May 2017 Food & Drink Book of the Month.
Jonathan Meades calls this an anti-cookbook or as you and I might see it a distillation of a lifetime’s cooking. Running alongside this is the question of Chefs and their hallowed “inventions” which are no such thing and mostly best to be ignored by the home cook together with lifestyle bloggers, most nutritional advice and expensive kitchen gadgets. Many digressions on literary and culinary theft, the where and why of these recipes and much else besides. My one cavil are the black and white illustrations which look like photographs of spilled ink or a damaged photographic plate – they gave me an uncomfortable reminder of dreadful gristly school dinners, greasy and inedible, the exact opposite of what is promised in this anti-cookbook. ~ Sue Baker
Like for Like Reading
The Pedant in the Kitchen, Julian Barnes
In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating: An Eater’s Manifesto, Michael Pollan £9.99 Paperback 256 pages Penguin 7th May 2009 9780141034720
| Primary Genre | Cookery, Food and Drink |
| Recommendations: |
'I adore Meades's book . . . I want more of his rule-breaking irreverence in my kitchen' New York Times
'The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is hilariously grumpy, muttering at us "Don't you bastards know anything?" You can read it purely for literary pleasure, but Jonathan Meades makes everything sound so delicious that the non-cook will be moved to cook and the bad cook will cook better' David Hare, Guardian
The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is an anti-cookbook. Best known as a provocative novelist, journalist and film-maker, Jonathan Meades has also been called 'the best amateur chef in the world' by Marco Pierre White. His contention here is that anyone who claims to have invented a dish is delusional, dishonestly contributing to the myth of culinary originality.
Meades delivers a polemical but highly usable collection of 125 of his favourite recipes, each one an example of the fine art of culinary plagiarism. These are dishes and methods he has hijacked, adapted, improved upon and made his own. Without assuming any special knowledge or skill, the book is full of excellent advice. He tells us why the British never got the hang of garlic. That a purist would never dream of putting cheese in a Gratin Dauphinois. That cooking brains in brown butter cannot be improved upon. And why - despite the advice of Martin Scorsese's mother - he insists on frying his meatballs.The Plagiarist in the Kitchen features in the following genres: Cookery, Food and Drink, Books of the Month, Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure, Recommendations
The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Plagiarist in the Kitchen was written by Jonathan Meades and published by Unbound
The Plagiarist in the Kitchen has 178 pages
£8.99
