Keep it Simple: A Fresh Look at Classic Cooking

by Alastair Little, Richard Whittington

Chef Alistair Little presents over 100 recipes specially tested for the kitchen. Every single one of the recipes presented is intended for any one from the absolute beginner to the accomplished culinary artisan. Where possible, alternatives are given for ingredients difficult or costly to obtain and every recipe includes advice on how to prepare ahead for efficient and panic-free cooking.

Genres: Food, Cooking, Cookbooks

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 23, 1993

Reviews

[Lee Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book won the Glenfiddich Award in 1994 and I still sometimes hear it referred to reverentially as the godfather of modern British cooking. It is, and it isn't: it clearly marks a break from the French dominated nouvelle cuisine & cuisine classique that had lorded British gastronomy in the 1970s and 1980s; it equally clearly has influenced developments in British dining culture since then as well as in food writing and home cooking. What some people might have forgotten is that British cuisine, as it is today, did not emerge miraculously in its present form from under the tyranny of heavy sauces - there was the rebellious phase of fusion food marking the journey.

Fusion food does make its mark in this book but it would be unfair to characterise the whole work as that; some dishes may be fusion inspired but others owe clear allegiance to a particular national culinary tradition. The vast array of those national culinary traditions does point in the same direction though: British, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Morrocan flavours are all here in this publication.

Simply printing recipes different in tone to those that had characterised food for a generation however would not, in all likelihood, have garnered Alastair Little the critical acclaim that he received though. This book is self-consciously polemical. Beginning by telling you what you should have in a kitchen (an unusual move for a chef not known from TV appearances) he preaches simplicity and seasonality in cooking. It is these points that people most probably mean when referring to the book's influence. The last of them was developed to a greater degree by another Glenfiddich Award winner: the thoroughly British The River Cottage Year .

That is the only criticism I can level at the book and it's not really a fault of the work. Whilst it may have been revolutionary at the time its ideas have been refined elsewhere.

[^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every cook should seek to keep this book close to hand and close to heart. It’s immaterial whether the reader is, at any age, right at the beginning of their cooking life (risotto), is a struggling improver learning the ins and outs of culinary terminology (risotto nero), or is a fully-fledged kitchen demon (osso buco with risotto Milanese). The most valuable skill this book will teach and instil in its reader is the fundamental importance of thinking; meaning how to think ahead: how to plan and flawlessly navigate the shortest, most efficient, and pretty much guaranteed successful route, between that getting-home-from-work downer which demands to know what’s for dinner tonight; and actually sitting down to eat and enjoy that dinner, with ample free time afterwards for other activities before the dreaded alarm clock has to be set for the morning call.

Though I perhaps do unwarrantedly stretch the metaphor, this book works like the Rosetta stone. Subliminally, Alastair Little’s book teaches METHOD; i.e. how to decode and rearrange inadequately (and even downright badly) written recipe instructions out there in the vast spiralling market of in- and out-of- print cookery books. Honestly, unless you are an enthusiastic and well-practiced cook, you simply wouldn’t believe how many puffed-up, information-light (some downright misleading) cookery books there are out there, or at least you wouldn’t realise that until you read and consciously applied your learning from Little’s “Keep It Simple”. This book may be twenty years old; but remember that in 1994 it won the Glenfiddich Award for a very good reason. Here is stress free cooking. For you. Permanently.

[Squermish the Book Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This much loved cookbook (and the eponymous restaurant) was part of my life for far too short a time, but it was a joy to revisit the book after almost thirty many years! Unsuprisingly, I rediscovered timeless classic recipes that are still appropriate for cooking in the 2020's.