, a set of electronic scales and a Kenwood mixer later, and it was time for my second attempt. Miraculously, the cake came out exactly the same. Heavy a lead, it was a fat disc of rather buttery, sweet dough. It tasted ok but as I’d baked it for some visiting friends, i felt slightly embarrassed but worse than that - I was mystified.
Taking a moment to reflect and regroup as I ate a wedge of the dense cake with my tea, I considered my options (incidentally - what it lacked in texture, it more than made up for in terms of buttery-goodness!). I would crack this baking malarky, and being relatively self-sufficient in these matters, I wanted to find guidance in the printed page. So who could help me in the endevour? Scanning my cook-book shelf, I spotted the almost unreadably pale spines of Delia’s How to Cook Book One. My mother had bought this for me around the time I went to University. It struck a chord as I mooched this time around because I remember the effectiveness with which she had taght me to make a decent omelette. Could the woman with such an excellent grasp of simplicity, mastering the basics and of explaining things to her readers in plain language be the one to help my mixture rise?
Well as I was guided through the process by the section of the book entitled Cakes and Biscuits for Beginners (sounded promising!) and roadtested her Classic Sponge Cake (with passion fruit filling), I certainly hoped so.
Click back soon to check out the thrilling conclusion. There will be icing sugar up the walls, there will be emotions - but above all there will be pictures. . .
The 10 Best Food Books of All Time
1: An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David
This is simply the most evocative collection of food writing of the 20th Century. The inimitable pioneer of food-writing may have taken her influence from the author of the first modern recipe book, the Victorian Eliza Acton, but she brought up to date a fine heritage which has continued with the likes of Nigel Slater. Discovering Elizabeth David even existed for me was a bit like finding out that your favourite bands had influences of their own.
2: Appetite: So what do you want to eat today? by Nigel Slater
I want to eat NOW Nigel - thanks to all your juice-filled, crust-peppered and goo-laden descriptions of food and the act of cooking it, I’m salivating at the chops! Just reading the line about how he refuses to teach anyone how to cook a steak well done was enough to keep my interest for another 50 pages.
3: Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson
Whimsical and delightful - written in handy bite-sized segments. Perfect if you’re a busy person who wants to read a little of foodie wonder before drifting off.
4: The River Cottage Fish Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
The darling of middle class eco-foodies from Surbiton to Glastonbury. So much love, devotion, time, energy and fun has clearly gone into compiling this tome. No wonder it won a Food Writers Guild Award, it is a detailed pleasure to read without either being too detailed or too preachy.
5: Planet Chicken: The Shameful Story of the Bird on your Plate by Hattie Ellis
Modern food comes with a hidden cost. Hattie, with a little nudge from HFW in the foreword gives us the grisly detail. Reading this is akin to cleaning out the hamster’s cage - when it died in there months ago - it has to be done but you’ll feel genuinely relived you did. For a full review of the book cluck here. (sorry)
6: Delia’s How to cook book one by Delia Smith
Much as I loved Rory Bremner’s charachter send-ups of these books (showing Delia demonstrating to the nation how to make a cuppa-soup for example), I can’t help but have some quiet respect for the lady. I’m not a fan of her corner-cutting, vac-pack using ways especially in more recent publications but she recognised the same trend which lead to Jamie’s ministry of food a decade earlier. Come on Delia - let’s be ‘avin you!
7: The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen by Nigel Slater
I know it’s Nigel again but this is the man who taught me to throw caution to the wind, roll-up my sleeves and know how and when to put in ‘just enough’.
8:Grub on a Grant by Cas Clark
Its recipes read somewhat simply (and sometimes evn a little bit skankily) to me now but at the time, having something so compact and discreet to tell me how to knock-together those early sauces in a sparsely-equipped Lancaster student kitchen was a godsend. Thanks mum!
9: The Silver Spoon by Italy?
It’s not often you read a book which was actually written by an entire country. In this, Italy have what is equivalent to a bible of some ind in this vast collection of inventive but simple classic recipes. It may be short on imagery and description but its size, weight and sheet breadth of recipes which have clearly kept the Italians going for years will hopefully keep me going just as long. Trust me, the next time you don’t want to make soup out of your kale glut (again), you’ll curse that you don’t have this on your shelf. Although you may have to keep it on a bottom shelf as it’s heavy enough to collapse most varieties of modern Ikea shelving.
10: Further Adventures in search of Perfection by Heston Blumenthal
The man’s come in for a lot of criticism over his newest and by all accounts totally unuseable cookbook costing over £200 and requiring equipment which would not be out of place in a boutique oil refineary. Despite the fact that his recipe for a hamburger in this book runs to about seven pages, it’s how he gets to his conclusions which are both fascinating and fun. It also gives handy tips for when you’re in NY, go to “the burger joint”, it’s amazing!
Creamy words
Food writing and broadcasting is big business. In the current age of the celebrity obsession in particular it seems we cannot turn on the TV, open a colour supplement or walk past the first table in a book shop without being tempted by some attractive and mouth-watering new opportunity to cook ourselves some more lipsmacking grub.
Inevitably with an industry so big, there will be mediocraty; huge, creamy, swathes of the stuff. Some of it excels in entertaining us while some nourishes our social conscience. Most of it however ends up looking good on our shelves while we make that first risotto we learned a few years ago.
On tastybooks we think that good food writing should cut through all that glossy, coffee-table show-boating like a hot, wet, properly sharpened knife through a slice of home-baked vanilla cheesecake.
Inspired by the writings of Elizabeth David, Nigel Slater and others like them, tastybooks is about good food writing. This in turn is invariably about good food. But over and above that, it is about writing that has been done with the passion to inspire you.
If a recipe book or columnist makes your mouth water, compells you to pick up a spatula, baste an unusual joint of meat or run outside early in the morning looking for the nearest dehydrated mushroom stockist - we want to know who did this to you and how. Share it with us, please.
We will be reviewing new food writing from cook-books and travelogs to good-husbandry guides and food history. We will be reviewing old cook-books we have just discovered which are new to us. We will be doing this in the hope that we can help guide each other through the dark, dense delicious jungle of modern food publishing.
So if you want to share your joy at a sumptuous description of a provencale kitchen or tell us what happened when you baked your first cake on the nurturing words of one of your food heroes, your contributions are welcome here.
In the mean time please be patient as this site is still under construction.
Scrumptious scribblings, tasty text and delicious diatribe will appear as soon as possible.