More Books For Food Lovers

I finally got round to using a Christmas Waterstones voucher. Not unsurprisingly, the food section drew me in. While my embargo on buying more cookery books is holding up quite well, that doesn't apply to other works in the genre. Here are three diverse books which I've enjoyed recently. Only one of them is a new release but I wasn't hitherto aware of the other two.

Garlic and Sapphires

Ruth Reichl

Arrow Books          pp333                 £10.99

Ruth Reichl may not be a household name in the UK, but for many years she was food royalty in the US. The restaurant critic of the New York Times is indeed a big cheese. When travelling from the west coast to interview at the NYT Ruth is more than a little disconcerted to be recognised by a fellow passenger. Not only recognised, but identified as holder of a post to which she hasn't yet been appointed.

If she initially underestimated the status which came with the post, she was soon educated, fielding calls from the Secretary of State and Gregory Peck in short order, both seeking culinary advice. It then dawned on her that being recognised would make it virtually impossible to write an objective review of the experience which the ordinary diner might expect. In the States, it seems to be de rigeur to pay four or more visits before putting pen to paper.

Thus began a series of disguises and alter egos which would have put a master spy to shame. The thing I found most shameful was the radically different treatment meted out by staff who thought they were dealing with Jane Doe as opposed to star critic Ruth Reichl. Table selection is the obvious one, but having a wine list snatched out of a hand (it's happened to me too) was pretty bad. Worst of all was raspberries on a dessert being twice the size of those for the person in disguise.

Reichl writes most fascinatingly about how she came to inhabit the "personae" of the people she dressed as. Frumpy Molly Hollis from Birmingham, Michigan. Vampish, silky haired Chloe. Shapeless, bespectacled Betty Jones. A price to be paid for her art. Dear reader(s) I can tell you that I have no such problems. Well, hardly any. I once gently asked a pal who owns a small group of places if he would stop treating me like a VIP. Prosecco and olives on the house, that sort of thing - a little embarrassing. I once told him I was visiting - but under the name of a guest. The blighter posted my picture in all four of his places and told the staff to look out for me. But I had already written the review.

In fact, all of London's top places have mug shots of the main players available for the front of house staff. I don't think that happens here. One of my favourite places had the shame of ignoring the (hardly invisible) Jay Rayner for a good five minutes. Oops!

In the book we also get the pleasure of reading a fair few of the lady's reviews, plus a recipe or two. Good stuff.

Table Talk

Sweet and Sour, Salt and Bitter

AA Gill                      pp336                          £12.99

As many of you will be aware, A A Gill was restaurant critic for the Sunday Times from 1993 until his death in 2016. Truth be told, I wasn't a fan. I enjoy acerbic wit and a good putdown as much as anyone; however, you should only savage a place if it's fair to do so. With Gill, I got the feeling that he would wake up of a morning, decide someone was going to get a kicking, and have the review half written in his head before he got through the restaurant door.

Thankfully that's not something one encounters much these days, unless it's Chitra Ramaswamy reviewing anything by Gordon Ramsay. Incidentally one of Gill's most infamous reviews was a vicious one of the Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Claridge's in London, which saw him banned for life from all Ramsay owned places.

The book is a mixter maxter of essays and snippets. It has five sections entitled Appetite, Ingredients, Restaurants, Home and Away. I had to stop reading it in public places. People were moving away as a result of my uncontrolled laughter, and I did feel that just one more guffaw would have got me sectioned. Take a couple of examples from just the first few pages.

-a crab cake the size of a shirt button that collapsed into vapours at the sight of a fork. A man can feel right foolish chasing a crab's toenail round a plate

-my lamb would only have been of gastronomic interest to a man who had never eaten a sheep before. The mushrooms wouldn't have been wild if you'd soaked them in Ecstasy and given them guns

Sadly there are parts in the book where the unpleasant side of his character surfaces, especially when dealing with, whisper it, foreigners. A chapter disparaging German cuisine - and to be fair, he's not the first to do that - really need not contain the sentence, like the Imperial fleet at Scapa Flow, Germany was best left underwater as a memorial to the Dambusters raid. In the Away section there is  fair bit more in that ilk, although it must be said that Gill's xenophobia is selective, and chunks may surprise you.

I gobbled up the amuse-bouches, starters and mains but got a bit of indigestion with the later courses. It's still worth it for the belly laughs, though.

What I Ate In One Year (and related thoughts)

Stanley Tucci

Penguin Books           pp348                    £10.99

Is there anyone who doesn't know Stanley Tucci by now? Star of The Devil Wears Prada and Conclave, travel presenter, writer, model and all round smooth operator. Now in his 60s, he has the handsome looks and trim figure that would be the envy of most men half his age. He makes most women I know go weak at the knees. All in all, so many reasons to hate him.

But you just can't. He has charm without oiliness and is incredibly watchable. The word charisma was invented with him in mind. And most of all for our purposes, he loves his food. If you didn't see it, his documentary series Searching for Italy (find it on BBC iPlayer) was all about the food of the regions, discovering, eating and sometimes cooking. His work also includes a couple of cook books and there are a few recipes in this book too.

As the title of this book suggests, it's a diary of a year, mostly focussing on what he ate. On film sets, in restaurants, with family and friends, and sometimes just by himself. I think it's one to dip into rather than one long read. Written by a lesser mortal it could have become a little tedious, but Tucci pulls it off with his dry wit and well turned phrases. As one reviewer put it, A book to spark joy - and one to make you hungry.