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Never boil an avocado,
and other handy tips
by Alex Renton
www.timesonline.co.uk, London, August 20, 2009.
A new book offers a fascinating insight into the kitchen mishaps
of others. Plus the recipe that Elizabeth David hated.
Cookbooks have become such juggernauts. Where Elizabeth David and
Jane Grigson turned out modest volumes with a few line drawings,
now they are three-pounder coffee-table tomes, full of TV chefs’ “philosophy” and
glossy photographs of food that’s been styled and pimped to
look like nothing I could ever achieve in my kitchen.
Too many cookbooks spoil the broth — they may, in fact, intimidate
you into giving up the broth idea entirely and settling for a tin
of Campbell’s Cream of Tomato. But at an art show at the Edinburgh
Festival, I found one that was utterly refreshing. It’s called
The How Not To Cookbook — which seems a rather sensible way
of looking at the whole business.
The artist Aleksandra Mir asked 1,000 ordinary cooks — they’re
all listed in the back — for their tips on how not to mess
it up in the kitchen. The results are loosely collected under headings
from “Burns” through to “Worms”; they range
from the practical “Do not fry with hot oil when naked” and “Do
not boil avocado. Turns to soap”, to the intriguing: “Do
not wear your wife’s new dress while cooking spaghetti sauce.” And “Do
not fry pasta with marmalade”. Some are good ideas really worth
a go: I shall definitely try to rescue overcooked pasta by sautéing
it.
Some of the best provide a window into people’s lives: “If
you are five years old and your elder brother is making you Ready
Brek for breakfast, be prepared that instead of milk he might use
fabric softener and you might die.” And: “When heating
a croissant in the microwave, if you have left it in too long and
it has gone hard, do not assume that another three minutes will sort
it out. It will not and the fire brigade prefers toast anyway.”
“
Do not use a cookbook” is one succinct tip in Aleksandra Mir's
book — or at least don’t take them too seriously. Every
cook I know has a cookbook recipe they hate above all others: often
the rage they feel about them is in direct proportion to the fame
of the chef who published it. Gordon Ramsay gets a lot of flak, and
there is a notorious recipe for a chocolate nemesis in the first
River Café cookbook that is reputed to have induced nervous
breakdowns.
Now an archivist at the London Guildhall library has dug up a treasure:
the least favourite recipe of Elizabeth David herself. It appeared
in a copy of Ulster Fare, a 1945 hardback produced by the Belfast
Women’s Institute, which David bought second-hand in 1974.
On a Post-it Note attached to it, she wrote: “Italian salad,
p50. Sounds just about the most revolting dish ever devised.” And
here it is (with thanks to Tim Hayward).
Italian salad
Ingredients
1 pint cold cooked macaroni
1⁄2 pint cooked or tinned pears
1⁄2 pint grated raw carrot
French dressing to moisten
2 heaped tablespoons minced onion
1⁄2 pint cooked or minced string beans
Method
Mix the chopped macaroni and vegetables; moisten with French dressing,
flavouring with garlic if liked. Serve on a dish lined with lettuce
leaves. Decorate with mayonnaise and minced pimento or chives.
Do you have a most loathed recipe? Send it to alex.renton@thetimes.co.uk
(it must have been published in a book or newspaper, and I will favour
those by better-known writers) and I’ll give a copy of The
How Not to Cookbook for the daftest. See the book at the Collective
Gallery, Edinburgh; to buy a copy, e-mail mail@collectivegallery.net
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