The Gentle Art of Cookery (Classic Voices in Food) [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

This book is based on menus Mrs Leyel served to friends as well as an excellent section at the end called The Alchemist's Cupboard which suggests ingredients to have in every kitchen store cupboard. There are recipes from across the UK, such as Daisy Wine from Yorkshire, as well as simple ones from Europe such as Keesel from Russia - a thick apricot curd-like pudding served with cream.

There is a conversion chart at the beginning of the book which is much needed because some of the recipes use measures I had never heard of such as 'a peck', and 'a gill'. The former being equal to 9 litres and the latter 150ml. It also outlines oven temperatures based on a conventional oven as all the recipes in the book use Cool, Low, Hot etc.

I love the way this book is chaptered. It starts with Sauces and a bold statement in the introduction that 'in England sauces are often badly made, badly mixed or not flavoured at all'. The range of sauces that is then presented must have been quite mind blowing for readers. One that I did try was Garlic Sauce which is simply olive oil with pounded almonds and garlic. I had it drizzled over some steamed fish and it was delicious!

The next chapter focuses on vegetables which she describes as 'the dividing line between good and indifferent cooking'. So true. Mrs Leyel berates the English 'method of stewing vegetables in water and then throwing away the water containing the most valuable properties' and calls this 'stupid and not economical'. It would have been great to see her telling Downtown Abbey's cook this!

There are then whole chapters devoted to fish, meat, poultry and game as you would expect but unusually there are also chapters for cold suppers, sandwiches and savouries because the recipes 'are arranged in a practical way' to do as the French do and shop first and then arrange the meals accordingly.

She has separated out chestnuts and mushrooms which I thought rather odd but she outlines that 'chestnuts are not appreciated in England' and 'are worth more consideration'. I'm glad she did this because there is a gorgeous recipe for Nesselrode Pudding which I tried and fell in love with. She goes on to describe mushrooms as 'the oysters of the fields' and suggests using a silver spoon to ensure that they are edible. The spoon will turn black if they are not.

The most intriguing chapter for me covered recipes using flowers such as primroses, violets, marigolds and acacias. I am still collecting my 'peck' of marigolds for the marigold cordial and aiming to grow the half a pound of violets to harvest next spring for the violet marmalade!

As an Indian, I found her chapter entitled Dishes from The Arabian Nights so fascinating. She must have met some amazing dignataries and been such an adventurer to know these dishes so well. She even has a childhood favourite of mine, 'Dhal Bhat', which is quite simply curried lentils with rice.

Finally and as expected there is a chapter on Cakes featuring sponge cakes as well as cheesecakes.

This book is as much a history book as it is a recipe book. It showcases much of today's modern gastronomy but illustrates how this stemmed from simple but innovative British cooking of old.

Nesselrode Pudding recipe can be found here: [...]

This is one of the Classic Voices in Food series re-issued by Quadrille in wonderful tactile cloth bindings that make you appreciate that these are books as much for reading as for cooking from.

Having said that, there is much of practical note to relish here. The chapters are grouped roughly by food group, and seem to be practical and easy to follow. They assume a knowledge of cookery that some modern cookbooks may not, so you will be told to "make a white roux" and add to milk to make a sauce. No detailed quantities of butter and flour are given, so it is obvious that the cook is supposed to be experienced enough to know how much he or she might need for the amount of liquid given.

But this is typical of cookbooks of this period (The Gentle Art of Cookery was first published in 1925) when most households with an income sufficient to merit an interest in their food, would have had a cook. It strikes me that this book is aimed at the genteel lady of the house who may want to dabble a little when cook had her day off. This isn't a criticism by the way, I love cookery books like this that evoke the time and feeling of an age now gone and unlikely ever to return. You just need a little more thought and understanding of your craft than you will find in a modern step-by-step recipe book.

Hilda Leyel was unusual in her time for her use of flowers, spices and herbs, and the chapter on the use of flowers in cookery is fascinating.

A useful and interesting book.

This is one of a series of books published by Quadrille in the Classic Voices in Food series, reflecting recipe books of years gone by, this one from the series covers the gentle art of cookery. The chapters are divided up by sauces, vegetables, chestnuts (a whole chapter!), mushrooms, fish, eggs, meat, cold supper dishes, dishes from the arabian nights, rice, poultry and game, fruit, almonds, creams custards and jellies, sandwiches and savouries, wines and cups, cooking with children, flower recipes, cakes and finally the alchemists cupboard.

This is quite a decent size book with some 400+ pages. There are no photographs or pictorial illustrations as it is wholly text. It is reproduced to reflect the way recipes were written at the time. The recipes are remarkably simple (as the title infers) and easy to follow, and consist of just a few sentences in many cases. It's intriguing to compare books like this to current food/drink books from modern chefs, this book was first published in 1925 and little has changed in some respects, for example, a soup recipe then is not that dissimilar to now.

Some of the quantities in this book are huge, and though the recipes are perfectly doable and seem relatively easy to make they require a little bit of judgement both in execution and being able to translate some of the cake recipes into more family sized amounts (any ginger cake with 3lbs flour at its heart is going to be one really big cake no matter how tasty it is!).

If you are a novice cook, I think you would find a good number of these recipes more easy to follow than those of current TV chefs, which may surprise you. If you are a cook that relies heavily on seeing the finished dishes illustrated with photographs, then this book may not suit your style. The narrative can seem very old fashioned (as it should) but this adds to the charm somehow.

This would make a wonderful gift for someone who is interested in food history, or a person who loves to study the style of writing and language used in books in years gone by. The gentle art of cookery is a piece of food history, but that does not mean it has no role to play in the modern cooks kitchen.