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Good things;
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 11, 2023
"This is not a manual of cookery, but a book about enjoying food. Few of the recipes in it will contribute much to the repertoire of those who like to produce dinner for 6 in 30 minutes flat. I think food, its quality, its origins, its preparation, is something to be studied and thought about in the same way as any other aspect of human existence."
"I feel that delight lies in the seasons and what they bring us. One does not remember the grilled hamburgers and frozen peas, but the strawberries that come in May and June straight from the fields, the asparagus of a special occasion, kippers from Craster in July and August, the first lamb of the year from Wales, in October the fresh walnuts from France where they are eaten with new cloudy wine. This is good food."
"Best of all for freshness and sweetness are the tiny mussels one eats in Normandy, often gathered straight from the rocks below the restaurant. Mussels can also be gathered from rocks and wooden posts at the seaside in Britain, but the greatest care is needed to make sure they are far from any source of pollution. This is so difficult nowadays, that one is wise to stick to fishmonger's mussels,which have spent a few days in cleansing beds before being sold."
"If the mussel liquor is not required in the recipe, keep it in the refrigerator and use next day for fish soup or a sauce. Note: 2 lb of mussels are more or less equal to a quart. This is only a rough guide as the size of mussels makes a difference to the measurement of capacity."
"A good trout, rainbow or native brown trout, is one that hasn't come all flaccid out of a tank. Or frozen out of a commercial deep-freeze. In restaurants - unless the restaurateur gets his trout straight from river or lake, and most can't - the only trout worth eating and paying for is a smoked one. The best trout of all would be one that had jumped straight from the stream or lake into the pan, ready to be eaten within minutes of being caught."
"Trout being such a delicately flavoured fish, it follows that accompaniments should be delicate too, and of the first quality. They should be subservient, or at the most complementary to the flavour of the fish. Avoid colourful little mounds of this and that, and serve the trout straight. As you will see from the recipes below for truite a la meuniere and truite au bleu, butter is all that's required for really fresh fish."
"What is a meat pie? A hash of meat enclosed in pastry, is the obvious answer. But really the matter's more complex. A pie, particularly a double-crust or raised pie, is an ingenious device whereby bird or beast develops the finest flavour possible by being cooked in its own juices. Some experts may claim that the crust is unimportant once the pie is cooked, that it should be pushed to the side of the plate, but I can't agree. The right crust, succulent and crisp, is an important contribution to the success of any pie. Whether hot or cold, it sets off the meat perfectly."
"I have this image of early summer, May and June. We walk home slowly up the village street, which runs across the cliff at a kindly slope. The midday angelus rings from the church tower above us. Children stream out of school, and flow politely past our slower feet into open cottage doors. The air pulses with the warm smell of lilac, but as we pass each door, the lilac dominance is subdued by heady wafts of asparagus cooking."
"The fine pleasure of buying celery in earthy heads, after the first improving frosts of winter, is gradually being eroded by the wash of enterprise and aviation. Almost the year round, cleaned and slightly flabby greenish celery, sometimes from America, is on sale at inviting prices. It's the wise cook who averts her eyes from this profuse and plastic display, and waits until November. Then crispness and flavour are at their peak, and celery can provide a perfect antidote to the heavy diet of dark months."
"Celery and sea salt. This is the best way of eating first-class celery, but care must be taken with butter and salt. Marks and Spencer now stock the best, unsalted butter from Normandy. Unadulterated sea salt is harder to come by, but worth the trouble - and expense. Once you've tasted it, you won't want to return to the free-running varieties."
"You can keep haricot and butter beans indefinitely, like other dried vegetables, but it's better not to. With time they become drier, harder, increasingly tasteless. To enjoy them at their best, see if you can find new season Soissons beans in the autumn, called after the main town of a famous bean-growing district of France."
"Casting about one day for a new cold soup, I remembered how maman used to cool our breakfast soup, on a warm morning, by adding cold milk to it. A cup of cream, an extra straining, and a sprinkle of chives, et voila, I had my new soup. I named my version of maman's soup after Vichy, the famous spa located not twenty miles from our Bourbonnais home, as a tribute to the fine cooking of the region."
"As to whereabouts, all woods are worth exploring. But the best are old forests. Mushrooms don't grow much in the centre of woods, as Varenka remarked to Levin's half-brother in Anna Karenina. He agreed that ceps preferred the outskirts - and decided to discuss mushrooms rather than propose. 'The stem of a boletus,' he remarked calmly as they walked through the trees, 'looks rather like the growth on a dark man's face who's not shaved for a couple of days.' Which is true, of some boleti at any rate. If Varenka hadn't been so abashed at the lost moment, she might have added that mushrooms also grow on or near the rides through a forest. A certain amount of light slipping through the trees helps to create the right conditions. Should you find too many for present use, allowing for the fact that they shrink in the pan more than commercial mushrooms, you can dry the most perfect ones for winter soups and stews and omelettes."
"The thing to remember is that there's no substitute for accurate knowledge. Any bits of country lore, any generalizations should be ignored."
"The most treasured finds are the egg-yolk coloured girolles or chanterelles. Their trumpet heads are easy to see against green moss, less easy when partly concealed by a scatter of autumn leaves."
"Parsley can be grown anywhere - window box, backyard tub, or kitchen garden border - provided the soil is rich and moist. Sow April and September for an almost year-round supply. French cooks care for its taste, not for its looks alone, or for its richness in iron or richness in vitamin C. They know that curly-leaved parsley is the kind for strong taste and smooth-leaved parsley the kind for delicate taste: that this is as much flavour in the stalks as the leaves. And they know that, in cooking, parsley is a flavouring ingredient as basic as wine or brandy or cream or butter."
"The thing to remember with parsnips is that both by themselves and in combination they require plenty of butter or some form of richness, such as oil or cream - and plenty of seasoning. They have a wonderful affinity with beef, and more surprisingly, with white fish provided they are crisply presented. The cubes of parsnip in batter for instance, are an excellent accompaniment to baked plaice or sole."
"It's important that three principles about cooking spinach should be absolutely clear - it must be well washed, well dried out in the cooking, and well buttered. Take a large, heavy saucepan and stuff in the spinach - or as much of it as you can. Do not add any water. Put the lid on, and set over a low heat. There will soon be a bubbling noise, as the spinach exudes its moisture. Prod with a wooden spoon, adding the rest of the spinach in the colander as soon as the spinach in the pan begins to cook down. Raise the heat and cook with the lid off, stirring from time to time to make sure that underneath leaves aren't sticking to the pan. This sounds a long business, but the total cooking time will be about 10 minutes. Put the cooked spinach into a large sieve to drain, cutting it gently with the edge of a fish slice to help the liquid run away. Just before the meal, melt a large knob of butter in a clean pan, and put the drained spinach back to absorb the butter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg."
"In the strawberry field, women of the village pick along the rows of plants, on their hands and knees. They have to be knowing to select the right strawberries, careful in handling the delicate fruit. It's a sweaty, muddy, skilful job, for women, not for unthinking girls."
"When you find a greengrocer selling proper weights of strawberries in openwork punnets, stick to him. If you live near a strawberry field, you'll be able to buy the best strawberries available, freshly picked at the best moment."
"After the grape harvest comes the harvest of walnuts, in such districts as the Correze in France and the Vaucluse, and the peninsula of Sorrento below Naples. In cooking with walnuts, it's a good idea to use them early in the season before the kernels shrink and lose their finest flavour. In October and November, early November, one may see in greengrocers shops netted sacks labelled 'fresh walnuts from France'. A little later on, the kiln-dried Sorrento walnus come in, from the same place as the ones which were found under the dust of Pompeii, lying in their bowl beside eggs and cereal, still waiting for the priests of Isis."
"One sits at an oilcloth-covered table, eating asparagus, omelette aux fines herbes, chicken cooked with morel mushrooms, salad, strawberries, fresh goat cheese, and drinking wine and liqueurs of quality. Hens walk in and out, dogs snore at one's feet with an eye half-open for chicken bones. Apart from the bread, oil, coffee, sugar, everything has come from garden, vineyard, farmyard or commune woods. There will be no book, bathroom, television set or easy chair in the house. The normally divisive effect of poverty is not felt, because the host is well aware that few people can be offering their guests better food - and more important - better drink."
"I feel that delight lies in the seasons and what they bring us. One does not remember the grilled hamburgers and frozen peas, but the strawberries that come in May and June straight from the fields, the asparagus of a special occasion, kippers from Craster in July and August, the first lamb of the year from Wales, in October the fresh walnuts from France where they are eaten with new cloudy wine. This is good food."
"Best of all for freshness and sweetness are the tiny mussels one eats in Normandy, often gathered straight from the rocks below the restaurant. Mussels can also be gathered from rocks and wooden posts at the seaside in Britain, but the greatest care is needed to make sure they are far from any source of pollution. This is so difficult nowadays, that one is wise to stick to fishmonger's mussels,which have spent a few days in cleansing beds before being sold."
"If the mussel liquor is not required in the recipe, keep it in the refrigerator and use next day for fish soup or a sauce. Note: 2 lb of mussels are more or less equal to a quart. This is only a rough guide as the size of mussels makes a difference to the measurement of capacity."
"A good trout, rainbow or native brown trout, is one that hasn't come all flaccid out of a tank. Or frozen out of a commercial deep-freeze. In restaurants - unless the restaurateur gets his trout straight from river or lake, and most can't - the only trout worth eating and paying for is a smoked one. The best trout of all would be one that had jumped straight from the stream or lake into the pan, ready to be eaten within minutes of being caught."
"Trout being such a delicately flavoured fish, it follows that accompaniments should be delicate too, and of the first quality. They should be subservient, or at the most complementary to the flavour of the fish. Avoid colourful little mounds of this and that, and serve the trout straight. As you will see from the recipes below for truite a la meuniere and truite au bleu, butter is all that's required for really fresh fish."
"What is a meat pie? A hash of meat enclosed in pastry, is the obvious answer. But really the matter's more complex. A pie, particularly a double-crust or raised pie, is an ingenious device whereby bird or beast develops the finest flavour possible by being cooked in its own juices. Some experts may claim that the crust is unimportant once the pie is cooked, that it should be pushed to the side of the plate, but I can't agree. The right crust, succulent and crisp, is an important contribution to the success of any pie. Whether hot or cold, it sets off the meat perfectly."
"I have this image of early summer, May and June. We walk home slowly up the village street, which runs across the cliff at a kindly slope. The midday angelus rings from the church tower above us. Children stream out of school, and flow politely past our slower feet into open cottage doors. The air pulses with the warm smell of lilac, but as we pass each door, the lilac dominance is subdued by heady wafts of asparagus cooking."
"The fine pleasure of buying celery in earthy heads, after the first improving frosts of winter, is gradually being eroded by the wash of enterprise and aviation. Almost the year round, cleaned and slightly flabby greenish celery, sometimes from America, is on sale at inviting prices. It's the wise cook who averts her eyes from this profuse and plastic display, and waits until November. Then crispness and flavour are at their peak, and celery can provide a perfect antidote to the heavy diet of dark months."
"Celery and sea salt. This is the best way of eating first-class celery, but care must be taken with butter and salt. Marks and Spencer now stock the best, unsalted butter from Normandy. Unadulterated sea salt is harder to come by, but worth the trouble - and expense. Once you've tasted it, you won't want to return to the free-running varieties."
"You can keep haricot and butter beans indefinitely, like other dried vegetables, but it's better not to. With time they become drier, harder, increasingly tasteless. To enjoy them at their best, see if you can find new season Soissons beans in the autumn, called after the main town of a famous bean-growing district of France."
"Casting about one day for a new cold soup, I remembered how maman used to cool our breakfast soup, on a warm morning, by adding cold milk to it. A cup of cream, an extra straining, and a sprinkle of chives, et voila, I had my new soup. I named my version of maman's soup after Vichy, the famous spa located not twenty miles from our Bourbonnais home, as a tribute to the fine cooking of the region."
"As to whereabouts, all woods are worth exploring. But the best are old forests. Mushrooms don't grow much in the centre of woods, as Varenka remarked to Levin's half-brother in Anna Karenina. He agreed that ceps preferred the outskirts - and decided to discuss mushrooms rather than propose. 'The stem of a boletus,' he remarked calmly as they walked through the trees, 'looks rather like the growth on a dark man's face who's not shaved for a couple of days.' Which is true, of some boleti at any rate. If Varenka hadn't been so abashed at the lost moment, she might have added that mushrooms also grow on or near the rides through a forest. A certain amount of light slipping through the trees helps to create the right conditions. Should you find too many for present use, allowing for the fact that they shrink in the pan more than commercial mushrooms, you can dry the most perfect ones for winter soups and stews and omelettes."
"The thing to remember is that there's no substitute for accurate knowledge. Any bits of country lore, any generalizations should be ignored."
"The most treasured finds are the egg-yolk coloured girolles or chanterelles. Their trumpet heads are easy to see against green moss, less easy when partly concealed by a scatter of autumn leaves."
"Parsley can be grown anywhere - window box, backyard tub, or kitchen garden border - provided the soil is rich and moist. Sow April and September for an almost year-round supply. French cooks care for its taste, not for its looks alone, or for its richness in iron or richness in vitamin C. They know that curly-leaved parsley is the kind for strong taste and smooth-leaved parsley the kind for delicate taste: that this is as much flavour in the stalks as the leaves. And they know that, in cooking, parsley is a flavouring ingredient as basic as wine or brandy or cream or butter."
"The thing to remember with parsnips is that both by themselves and in combination they require plenty of butter or some form of richness, such as oil or cream - and plenty of seasoning. They have a wonderful affinity with beef, and more surprisingly, with white fish provided they are crisply presented. The cubes of parsnip in batter for instance, are an excellent accompaniment to baked plaice or sole."
"It's important that three principles about cooking spinach should be absolutely clear - it must be well washed, well dried out in the cooking, and well buttered. Take a large, heavy saucepan and stuff in the spinach - or as much of it as you can. Do not add any water. Put the lid on, and set over a low heat. There will soon be a bubbling noise, as the spinach exudes its moisture. Prod with a wooden spoon, adding the rest of the spinach in the colander as soon as the spinach in the pan begins to cook down. Raise the heat and cook with the lid off, stirring from time to time to make sure that underneath leaves aren't sticking to the pan. This sounds a long business, but the total cooking time will be about 10 minutes. Put the cooked spinach into a large sieve to drain, cutting it gently with the edge of a fish slice to help the liquid run away. Just before the meal, melt a large knob of butter in a clean pan, and put the drained spinach back to absorb the butter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg."
"In the strawberry field, women of the village pick along the rows of plants, on their hands and knees. They have to be knowing to select the right strawberries, careful in handling the delicate fruit. It's a sweaty, muddy, skilful job, for women, not for unthinking girls."
"When you find a greengrocer selling proper weights of strawberries in openwork punnets, stick to him. If you live near a strawberry field, you'll be able to buy the best strawberries available, freshly picked at the best moment."
"After the grape harvest comes the harvest of walnuts, in such districts as the Correze in France and the Vaucluse, and the peninsula of Sorrento below Naples. In cooking with walnuts, it's a good idea to use them early in the season before the kernels shrink and lose their finest flavour. In October and November, early November, one may see in greengrocers shops netted sacks labelled 'fresh walnuts from France'. A little later on, the kiln-dried Sorrento walnus come in, from the same place as the ones which were found under the dust of Pompeii, lying in their bowl beside eggs and cereal, still waiting for the priests of Isis."
"One sits at an oilcloth-covered table, eating asparagus, omelette aux fines herbes, chicken cooked with morel mushrooms, salad, strawberries, fresh goat cheese, and drinking wine and liqueurs of quality. Hens walk in and out, dogs snore at one's feet with an eye half-open for chicken bones. Apart from the bread, oil, coffee, sugar, everything has come from garden, vineyard, farmyard or commune woods. There will be no book, bathroom, television set or easy chair in the house. The normally divisive effect of poverty is not felt, because the host is well aware that few people can be offering their guests better food - and more important - better drink."
February 14, 2008
I love reading Jane Grigson. She has firm opinions and thinks about food and cooking a lot! There books are just as much about eating as they are cooking, so beware if you're looking for a cookery manual, this is not it. But her recipes sound good and equally important are good. And if you're dieting or feeling lackluster about food in general, then this is the book for you. These aren't recycled recipes but rather her take on classic preparations, and there is a difference - believe me! Highly recommended by my appetite and other close friends...
July 28, 2017
Jane Grigson is one of the foundation cookbook authors so often borrowed from by current celebrity chefs. Like The Fruit Book this one is organized by ingredient, with conversational introductions to each one discussing history, tastes, and selection, and then a handful of good recipes, simple and complex. Some of the ingredients are obscure (green walnuts) and the ideas about meals can be dated, but her approaches and expertise have made me a better cook. But it's also a good reading cookbook, even if you never make anything from it.
February 4, 2015
A very, very good read, full of refreshingly interesting ideas as well as recipes. I now need to plan what to cook first!
A few regrets come to mind; like all the utterly delicious looking recipes for fresh walnuts: an ingredient which is practically unobtainable in Southern England by the domestic cook nowadays. But I’m delighted to see good looking recipes for simple fare such as civet of venison and lime sorbet.
A few regrets come to mind; like all the utterly delicious looking recipes for fresh walnuts: an ingredient which is practically unobtainable in Southern England by the domestic cook nowadays. But I’m delighted to see good looking recipes for simple fare such as civet of venison and lime sorbet.
Read
December 28, 2025like a less sybaritic nigella, perhaps, or somewhere on a continuum b/w laurie colwin (a touch pricklier) & mfk fisher (a touch less prickly). at any rate, smack-dab in the sweet spot for pre-bed reading: "pick sloes on a dry day when they have been mellowed by an early frost."
December 27, 2007
"This is not a manual of cookery but a book about enjoying food. ... I think food, its quality, its origins, its preparation, is something to be thought about in the same way as any other aspect of human existence" from the Introduction.
July 7, 2008
Excellent cookbook to browse when not cooking. Teaches you basic and interesting things about food.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews