The Pedant In The Kitchen E-Book

Julian Barnes

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The Pedant's ambition is simple. He wants to cook tasty, nutritious food; he wants not to poison his friends; and he wants to expand, slowly and with pleasure, his culinary repertoire. A stern critic of himself and others, he knows he is never going to invent his own recipes (although he might, in a burst of enthusiasm, increase the quantity of a favourite ingredient). Rather, he is a recipe-bound follower of the instructions of others. It is in his interrogations of these recipes, and of those who create them, that the Pedant's true pedantry emerges. How big, exactly, is a 'lump'? Is a 'slug' larger than a 'gout'? When does a 'drizzle' become a downpour? And what is the difference between slicing and chopping?This book is a witty and practical account of Julian Barnes' search for gastronomic precision. It is a quest that leaves him seduced by Jane Grigson, infuriated by Nigel Slater, and reassured by Mrs Beeton's Victorian virtues. The Pedant in the Kitchen is perfect comfort for anyone who has ever been defeated by a cookbook and is something that none of Julian Barnes' legion of admirers will want to miss.

Leseprobe

THE PEDANT IN THE KITCHEN

Julian Barnes has written ten novels, three books of short stories, and two collections of essays. He has received several awards and honours for his writing including the Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1980), four Booker Prize nominations (Flaubert’s Parrot 1984, England, England 1998, Arthur and George 2005 and The Sense of an Ending, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011). In 2004 he was made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

‘All those preoccupations of the keen cook are examined with a wry and truthful eye. His assessments of such writers as Richard Olney and Elizabeth David are spot on. He notes the latter’s “In cooking the possibility of muffing a dish is always with us”, leaving the implied comment hanging in the air and his reader smiling.’ Spectator

‘Barnes identifies in scintillating style the true gulf that exists between food writers and their audience. Anyone who has eaten cooked food should read Pedant in the Kitchen. When you have picked yourself, helpless with laughter, off the lino, it will save you a fortune in cookery books and kitchen gadgets.’ Daily Express

‘Barnes is, as always, precise, humorous and informative. . . A curiously palatable little book.’ Evening Standard

‘In this delicious collection of bite-sized articles, Julian Barnes – amateur cook but a connoisseur of cookbooks – launches a broadside at the inanities and inaccuracies of recipe-writers. . . It is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and Barnes’ frustrations and outright failures endear him to the reader immensely. This is a little hob-side classic.’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Lyrical on onions, nostalgic on frozen peas, and acerbic on the trickiness of misleading recipe-book photos, Barnes puts almost as much elegance and thought into this series of short essays as into his fiction. Fizzing with decades of pent-up frustration and creative rebellion, this is a tiny masterpiece of observational wit.’ The Herald

www.julianbarnes.com

First published in 2003 by Atlantic Books, on behalf of Guardian Newspapers Ltd. Atlantic Books is an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

This revised hardback edition published by Atlantic Books in 2012

Copyright © Julian Barnes 2003

Introduction copyright © Mark Hix, 2012

The moral right of Julian Barnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

The moral right of Mark Hix to be identified as the author of the introduction has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

The Guardian is a registered trademark of the Guardian Media Group Plc. Guardian Books is an imprint of Guardian Newspapers Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-85789-654-4 E-book ISBN 978-0-85789-974-3

Designed by Richard Marston Illustrations by Joe Berger Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WCIN 3JZ

to She For Whom

CONTENTS

Introduction by Mark Hix

A Late-Onset Cook

Warning: Pedant at Work

Take Two Medium Onions

By the Book

The Ten-Minute Maestro

No, I Won’t Do That

The Cactus and the Slipper

The Tooth Fairy

Good Things

Service with a Scowl

Once is Enough

Now They Tell Me!

Keep It Simple

In the Purple

Not a Dinner Party

Bottom Drawer

The Moral of It All

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, cookbooks have become immensely popular as Christmas and birthday presents; the gastronomes collection amasses quickly. Sometimes, a couple of books become trusted favourites, containing recipes that we return to again and again. By and large, however, these books remain unopened on their shelves, their colourful spines and toothsome covers providing nothing more than another decorative element to the kitchen. Over the years, Ive become rather obsessed with collecting cookbooks, old and new. It gives me comfort to have a wall full of them but, though I now have a couple thousand of the things, I consult only a tiny fraction of them very occasionally. They are an invaluable resource for research and inspiration when Im writing.