Classic book:
PLATS DU JOUR
by Patience Gray
and Primrose Boyd
Penguin Books,
1957
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It’s funny – in
both senses of the word – how many people think that awareness of foreign food
started with Elizabeth David and stayed that way for ages. Now, I accept that
David’s Mediterranean Cookery burst upon a grey, post-War scene of austerity in
1950 and brought quite a lot of sunlight into that world for the few who bought
it.
And they were,
indeed, few. Elizabeth David was very active during the 1950s but her time came
with the age of permissiveness, the Swinging Sixties. By then, the world was
more accepting of the kind of gospel which she so eloquently preached.
As a result, it’s
easy to lose sight of important milestones in comparatively recent cookbook
history and a case in point is Plats du
Jour or Foreign Food by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd, which appeared in
1957. Unlike Ms David’s books, at least initially, it was a runaway success,
what these days would be called a publishing sensation. Within a few months, it
had sold over 50,000 copies and it continued to sell vigorously right into the
1960s.
I love that
subtitle: Foreign Food. It promised
something beyond the pedestrian drudgery of the familiar domestic kitchen, and
the illustrations, by the just-graduated David Gentleman, expressed not just a
lusty joie de vivre but also, very clearly, the notion that there are societies were food and the sharing of
food is central and sacred. I like the fact that on the front cover we can see two bottles of wine being opened at the
same time.
I have a theory
that Elizabeth David, while undoubtedly a missionary of sorts, was essentially
writing for, if not the converted, at least for the cook who was used to a bit
of adventure in the kitchen.
In Plats du Jour, there is no such
assumption. In fact, you could give a copy of it to a young person embarking on
their first experience of independent living and they could use it as a very
instructive manual. There’s a chapter on Pots, Pans, and Stoves, one on The
Store Cupboard, another on Aromatics.
In the chapter
Applying The Heat we have a concise description of cooking methods from
braising to roasting and from larding to poaching. This is an eminently
practical book.
I looked for Plats du Jour in the index to David Kynaston’s Modernity
Britain: Opening the Box 1957-59 (Bloomsbury), part of his magisterial and
vastly entertaining account of recent British history, but to no avail.
1957 saw Harold
Macmillan succeed Anthony Eden as Prime Minister and soon afterwards he claimed
that “most of our people have never had it so good.” This year also saw Britain
test its first nuclear bomb in the Pacific, an infamous fire at Windscale (now
Sellafield) and Andy Kapp making his first appearance in the Daily Mirror.
This was the world
into which Plats du Jour was
launched, precisely half-way between the publication of Elizabeth David’s Summer Cooking in 1955 and her French Provincial Cooking in 1960.
The language may
be a little stilted and formal (Patience Gray’s parents were immigrants from
Eastern Europe who appear to have taken Englishness very seriously) but the
opening lines are, in their own way, rather splendid:
In this book we have tried to set down the recipes for
a number of dishes of foreign origin, in the belief that English people may be
stimulated to interpret them, and in doing so find fresh interest in the
kitchen. The difficulty lies in the diversity of methods used to achieve
similar results, in conveying the timing in preparation and the texture and
appearance of the finished dish. If the cook has not some vague conception of
what it should be like, some recollection to fall back on, it is unlikely that
a recipe is sufficient to act as an infallible guide….
This is the very
antithesis of the grinning celebrity chef telling how everything is “so easy
and so quick”.
I also like this
sentiment:
Where the occasion is a special one, a pâté,
or an extravagance in the form of Dublin Bay prawns or smoked salmon, may be
called for to precede a Daube à la provençale or Poulet à l’estragon.
But barring such exceptions, the liberating idea prevails, a concentration of
culinary activity, a close attention to a particular dish, which, once
composed, can often be left to combine its flavours in a slow oven, later to be
enjoyed with a glass of enhancing wine.
And, apart from
anything else, just look at the use of commas; in this kind of writing, they
are precision instruments.
It would be
tedious to quote a lot of recipes but I just want to point out one, which could
have been written yesterday – by an experienced cook and a talented wielder of
the pen (perhaps Miles Jupp’s Damien Trench?):
SALSA VERDE
Reduce the following ingredients to a molecular state
with a heavy chopping knife or mezzaluna; 1 dessertspoonful of capers, 2
anchovy fillets, 1 shallot, and 1 clove of garlic. Put this preparation into a
sauceboat, and add to it a tablespoonful of very finely chopped parsley and
basil. Dilute with 3 tablespoonfuls of good olive oil, and the juice of 1 lemon.
Basil and “good
olive oil”. I suspect that would have entailed a trip to Old Compton Street in
1957. And just look at those lovely Oxford commas.
Plats du Jour is a gem of book and while it does have a certain
period charm, the essence of what it is about is as fresh today as when it
first appeared.
There are lots of
copies available on www.abebooks.co.uk
from as little as £8.50; and it was reprinted by Persephone Books in 2006.
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