Troubled by choices
I have an exciting new book.
I dined with friends on goat casserole and mashed potatoes and deep fried artichoke and salad and garlic bread and was sipping a glass of wine when my friends produced a book they had bought as a curiosity. And I got to take it home!
It’s a classic of its kind. Alas, I can’t find you a picture of the cover, because it’s a classic of its kind too: dishes from many nations served as a Chinese banquet. The title of the Gas Cookery Book sounds dull, but the book itself is testament to a cuisine that’s fading fast.
It was published by the Hong Kong & China Gas Co. Ltd. and is rather more substantial than most books published by firms for celebratory or advertorial purposes. By ‘more substantial’, I mean it’s a hardback of 395 pages, with a fabbo spreadsheet containing herbs and spices at the back. The spreadsheet contains 23 herbs and spices and lists the dishes you can use them with, in both Chinese and English. One day I might do a similar spreadsheet for my own herbs and spices - the way it’s configured makes it very easy to dream up a menu using available seasoning.
There are colour pictures and black and white pictures and recipes and descriptions of cuisines and Chinese translations of the English (or is that English translations of the Chinese?). The recipes cover the cuisines of sixteen countries chapter by chapter. The English is occasionally fascinating and the recipes are often adapted just a little to Hong Kong tastebuds. This is done carefully, mostly through adding MSG and commercial sauces. It makes a good refererence for 1960s culinary history on so many levels, in fact. My copy is the fourth edition, November 1963.
I particularly love the way the book hones in on one characteristic for each cuisine:
Austria and Hungary…. home of the goulash
China … infinite variety
France - home of the cooking art
Germany - good food and heart appetites
Great Britain for some of the best family cooking
India - the home of curries and highly spiced foods
Indonesia - simple food with a spice
Italy, mother of continental cookery
Japan. Pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.
Korea for oriental variation.
Portugal- where the food is rich and tasty.
Russia: home of contrasting yet pleasing dishes.
Scandinavia - for satisfying dishes.
Spain. Piquant flavours.
United States of America - noted for variation in the realm of food.
The punctuation is mine. The titles belong to the Gas Cookery Book.
I need to give you a recipe from this amazing tome, but I can’t decide. Help me out here. Do you want to explore the variation of the US food or the pleasing nature of Japanese food? Is infinite variety more important to you than goulash?
food history, Hong Kong cooking, gas cooking, Gas Cookery Book, international food, cookbook
June 27th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
My vote is for more experience in food of Scandinavia. I spent some time there last summer and found it was a lot like Alaska. Older and more populated, but great scenery and people. Eating is the best part of being a tourist!
June 28th, 2007 at 3:19 am
I am tempted by the “oriental variation” of Korea, but, pray tell, in what way is America
noted for variation in the realm of food??
June 28th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Japan, Japan, Japan!
If deep-frying is mentioned once in the American section…
June 28th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I’m liking the sound of the goulash…
July 1st, 2007 at 5:06 am
I vote for using the technique used in bibliomancy where you put on a blindfold or close your eyes tightly and flip the pages of the book a while until you feel you have the right page and stop, putting the index finger of your left hand (connected to your heart) on one of the pages. You point in case there’s more than one recipe on the page.
Otherwise? I’d go with Portugal.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:07 am
All this extra time just meant extra choices. I’m going to have to go with bibliomancy. Tomorrow I shall close my eyes, wave my finger over the contents page and see what happens :).