[Chris Galvin called the book "a masterpiece":
:so informative and well written ... it feels that you have someone on hand to help, steering you through the recipe, avoiding unnecessary technical terms and instead using universal words and phrases, e.g. "whirling ingredients together", "simmering and not galloping a stock". Most importantly Grigson encourages you to attempt dishes insisting, for example, that making a sausage is a simple affair then following this statement up with recipe after recipe for saucisse fumé, saucisse de campagne and saussicon sec.
Translations of the book have been published in Dutch (''Worst, Paté: en andere Charcuterie uit de Franse Keuken'') and—unusually for a book on food by a British author—in French.
]
1970s
''Good Things'' (1971)
The sections of the book deal with fish, meat and game, vegetables and fruit, with a miscellany to conclude. In some of Grigson's later books she dealt exhaustively with specific ingredients: her ''Fish Cookery'' two years later covered more than fifty varieties of fish. Here she deals with five: kippers, lobster, mussels, scallops and trout, writing about her few chosen subjects more expansively than in the later book, and discussing the pros and cons of various recipes. She says of lobsters that there is nothing more delicious, so sweet, firm and succulent, discusses the most humane way of killing them, and although advancing the proposition that they are best eaten hot with only lemon juice and butter on them, she gives the recipes for homard à l'Americaine (quoting Édouard de Pomiane's view that it is "a gastronomic cacophony") and Thermidor
Thermidor () was the eleventh month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the French word ''thermal'', derived from the Greek word "thermos" (''heat'').
Thermidor was the second month of the summer quarter (''mois d'ét ...
, as well as bisque, which she calls "without qualification ... the best of all soups".
Grigson adopts the same approach in the other sections, dealing at leisure with favoured ingredients and dishes. Not all her choices are the most frequently seen in other cookery books: in the meat section she devotes eight pages to snails, and ten to sweetbreads, and none to steaks or roasts. Among the six fruits she writes about, apples and strawberries are joined by quince and prunes. She agrees that stewed prunes endured at school or in prison—the "dreadful alliance between prunes and rice or prunes and custard powder"—are best forgotten, and makes her case for the prune as a traditional ingredient in meat and fish dishes, giving as examples beef or hare casseroled with prunes, turkey with prune stuffing, and tripe slowly simmered with prunes. In the final section she covers five French cakes, ice creams and sorbets, and fruit liqueurs.
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
records 21 editions of ''Good Things'' published between 1971 and 2009 in English and translation. The original edition, like the charcuterie book four years earlier, had line drawings by M.J. Mott. A reprint by the Folio Society
The Folio Society is a London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it operates as an employee ownership trust since 2021.
It produces illustrated hardback editions of classic fict ...
in 2009 had illustrations, some in colour, by Alice Tait.
''Fish Cookery'' (1973)
The book was first published as ''The International Wine and Food Society's Guide to Fish Cookery'' in 1973, but became widely known in its paperback form with the shorter title, issued by Penguin in 1975. Grigson did not believe that anything is truly original in recipes, and happily included those of other writers in her books, being careful to acknowledge her sources—"There's nothing new about intellectual honesty". Her influences were not exclusively European: among those she credited in her ''Fish Cookery'' (1973) were Claudia Roden's ''A Book of Middle Eastern Food'', Mary Lamb's ''New Orleans Cuisine'' and James Beard's ''Delights and Prejudices''. Nevertheless, ''Fish Cookery'' is, of Grigson's books, the one most focused on the British cook, because, as she observes, the same edible birds and quadrupeds are found in many parts of the world, but species of fish are generally more confined to particular areas. Even given that limitation, Grigson urges her British readers to be more adventurous in their choice of fresh fish. She points out that there are more than fifty species native to British waters, not including shellfish or freshwater fish, and she urges cooks to venture beyond "cod and plaice, overcooked and coated with greasy batter".
The chapters of ''Fish Cookery'' are "Choosing, Cleaning and Cooking Fish"; "Court-bouillon
Court-bouillon or court bouillon (in Louisiana, pronounced ''coo-bee-yon'') is a quickly-cooked broth used for poaching other foods, most commonly fish or seafood. It is also sometimes used for poaching vegetables, eggs, sweetbreads, cockscombs ...
s, Sauces and Butters"; "Fish Stews and Soups"; "Flat-fish"; "More Fish from the Sea"; "The Great Fish"; "Fish Caught in Fresh Water"; "Shellfish and Crustaceans"; "and "Cured and Preserved Fish". The book concludes with glossaries of fish names and cookery terms and measures. "Great" in the title of the sixth chapter refers to size, rather than particular pre-eminence: it includes tuna
A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...
, swordfish
Swordfish (''Xiphias gladius''), also known as broadbills in some countries, are large, highly migratory predatory fish characterized by a long, flat, pointed bill. They are a popular sport fish of the billfish category, though elusive. Swordfis ...
, shark and sunfish. Grigson ascribes greatness in the qualitative sense only to sole and turbot among sea fish, trout and salmon among fresh-water species, and eel, lobster and crayfish.
As well as classics such as sole Véronique, bouillabaisse
Bouillabaisse (; oc, bolhabaissa, bullabessa ) is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating in the port city of Marseille. The French and English form ''bouillabaisse'' comes from the Provençal Occitan word ''bolhabaissa'', a compound t ...
, moules marinière, and lobster Thermidor, Grigson gives recipes for more unusual combinations of ingredients, including cod steaks with Gruyère cheese sauce, herring with gooseberries, scallop and artichoke soup, and prawns in tomato, cream and vermouth sauce.
A statement in the section on mussels led to minor controversy some years after publication. Grigson writes that once the mussels are cooked any that do not open should be thrown away. She gives no reason, but many subsequent writers have taken it that eating a closed mussel would be injurious, rather than simply impracticable. The Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation published research in 2012 to rebut the assumption.
Grigson had completed two-thirds of the text of a revised edition of the book when she died. Her editor, Jenny Dereham, completed the revision, using additional recipes and articles Grigson had published since 1973. It was published with the title ''Jane Grigson's Fish Book'' in 1993, in hardback by Michael Joseph and in paperback by Penguin. Reviewing the new edition in ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', Michael Leapman wrote that many of the recipes had been updated to reflect current tastes—"a little less cream and butter"—and remarked on Grigson's exploration of new areas of interest little known to readers of the first edition, such as sashimi
is a Japanese delicacy consisting of fresh raw fish or meat sliced into thin pieces and often eaten with soy sauce.
Origin
The word ''sashimi'' means "pierced body", i.e. "刺身" = ''sashimi'', where 刺 し = ''sashi'' (pierced, stuck) ...
and ceviche
Ceviche () is a Peruvian dish typically made from fresh raw fish cured in fresh citrus juices, most commonly lime or lemon. It is also spiced with '' ají'', chili peppers or other seasonings, and julienned red onions, salt, and cilantro are al ...
.
''English Food'' (1974)
The book has the subtitle, "An anthology chosen by Jane Grigson". As in her earlier books, Grigson made no claim to originality in her recipes, and was scrupulous about crediting those with a known author. The chapters cover soups; cheese and egg dishes; vegetables; fish; meat, poultry and game; puddings; cakes, biscuits and pancakes; and stuffings, sauces and preserves. Line drawings by Gillian Zeiner illustrate details of kitchen techniques, materials and equipment. The introduction outlines Grigson's thoughts on good English cooking and its decline. Another point in the introduction is that whereas in France most of the great cookery writers have been men, in England it is the women writers, such as Hannah Glasse
Hannah Glasse (; March 1708 – 1 September 1770) was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, ''The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'', published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It w ...
and Eliza Acton
Eliza Acton (17 April 1799 – 13 February 1859) was an English food writer and poet who produced one of Britain's first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader, ''Modern Cookery for Private Families''. The book introduced the now-univ ...
, who stand out. Many of their recipes are included in subsequent chapters. The introduction to the revised 1979 edition enlarges on the state of English food, and calls for better cookery teaching in British schools. Grigson emphasises the advantages of good, locally produced food, which she says, is not only better but usually cheaper than that offered by the large commercial concerns: "Words such as 'fresh' and 'home-made' have been borrowed by commerce to tell lies."
In a study of "The 50 best cookbooks" in 2010, Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.
Early life
Cooke was born in Sheffield, and is the daughter of a university lecturer.
She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and atten ...
wrote that it was debatable which of Grigson's "many wonderful books" was the best, "but the one for which she will always be most celebrated is ''English Food''". Cooke quotes the critic Fay Maschler's view that Grigson "restored pride to the subject of English food and gave evidence that there is a valid regional quality still extant in this somewhat beleaguered cuisine."
The book contains mostly English recipes, but draws from time to time on the cuisines of Wales and Scotland. Cooke describes it as "undoubtedly a work of scholarship: carefully researched, wide-ranging and extremely particular" but adds that it also contains "hundreds of excellent recipes, the vast majority of them short, precise and foolproof. Who could resist poached turbot with shrimp sauce, or a properly made Cornish pasty?" Among the puddings in the book are Yorkshire curd tart, brown bread ice cream, queen of puddings
Queen of Puddings is a traditional British dessert, consisting of a baked, breadcrumb-thickened egg mixture, spread with jam and topped with meringue. and Sussex pond pudding.
''English Food'' won the Glenfiddich Award for the cookery book of the year, 1974. A new edition, with an introduction by Sophie Grigson, was published by Ebury Press, London, in 2002. Reviewing it, Lindsey Bareham
Lindsey Bareham is a British food writer. She began her career by editing the restaurant section of '' Time Out'' magazine. For eight years, she wrote a daily recipe for the ''Evening Standard'', and she currently writes for ''The Times''.
Pub ...
wrote, "If you don't already own a copy of this seminal book, now is the time to invest in our edible heritage made digestible by one of the finest writers we have ever produced".
''The World Atlas of Food'' (1974)
Subtitled "A Gourmet's Guide to the Great Regional Dishes of the World", this 319-page book was published by Mitchell Beazley
Mitchell Beazley Publishers Limited is a British book publisher which is particularly specialised in atlases, reference books, natural history books, cook books, garden books and wine books.
History
The London-based company Mitchell Beazley was ...
, a company specialising in atlases and other extensively illustrated works of reference. Grigson is credited as "contributing editor". James Beard wrote the introduction, titled "An epicurean journey". The book has pages illustrating and describing ingredients of the various areas of the world—fish, meat, vegetables, fungi and fruit. The cuisines of Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Americas are covered. The American edition was published by Simon & Schuster in 1974. The book was reissued in Australia and the US in 1984 and in Britain in 1988 and was reprinted in 1989.
''The Mushroom Feast'' (1975)
''The Mushroom Feast'' was published by Michael Joseph in 1975. The book is in six chapters. The first, "The best edible mushrooms", has descriptions of twenty varieties of mushroom, from the familiar cultivated ''Agaricus bisporus
''Agaricus bisporus'' is an edible basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Eurasia and North America. It has two color states while immature – white and brown – both of which have various names, with additional names for the mature ...
'', morel
''Morchella'', the true morels, is a genus of edible sac fungi closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi in the order Pezizales (division Ascomycota). These distinctive fungi have a honeycomb appearance due to the network of ridges with ...
s, cèpes, girolles and oysters
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...
, to the less well known matsutake
, ''Tricholoma matsutake'', is a species of choice edible mycorrhizal mushroom that grows in East Asia, Europe, and North America. It is prized in Japanese cuisine for its distinct spicy-aromatic odor.
Etymology
The common name and specifi ...
, parasol
An umbrella or parasol is a folding canopy supported by wooden or metal ribs that is usually mounted on a wooden, metal, or plastic pole. It is designed to protect a person against rain or sunlight. The term ''umbrella'' is traditionally used ...
, shaggy cap, wood-blewit and others. Each is illustrated with a line drawing by Yvonne Skargon, and followed by descriptions of the flavour and basic cooking instructions. The next chapter, dealing with preserved mushrooms, sauces, stuffings, and soups, gives modern and old recipes, including some by Hannah Glasse, Eliza Acton, Marie-Antoine Carême
Marie Antoine (Antonin) Carême (; 8 June 178412 January 1833) was a French chef and an early practitioner and exponent of the elaborate style of cooking known as ''grande cuisine'', the "high art" of French cooking: a grandiose style of cookery ...
, Hilda Leyel and Grigson's mentor and friend Elizabeth David.
In the chapter on mushroom main dishes—such as in an open tart or a covered pie, in a gateau with cream, or stuffed with almonds, or baked in the Genoese style—other ingredients play a subordinate part in the recipes, but are given more prominence in "Mushrooms with fish" and "Mushrooms with meat, poultry, and game". After a section on the principal mushrooms of Japanese and Chinese cooking, an appendix gives five basic recipes for sauces to accompany mushrooms.
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
records 18 editions of the book published between 1975 and 2008.
''Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book'' (1978)
For this book Grigson adopted a straightforward alphabetical layout. There are chapters on more than eighty vegetables, from artichoke
The globe artichoke (''Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green articho ...
s to yams. Most chapters are in three parts: brief historical information about the vegetables, guidance on preparing them, and recipes using them. The author does not play down her own likes and dislikes; she praises artichokes and asparagus
Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable.
It was once classified in ...
as "the two finest vegetables we can grow", but calls winter turnips and swedes
Swedes ( sv, svenskar) are a North Germanic ethnic group native to the Nordic region, primarily their nation state of Sweden, who share a common ancestry, culture, history and language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countr ...
"that grim pair", and admits to a lifelong detestation of kale
Kale (), or leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars grown for their edible leaves, although some are used as ornamentals. Kale plants have green or purple leaves, and the central leaves do not form a head ...
. Seakale
''Crambe maritima'', common name sea kale, seakale or crambe, is a species of halophytic (salt-tolerant) flowering plant in the genus ''Crambe'' of the family Brassicaceae. It grows wild along the coasts of mainland Europe and the British Isl ...
, on the other hand, she rates highly, not only for its delicate flavour, but as the only vegetable in the entire book native to England.
Grigson considered omitting mushrooms from the book, on the grounds that they are not a vegetable and that she had already devoted a whole book to them in 1975, but decided that "leaving them out won't do", and gave them a two-page chapter, covering their choice and preparation, and giving recipes for mushroom soup and mushroom pie. Also included are savoury fruits such as avocado
The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for i ...
s and tomatoes. As well as ingredients familiar in European cuisine, Grigson includes sections on bean sprouts
Sprouting is the natural process by which seeds or spores germinate and put out shoots, and already established plants produce new leaves or buds, or other structures experience further growth.
In the field of nutrition, the term signifies ...
, Chinese artichokes, okra
Okra or Okro (, ), ''Abelmoschus esculentus'', known in many English-speaking countries as ladies' fingers or ochro, is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It has edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with su ...
, sweet potato
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...
, pignuts and other vegetables less well known among her readership in the 1970s. The longest chapters are those on lettuces (13 pages), spinach and tomatoes (both 18 pages) and potatoes (24 pages).
In her preface to the first American edition in 1979, Grigson observed that although British and American cooks found each other's systems of measurement confusing (citing the US use of volume rather than weight for solid ingredients), the two countries were at one in suffering from supermarkets' obsession with the appearance rather than the flavour of vegetables.
The book brought its author her first Glenfiddich Food and Drink Writer of the Year Award and the first of two André Simon Memorial Prizes.
''Food With the Famous'' (1979)
The book has its origins in a series of articles Grigson wrote for ''The Observer's'' colour magazine in 1978, and is described as part cookery book and part social history. Her publisher wrote that she "re-read favourite novels, re-examined pictures in the great galleries, explored houses, letters, journals, and the cookery books used (or written) by her choice of famous men and women". Starting with "the great diarist and salad fancier" John Evelyn
John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.
John Evelyn's diary, or memo ...
in the 17th century, she traces a chronological development of western cooking. Her other examples are from the 18th century ( Parson James Woodforde), the cusp of the 18th and 19th (Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
, and the Rev Sydney Smith), the high-19th ( Lord and Lady Shaftesbury, Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...
and Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
); and on into the 20th "with Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
in the gourmet's Paris, and Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
among the water-lilies at ".
In the introduction to Evelyn's chapter, Grigson describes his contribution to British food—translating the works of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie
Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie (1 March 1626 – 11 November 1688) was a French lawyer, gardener and agronomist who served under Louis XIV. Named director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens by the king in 1670, he created between 1678 and 16 ...
, promoting ice-houses and recording the earliest example of the pressure cooker
Pressure cooking is the process of cooking food under high pressure steam and water or a water-based cooking liquid, in a sealed vessel known as a ''pressure cooker''. High pressure limits boiling, and creates higher cooking temperatures which c ...
. She quotes him on vegetables, for instance on beetroot: "vulgar, but eaten with oil and vinegar, as usually, it is no despicable salad." Evelyn's garden was organised so that mixed green salad could be put on the table every day of the year; Grigson lists the 35 different species from balm to tripe-madam that Evelyn specified for his salads. For the chapters on the novelists, Grigson gives recipes for dishes mentioned in their books, including white soup and fricassée of sweetbread
Sweetbread is a culinary name for the thymus (also called throat, gullet, or neck sweetbread) or pancreas (also called stomach, belly or gut sweetbread), typically from calf (french: ris de veau, es, hígado) or lamb (). Sweetbreads have a rich ...
for Jane Austen, asparagus soup ''à la comtesse,'' and fillets of sole with ravigote sauce for Zola, brill
Brill may refer to:
Places
* Brielle (sometimes "Den Briel"), a town in the western Netherlands
* Brill, Buckinghamshire, a village in England
* Brill, Cornwall, a small village to the west of Constantine, Cornwall, UK
* Brill, Wisconsin, an un ...
Radziwill and boeuf à la mode
Beef or is a French cuisine, French dish of a piece of beef braised in stock and wine with carrots and onions.''Trésor de la langue française informatisé'', ''s.v.'' 'modeI.B.2b/ref>
In French recipes, the preferred cut is the ''pointe de c ...
for Proust, and for Dumas, who published a book about food, she prints his own recipes for cabbage soup, scrambled eggs with shrimps, and several others.
Although Grigson's favourite of her works was the 1982 fruit book, she said she had a particular fondness for ''Food With the Famous''.
1980s
''The Observer French Cookery School'' (1980)
This book was a spin-off from an ''Observer'' series. Its two authors, Grigson and Anne Willan of La Varenne cookery school in Paris, augmented their ''Observer'' articles for the book. Willan's sections, occupying the majority of the 300 pages, give technical advice on various aspects of cooking, such as boning, making choux pastry, the use of gelatine, and cooking with bains-marie. A 1991 bibliography describes Grigson's section—a 47-page "Anthology of French cooking and kitchen terms"—as "an alphabetic listing of descriptions written in condensed but detailed prose, full of personal observation; almost a little book in itself".
''Jane Grigson's Fruit Book'' (1982)
For Grigson, this book was more fun to write than any of her others. Her particular fondness for fruits caused her to protest in her introduction about the quality offered by large suppliers:
The food trade makes the egalitarian mistake, which is also a convenience for itself, of thinking that every food has to be as cheap and inoffensive as every other similar food. This mistake has ruined chicken and potatoes and bread. No wine merchant sells only plonk, no flower shop sticks to daisies. In the matter of vegetables and fruit, we seem often to be reduced to a steady bottom of horticultural plonk.
The layout follows that of the vegetable book of three years earlier: chapters on each fruit, set out alphabetically from apples to water-melon. In between, familiar fruits such as bananas, cherries, pears and strawberries are interspersed with cherimoya
The cherimoya (''Annona cherimola''), also spelled chirimoya and called chirimuya by the Inca people, is a species of edible fruit-bearing plant in the genus '' Annona'', from the family Annonaceae, which includes the closely related sweetsop a ...
s, medlars
MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
, persimmon
The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus ''Diospyros''. The most widely cultivated of these is the Oriental persimmon, ''Diospyros kaki'' ''Diospyros'' is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-pers ...
s and sapodilla
''Manilkara zapota'', commonly known as sapodilla (), sapote, naseberry, nispero or chicle, is a long-lived, evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. An example natural occurrence is in coastal Yucatán in the ...
s. There are 46 of these chapters, taking 432 pages. The book finishes with a miscellany of fruit-related topics, such as matching fruits and wines, fruit preserves, and recipes for biscuits suitable to eat with fruit.
As well as recipes in which the fruit is the star ingredient, Grigson gives details of many dishes where fruit is combined with meat, poultry or fish, including pheasant with apples, lamb with apricots, sole with banana, quail with cherries, oxtail with grapes, and eel soup with pears. As in the vegetable book, Grigson is clear about her likes and dislikes. "Rhubarb: Nanny-food. Governess-food. School-meal-food." She finds some recipes for it worth including, but falls short of calling them delectable—"merely not too undelectable".
Reviewing the book in ''Petits Propos Culinaires'', Jane Davidson called it "brilliant", adding, "Anecdotes, history, poetry and personal appreciation are all here as well as practical suggestions on how to use both the familiar and less so. ... In Michelin
Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...
language, ''four'' stars and ''six'' place settings". Like the Vegetable Book, this one won Grigson a Glenfiddich and an André Simon award.
''The Observer Guide to European Cookery'' (1983)
Grigson published ''The Observer Guide to European Cookery'' in 1983. She expanded her original articles from ''The Observer'' into this 256-page book, extensively illustrated by uncredited ''Observer'' photographers. A reviewer commented that one might expect the author, her life based partly in France, to begin with French cuisine, but Grigson explains:
:Greece comes first, with classical and Hellenic chefs already theorising about food in terms that do not seem odd today. In terms that make perfect sense. Italy took on the skills of Greece, since well-off Romans employed chefs from Athens just as well-off Northerners have looked to Paris for their chefs. Through Spain, Arab dishes and Arab gardening, as well as new vegetables and foods from America, were handed on to the rest of Europe. Portugal comes in here, in its great phase of travel and discovery. France next, in the perfect, unique position between Mediterranean and Atlantic seas, exactly poised to take advantage of the Renaissance and the New World.
In each chapter Grigson mixes the well known and the offbeat. In the opening Greek chapter, recipes for taramasalata
Taramasalata or taramosalata ( el, ταραμοσαλάτα; from 'fish roe' < tr, tarama + : 'salad' < it, insa ...
, moussaka
Moussaka (, , ) is an eggplant- or potato-based dish, often including ground meat, which is common in the Balkans and the Middle East, with many local and regional variations.
The best-known version in Europe and the Americas is the Greek vari ...
and dolmades
Dolma (Turkish for “stuffed”) is a family of stuffed dishes associated with Ottoman cuisine, and common in modern national cuisines of regions and countries that once were part of the Ottoman Empire. Some types of dolma are made with who ...
sit alongside hare in walnut sauce and salad of calf brains. Italian recipes include classics such as osso buco
''Ossobuco'' or ''osso buco'' (; lmo, òss bus, label=Milanese or ''òs büüs'' ) is a specialty of Lombard cuisine of cross-cut veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine, and broth. It is often garnished with ''gremolata'' and tradit ...
with risotto milanese, Parmigiana
Parmigiana (, ), also called parmigiana di melanzane , melanzane alla parmigiana , or eggplant parmesan, is an Italian dish made with fried, sliced eggplant layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked. The origin of the dish is claimed by ...
di melanzane and vitello tonnato
Vitello tonnato is a Piedmontese dish of cold, sliced veal covered with a creamy, mayonnaise-like sauce that has been flavored with tuna. It is served chilled or at room temperature, generally in the summertime, as the main course of an Italia ...
, but also grilled eel, sole with Parmesan, tripe with pig's trotters, and lamb sautéed with olives. Similar juxtapositions are found in other chapters—Portuguese cuisine beyond sardines, British beyond steak and kidney pudding
Steak and kidney pudding is a traditional British main course in which beef steak and beef, veal, pork or lamb kidney are enclosed in suet pastry and slow-steamed on a stovetop.
History and ingredients
Steak puddings (without kidney) were part ...
, and Scandinavian beyond smörgåsbord
Smörgåsbord () is a buffet-style meal of Swedish origin. It is served with various hot and cold dishes.
Smörgåsbord became internationally known at the 1939 New York World's Fair when it was offered at the Swedish Pavilion "Three Crowns R ...
. Among the less well-known dishes described by Grigson are beef fillet with gentleman's sauce,
chicken in a dressing-gown, chilled grape soup, quaking pudding, red wine soup, and Siberian ravioli.
In the US the book was published in 1983 by Atheneum, under the title ''Jane Grigson's Book of European Cookery''.
''The Observer Guide to British Cookery'' (1984)
This 231-page book is similar in layout and approach to the previous year's guide to European cooking, but unlike its predecessor it was published in book form before recipes from it were extracted and printed by the newspaper. The British regions are considered in nine sections, each with an introduction describing the character and ingredients, followed by recipes associated with places within the region.
The South-West chapter includes Cornish bouillabaisse from Gidleigh Park; Sedgemoor
Sedgemoor is a low-lying area of land in Somerset, England. It lies close to sea level south of the Polden Hills, historically largely marsh (or "moor" in its older sense). The eastern part is known as King's Sedgemoor, and the western part Wes ...
eel stew; lardy cake
Lardy cake, also known as lardy bread, lardy Johns, dough cake and fourses cake, is a traditional rich spiced form of bread found in several southern counties of England, each claiming to provide the original recipe. It remains a popular weeken ...
; and "Cornwall's most famous and most travestied dish", the Cornish pasty
A pasty () is a British baked pastry, a traditional variety of which is particularly associated with Cornwall, South West England, but has spread all over the British Isles. It is made by placing an uncooked filling, typically meat and vegetab ...
—"pronounced with a long 'ah' as in Amen". Among the dishes in the London and the South section are steak and kidney pudding, using beef rump steak and lambs' kidneys; salt beef
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
; and bread and butter pudding
Bread and butter pudding is a traditional bread pudding in British cuisine. Slices of buttered bread scattered with raisins are layered in an oven dish, covered with an egg custard mixture seasoned with nutmeg, vanilla, or other spices, then bak ...
. Dishes from the Midlands include rabbit and pig tail stew; Oldbury gooseberry pies; Bakewell pudding
Bakewell pudding is an English dessert consisting of a flaky pastry base with a layer of sieved jam and topped with a filling made of egg and almond paste.
Etymology
References to "Bakewell pudding" appear earlier than the term "Bakewell tar ...
; and Shrewsbury cake
A Shrewsbury cake or Shrewsbury biscuit is a classic English dessert, named after Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire. They are made from dough that contains sugar, flour, egg, butter and lemon zest; dried fruit is also often added. ...
s. The East Anglia section includes turnip pie; stuffed guinea fowl
Guineafowl (; sometimes called "pet speckled hens" or "original fowl") are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetically, they branched o ...
; Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
plum bread; and, for its connection with Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, crème brûlée
''Crème brûlée'' or ''crème brulée'' (; ), also known as burnt cream or Trinity cream, and virtually identical to the original crema catalana, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hardened caramelized sugar ...
.
In the North East chapter Grigson includes recipes for mutton and leek broth, mussel or oyster pudding and toad in the hole
Toad in the hole or sausage toad is a traditional English dish consisting of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with onion gravy and vegetables. Historically, the dish has also been prepared using other meats, such as rump ste ...
. Dishes from the North West include potted shrimps
Potted shrimps are a traditional British dish made with brown shrimp flavored with nutmeg. The dish consists of brown shrimp in nutmeg-flavoured butter, which has set in a small pot, the butter acting as a preservative. Cayenne pepper may also be ...
, Lancashire hotpot
Lancashire hotpot is a stew originating from Lancashire in the North West of England. It consists of lamb or mutton and onion, topped with sliced potatoes (or a more traditional topping of pastry or puff pastry) and baked in a heavy pot on a l ...
, Liverpool's scouse
Scouse (; formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English) is an Accent (dialect), accent and dialect of English language, English associated with Liverpool and the surrounding county of Merseyside. The Scouse accent is highly dis ...
, Cumberland sausage
Cumberland sausage is a pork sausage that originated in the ancient county of Cumberland, England, now part of Cumbria. It is traditionally very long, up to , and sold rolled in a flat, circular coil, but within western Cumbria, it is more often s ...
and the chicken dish Hindle Wakes. Throughout the book Grigson includes lesser-known dishes alongside famous classics. The chapter on Scotland has recipes for Scotch broth
Scotch broth is a filling soup, originating in Scotland. The principal ingredients are usually barley, stewing or braising cuts of lamb, mutton or beef, root vegetables (such as carrots, swedes, or sometimes turnips), and dried pulses (most oft ...
, Haggis
Haggis ( gd, taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an a ...
, Atholl brose and shortbread
Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Unlike many other biscuits and baked goods, shortbread does not contain any leavening, ...
alongside Scotch woodcock
Scotch woodcock is a British savoury dish consisting of creamy, lightly-scrambled eggs served on toast that has been spread with anchovy paste or Gentleman's Relish, and sometimes topped with chopped herbs and black pepper.
Scotch woodcock was ...
and the sheep's head broth Powsowdie Powsowdie is a Scottish sheep's-head broth or soup. Traditional preparation of the soup includes sheep's trotters as an ingredient. Dried peas and barley can also be used as additional ingredients. Powsowdie has been described as a speciality dish ...
. Among the Welsh dishes, cawl
Cawl () is a Welsh dish. In modern Welsh the word is used for any soup or broth; in English it refers to a traditional Welsh soup, usually called ''cawl Cymreig'' (literally 'Welsh soup') in Welsh. Historically, ingredients tended to vary, but t ...
and Welsh rabbit are joined by caveach (pickled mackerel) and Lady Lanover's salt duck. In the final chapter, Ireland, Irish stew
Irish stew ( ga, stobhach/Stobhach Gaelach) is a stew native to Ireland that is traditionally made with root vegetables and lamb or mutton, but also commonly with beef. As in all traditional folk dishes, the exact recipe is not consistent from t ...
and soda bread
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as "baking soda", or in Ireland, "bread soda") is used as a leavening agent instead of the traditional yeast. The i ...
are included alongside nettle soup and boxty
Boxty ( ir, bacstaí) is a traditional Irish potato pancake. The dish is mostly associated with the north midlands, north Connacht and southern Ulster, in particular the counties of Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Fermanagh, Longford, and Cavan. ...
(potato pancakes).
Each chapter concludes with a section contributed by Derek Cooper on "Regional drink". For the English regions and Wales the drinks are mostly beers and ciders, with some wines in the south. Sloe gin is included for Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
as are whisky
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden c ...
for Scotland and whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden cask ...
and stout
Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout.
The first known use of the word ''stout'' for beer, in a document dated 1677 found in the Egerton Manuscript ...
for Ireland.
''Exotic Fruits and Vegetables'' (1986)
The illustrations play a particularly large part in this book, and the artist, Charlotte Knox, is given equal billing on the covers of both the British and the American editions. The book is described by its publisher as "An illustrated guide to fruits and vegetables from the world's hotter climates." Grigson added notes on the choice, preparation, and culinary use of each fruit or vegetable, and recipes using them. These include mango
A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...
and carambola
Carambola, also known as star fruit, is the fruit of ''Averrhoa carambola'', a species of tree native to tropical Southeast Asia. The mildly poisonous fruit is commonly consumed in parts of Brazil, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the South Pacif ...
salad, mango and paw paw tart, persimmon fudge, and grey mullet with pomegranate
The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows between tall.
The pomegranate was originally described throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean re ...
sauce in the fruit chapters, and in the vegetable sections, plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
and chicken, snake gourd
''Trichosanthes cucumerina'' is a tropical or subtropical vine. Its variety ''T. cucumerina'' var. ''anguina'' raised for its strikingly long fruit. In Asia, it is eaten immature as a vegetable much like the summer squash and in Africa, the redd ...
Malay style, drumstick curry with prawns, and yam and goat meat pottage. The book concludes with sections on 14 herbs and spices, from banana leaf to turmeric.
A US edition (1987) was published by Henry Holt as ''Cooking With Exotic Fruits and Vegetables''.
Short books and booklets
''Cooking Carrots'' (1975) and ''Cooking Spinach'' (1976)
These two booklets, of 36 pages each, were written for Abson Books, Bristol. They follow the same pattern: brief guidance on choosing, buying and preparing the vegetable, followed by 37 recipes apiece. Both books conclude with advice on growing the vegetable. The spinach book was originally sold with a packet of seeds attached to the cover.
''The Year of the French'' (1982)
This booklet (16 pages) containing six recipes by Grigson, originally published in ''The Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'', was issued to accompany the BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
series of the same name, "A calendar of French life in 12 film portraits". Each section of the booklet has a one or two-page introduction by Grigson relating the recipe to a representative French person shown in the series, from the driver of a TGV
The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...
to the octogenarian head of a beaujolais
Beaujolais ( , ) is a French ''Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée'' (AOC) wine generally made of the Gamay grape, which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally. Whites from the region, which mak ...
wine-growers collective.
''Dishes from the Mediterranean'' (1984)
This publication is a slim (96-page) hardback, with numerous coloured photographs and line drawings of dishes. It was published by Woodhead-Faulkner for the supermarket chain J. Sainsbury
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales.
Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...
. A new and enlarged edition was published in paperback the following year; it was reissued in 1991 with the title ''The Cooking of the Mediterranean''.
The book contains chapters on Mediterranean ingredients; sauces and relishes; soups; first courses and meze
Meze or mezza (, ) is a selection of small dishes served as appetizers in the Levant, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Iran. It is similar to Spanish tapas and Italian antipasti. A mezze may be served as a part of a multi-course me ...
dishes; fish; meat, poultry and game; rice and bread; and sweet dishes. In addition to descriptions and some historical notes, Grigson includes practical advice such as, for preparing '' fegato alla veneziana'', "Half-freeze the liver so that it is solid enough to cut into thin, tissue-paper slivers". and for a chicken casserole with fifty cloves of garlic (''poulet aux cinquante gousses d'ail'') reassurance about the number of garlic cloves: "the purée they make is delicious and unidentifiable".
''The Cooking of Normandy'' (1987)
This book, published for Sainsbury's, follows the pattern of the earlier Mediterranean publication. It is a 96-page, extensively illustrated addition to the "Sainsbury Cookbook" series. Line drawings by Mandy Doyle show details of some of the techniques described in the text. The sections cover ingredients and specialities; soups and first courses; fish and shellfish; meat, poultry and game; and desserts and drinks, with a short epilogue. In her introduction Grigson writes, "For me, Normandy cooking is a return to good, basic home dishes, with the added pleasure of tracking down ingredients of the highest quality." Although the book was published for and sold by a supermarket chain, Grigson's recipes include dishes for which such stores would not be expected to stock key ingredients, such as saddle of rabbit (she suggests using chicken if rabbit is not available) for ''lapin à la moutarde'' and sorrel
Sorrel (''Rumex acetosa''), also called common sorrel or garden sorrel, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Polygonaceae. Other names for sorrel include spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock ('dock' being a common name for the genus '' ...
for ''fricandeau à la oseille'' (mentioning spinach as a substitute if necessary).
Contributions to books by others
A bibliography published in ''Petis Propos Culinaires'' in 1991 lists substantial contributions by Grigson to books by other writers: the introduction to ''The Book of Ingredients'' by Aidan Bailey, Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz and Helena Radecke; one of five introductory essays in ''The Shell Guide to France'', in which she offers guidance on food shops in France—poissonerie, pâtisserie, supermarché etc.—and how to shop in them; and a foreword, of about 1600 words, to ''The French Cheese Book'' by Patrick Rance
Patrick Lowry Cole Holwell Rance (18 March 1918 – 22 August 1999) was a cheesemonger who has been considered responsible for saving many British specialist cheeses from extinction. He is known for writing ''The Great British Cheese Book'' (1982) ...
.
In her foreword to Gillian Riley
Gillian Riley is an English food writer.
Biography
She was born 1933 and brought up in Yorkshire, read History at Cambridge University. After obtaining a diploma in education, she went to live in London
London is the capital and larges ...
's new translation of Giacomo Castelvetro
Giacomo Castelvetro (25 March 1546 – 21 March 1616) was an Italian expatriate in Europe and England, humanist, teacher and travel writer.
Life
Giacomo Castelvetro was born in Modena in 1546 to the banker Niccolò Castelvetro and his wife ...
's 1614 book ''The Fruit, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy'' Grigson describes her acquaintance with Castelvetro's work and with the paintings of Giovanna Garzoni
Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. She began her career painting religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects but gained fame for her botanical subjects painted in tempera and watercolour.Jordi Vigu ...
which figure largely in the illustrations to the new edition.
WorldCat lists introductions by Grigson to five other books: ''The Elle Cookbook'' (later republished as ''The Art of French Cuisine''); the British edition of ''The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook'' by Alice Waters
Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971 she opened Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering Californi ...
; Francis Bissell's ''A Cook's Calendar''; ''A Definitive Catalogue of Toiletries and Comestibles'' by Tessa Traeger
Tessa Traeger (born 1938) is a British photographer. She is known for her still life and food photography, and has worked as an advertising photographer. Her work has been published in two books of her own; included in a number of books with othe ...
and Mimi Errington; and a new edition of Geoffrey Grigson's ''The Englishman's Flora''.
Posthumously-published anthologies
''The Enjoyment of Food: The Best of Jane Grigson'' (1992)
This 464-page anthology of recipes from Grigson's books was compiled by Roy Fullick and published by Michael Joseph. In a preface Fullick writes that it is intended "both as a tribute to Jane Grigson's culinary skills and scholarship and as a practical cookery book".
The book has an introduction by Elizabeth David, recalling her friendship with Grigson and reminding readers that although it was now taken for granted that Grigson was a classic cookery writer, she had burst on the culinary scene in the late 1960s when "the clarity of the writing, and the confident knowledge ... displayed by this young author were new treats for all of us". David comments that "this varied yet balanced compilation" would remind readers what a loss the cookery world had sustained by Grigson's premature death and inspire them to acquire more of Grigson's works. "Hers are books which can be read in the comfort of one's sitting room as well as used in the kitchen".
The main text is in eight sections, with the titles "At home in England"; "At home in France"; "Charcuterie", "The Mediterranean", "The Europeans", "The Americas", "India and the Far East" and "Treats and celebrations". There are recipes from writers of the past such as Eliza Acton, Hannah Glasse, Maria Rundell
Maria Eliza Rundell (née Ketelby; 1745 – 16 December 1828) was an English writer. Little is known about most of her life, but in 1805, when she was over 60, she sent an unedited collection of recipes and household advice to John Murray, of ...
and Auguste Escoffier
Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...
, and contemporaries including Elizabeth David, Richard Olney
Richard Olney (September 15, 1835 – April 8, 1917) was an American statesman.
He served as United States Attorney General in the cabinet of Grover Cleveland and Secretary of State under Cleveland.
As attorney general, Olney used injunct ...
, Julia Child, Alice Waters, Antonio Carluccio
Antonio Carluccio, OBE OMRI (; 19 April 1937 – 8 November 2017) was an Italian chef, restaurateur and food expert, based in London. He was called "the godfather of Italian gastronomy", with a career of more than 50 years. He is perhaps best r ...
and Grigson's daughter Sophie. The recipes are interspersed with Grigson's customary historical background information: there are appearances by Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
, Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
, Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (, ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, (''Story of My Life''), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about the c ...
, Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
, and Evelyn, Sydney Smith and others from ''Food with the Famous''.
The book was reissued in 2015 as ''The Best of Jane Grigson: The Enjoyment of Food'' by Grub Street publishers, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Grigson's death.
''Jane Grigson's Desserts'' (1993)
This is one of two books of Grigson recipes published simultaneously by Michael Joseph. It is a 92-page hardback, in a small-page format of . It is illustrated throughout with line drawings and contains 50 dessert recipes, all taken from previously published Grigson books. Included are some old recipes such as Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
's gooseberry pie and Elizabeth Raffald's orange custards, and many from overseas (redcurrant tart from Austria, strawberry fritters from France, and sweet pumpkin from Turkey) as well as British favourites like summer pudding.
''Jane Grigson's Soups'' (1993)
Uniform with the preceding volume, the book contains 50 recipes from earlier books by Grigson. Well-known classic soups such as bouillabaisse, gazpacho
Gazpacho (; ) or Gaspacho (), also called Andalusian gazpacho, is a cold soup and drink made of raw, blended vegetables. It originated in the southern regions of the Iberian peninsula and spread into other areas. Gazpacho is widely eaten in S ...
and cock-a-leekie
Cock-a-leekie soup is a Scottish soup dish consisting of leeks and peppered chicken stock, often thickened with rice, or sometimes barley. The original recipe added prunes during cooking, and traditionalists still garnish with a julienne of p ...
are interspersed with more unusual recipes including apricot and apple, red onion and wine, and cucumber and sorrel.
''Puddings'' (1996)
This is a 64-page paperback, in a small format (approximately A6) issued one of the "Penguin 60s series" of miniature books along with, among others, Elizabeth David's '' Peperonata and Other Italian Dishes'', and a collection of Sophie Grigson's recipes, ''From Sophie's Table''. Like the 1993 desserts collection, above, it reused material from previously published books by Grigson.
Style, reputation and legacy
Style
Along with Elizabeth David, Grigson is widely credited with transforming the British cookery book into something more than a collection of recipes. Like David's, Grigson's writing offered not only lists of ingredients and instructions for preparation and cooking, but also interesting historical and social background. The obituaries were warm and full of praise for Grigson's style and wide appeal. In ''The Independent'', Alan Davidson wrote:
She won to herself this wide audience because she was above all a friendly writer, equipped by both frame of mind and style of writing to communicate easily with them.
However much more she knew about this or that than do the rest of us, she never seemed to be talking down to anyone. On the contrary, she is a most companionable presence in the kitchen; often catching the imagination with a deftly chosen fragment of history or poetry, but never failing to explain the ''why'' as well as the ''how'' of cookery. How often have I heard people declare that her recipes are not just a pleasure to read—they always ''work''!
Sophie Grigson writes that her mother "thought food was the key to unlocking life"; in the introduction to ''Good Things'', Jane stated:
Cooking something delicious is really more satisfactory than painting pictures or throwing pots. ... Food has the tact to disappear, leaving the room and opportunity for masterpieces to come. The mistakes don’t hang on the walls or stand on the shelves to reproach you for ever.
In Elizabeth David's view, Grigson's books have a "clarity of the writing, and the confident knowledge of its subject and its history". The sociologist Stephen Mennell believes that Grigson's writing, like David's, should be considered "gastronomic literature", rather than cookery book writing, and therefore read as literature; the cultural sociologists Bob Ashley, Joanne Hollows, Steve Jones and Ben Taylor consider that because of the "considerable erudition" in her work, Grigson's books can be read as "culinary, historical literature", rather than cookery books. Geraldene Holt, who thinks Grigson's prose is both lyrical and robust, describes Grigson's writing style as:
forthright yet entertaining, in a similar vein to that of her eminent forebears who include Morton Shand, Edward Bunyard, Lady Jekyll and Elizabeth David. Jane Grigson's essays are, however, memorably enlivened by relevant information and quotations from a remarkably wide range of sources—poets, novelists, gardeners, earlier food writers and cookery manuals.
According to the writers Hazel Castell and Kathleen Griffin, Grigson tried to show food within its historical, social and cultural context, which was "at the very heart of life, so it was natural that literature, history and poetry should be included alongside recipes". The journalist Deirdre McQuillan considers that the scholarly references are "always there to delight, and never to impress". Rayner sees in her writing a "lightness of touch" with her use of scholarly material. Christopher Driver writes:
Grigson's range was wider than Elizabeth David's, for it extended from fish and fungi to the exotic fruits and vegetables that arrived on the international market in the eighties. She would have been the first to acknowledge that Elizabeth's culinary scholarship was deeper and her precision superior: one of the little-noticed reasons for Mrs David's dominance of her audience in the 1950s was her miraculous sense of lucid detail while Mrs Grigson in the 1970s and 1980s could allow herself in print an element of careless rapture, depending on the commonsense of advanced cooks by then men as well as women.
The literary historian Nicola Humble observes that because of the way Grigson used the historical and literary sources in a more relaxed way, her writing was "less haughty" that David's could be.
Legacy and reputation
In 1991 the Jane Grigson Trust was set up in Grigson's memory. Its stated aim is "to advance the public understanding of food, its cultural and nutritional aspects, and the art of its preparation." The trust funds the annual Jane Grigson Lecture at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery every July. In 2015, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her death, the Jane Grigson Trust Award was inaugurated, for the writer of a commissioned first non-fiction book on the subject of food.
It was proposed soon after Grigson's death that a library of books about food and cooking should be set up in her honour, under the Jane Grigson Trust. Sophie Grigson made the core of her mother's personal collection of food books available on permanent loan. The Jane Grigson Library, inaugurated in 1992, was originally housed at the Guildhall Library
The Guildhall Library is a public reference library specialising in subjects relevant to London. It is administered by the Corporation of London, the government of the City of London, which is the historical heart of London, England.
The library ...
in the City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
. By 2005, augmented by donations and bequests, the library had doubled its original size, to more than 4,000 volumes. It was rehoused at Oxford Brookes University
Oxford Brookes University (formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic (United Kingdom), Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and High ...
in 2005. The library is available for use by scholars, researchers or members of the public. In March 2015 the university held a month-long exhibition, Jane Grigson: Good Things, to examine her life and work.
In 1992 the International Association of Culinary Professionals The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) is a United States-based not-for-profit professional association whose members work in culinary education, communication, or the preparation of food and beverage.
History
The organizati ...
introduced the Jane Grigson Award The Jane Grigson Award is an award issued by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). It honours distinguished scholarship and depth of research in cookbooks and is named in honour of the British cookery writer Jane Grigson.
...
, to honour "a book that exemplifies Jane Grigson's extraordinary ability to put food in a wider cultural context, using diligent but not pedantic scholarship". The first winner was the Canadian writer Margaret Visser, for her work ''The Rituals of Dinner''. Other winners include, in 1995, Elizabeth David and Jill Norman, ''Harvest of the Cold Months: The Social History of Ice and Ices'' and, in 2014, Jancis Robinson
Jancis Mary Robinson OBE, ComMA, MW (born 22 April 1950) is a British wine critic, journalist and wine writer. She currently writes a weekly column for the ''Financial Times'', and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com, updated daily. She ...
, Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz, for ''Wine Grapes
This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, currant, sultana). For a complete list of all grape species including those unimportant to agriculture, see Viti ...
''.
In 2015, on the 25th anniversary of her death, ''The Food Programme
''The Food Programme'' is a BBC Radio 4 programme investigating and celebrating good food, founded by Derek Cooper and currently presented by Sheila Dillon, Dan Saladino, Leyla Kazim and Jaega Wise. The series is produced by BBC Audio in Bris ...
'' broadcast a two-part special on Grigson and her impact on the culture of British food.
Humble considers that Grigson's work turned the minds of the British public to Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
British food cooked by Hannah Glasse
Hannah Glasse (; March 1708 – 1 September 1770) was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, ''The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'', published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It w ...
, Elizabeth Raffald
Elizabeth Raffald (; 1733 – 19 April 1781) was an English author, innovator and entrepreneur.
Born and raised in Doncaster, Yorkshire, Raffald went into domestic service
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works wit ...
, Maria Rundell
Maria Eliza Rundell (née Ketelby; 1745 – 16 December 1828) was an English writer. Little is known about most of her life, but in 1805, when she was over 60, she sent an unedited collection of recipes and household advice to John Murray, of ...
and Eliza Acton
Eliza Acton (17 April 1799 – 13 February 1859) was an English food writer and poet who produced one of Britain's first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader, ''Modern Cookery for Private Families''. The book introduced the now-univ ...
; this, Humble states, had "a transformative effect on ... ritisheating habits". She writes that the reason for the effect is that Grigson's writing is reader-friendly and ''English Food'' made many dishes fashionable again. The chef Shaun Hill believes Grigson's "legacy is ongoing—it's not finished yet"; he considers that even though much of her work was written 40 years ago, it is still relevant to modern readers. The food writer Diana Henry said of Grigson:
Jane Grigson exemplifies what a food writer should be. She is cerebral and practical—it's hard to find practitioners who are both—and she is inclusive. She didn't just want to tell you about cooking and impart knowledge, she wanted you to cook too. She was neither grand nor snobbish. You knew that if you ever got the chance to cook for her she wouldn't mind if you produced something less than perfect.
Notes, references and sources
Notes
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Cited books by Jane Grigson
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Radio
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Grigson, Jane
1928 births
1990 deaths
Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge
English food writers
People educated at Sunderland High School
Women food writers
Women cookbook writers
20th-century British women writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers