Comments on: Kitchen Anxiety http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/07/06/rosemary-hill/kitchen-anxiety/ The Blog of the London Review of Books Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:00:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: alex http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/07/06/rosemary-hill/kitchen-anxiety/comment-page-1/#comment-4269 alex Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:27:36 +0000 http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/?p=1019#comment-4269 I came across this piece very late and also disagree, along the same lines as Phil. I read cookbooks avidly, but there's few I've learnt more from than Elizabeth David. It's not true that she doesn't give recipes, and you can read it as snobbery but she explains why certain details are worth caring about. Only other advice is know your ingredients (Tom Stobart), and a more general application of something someone told me about boning chickens - "you've got to want to do it". Compare her with contemporaries like Constance Spry or Vita Sackville-West, and you'll understand her snobbery to be (unlike the aforementioned) the least important feature of her work. I came across this piece very late and also disagree, along the same lines as Phil. I read cookbooks avidly, but there’s few I’ve learnt more from than Elizabeth David. It’s not true that she doesn’t give recipes, and you can read it as snobbery but she explains why certain details are worth caring about. Only other advice is know your ingredients (Tom Stobart), and a more general application of something someone told me about boning chickens – “you’ve got to want to do it”.
Compare her with contemporaries like Constance Spry or Vita Sackville-West, and you’ll understand her snobbery to be (unlike the aforementioned) the least important feature of her work.

]]> By: cureanxietyattacks http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/07/06/rosemary-hill/kitchen-anxiety/comment-page-1/#comment-210 cureanxietyattacks Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:18:37 +0000 http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/?p=1019#comment-210 Very interesting topic. Up until today I never new there was a such thing as kitchen anxiety. Really good out of the box content when it come to anxiety. I learned something very new today... Thanks, Deven Very interesting topic. Up until today I never new there was a such thing as kitchen anxiety. Really good out of the box content when it come to anxiety. I learned something very new today…

Thanks,
Deven

]]> By: Steve Cook http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/07/06/rosemary-hill/kitchen-anxiety/comment-page-1/#comment-87 Steve Cook Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:44:19 +0000 http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/?p=1019#comment-87 What tosh. I'm working class and I have tried numerous recipes from French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David and can testify that even allowing for my mediocre skills in the kitchen I have been very impressed with each recipe I've tried. So have my wife and two children. Try the onion sauce, pork chops with cider or leeks in red wine. No snobbery just common sense. Delia does not address cooking as an art which it is. What tosh.
I’m working class and I have tried numerous recipes from French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David and can testify that even allowing for my mediocre skills in the kitchen I have been very impressed with each recipe I’ve tried. So have my wife and two children. Try the onion sauce, pork chops with cider or leeks in red wine. No snobbery just common sense. Delia does not address cooking as an art which it is.

]]> By: Phil http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/07/06/rosemary-hill/kitchen-anxiety/comment-page-1/#comment-79 Phil Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:20:29 +0000 http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/?p=1019#comment-79 I don't entirely agree - for many years I made pizza to general acclaim from David's fairly precise recipe (which appears in a chapter titled, typically, "The pizza and the pissaladeire"). Then we had kids and mozzarella became de rigueur, but I still start the topping using her onion-stewing method. Her "Armenian pizza" (derived from the lahmajun) is also very good. But her directions were very prescriptive, and class was never far away. A couple of pages on from the cheese-free pizza recipe she tries to persuade the novelty-hungry masses that her purism doesn't preclude variety, you just have to find it in minimalism: "There is no need even to add tomatoes. Just onions (if you like them), stewed gently in olive oil". If you don't like them, you're a bit stuck. I don’t entirely agree – for many years I made pizza to general acclaim from David’s fairly precise recipe (which appears in a chapter titled, typically, “The pizza and the pissaladeire”). Then we had kids and mozzarella became de rigueur, but I still start the topping using her onion-stewing method. Her “Armenian pizza” (derived from the lahmajun) is also very good.

But her directions were very prescriptive, and class was never far away. A couple of pages on from the cheese-free pizza recipe she tries to persuade the novelty-hungry masses that her purism doesn’t preclude variety, you just have to find it in minimalism: “There is no need even to add tomatoes. Just onions (if you like them), stewed gently in olive oil”. If you don’t like them, you’re a bit stuck.

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