LOCAL, SEASONAL & FRESH
The basic ingredients for this season’s successful cookery TV are a ‘celebrity’ chef and a foreign, photogenic location; Jamie Oliver serves it up in Italy, Rick Stein in France and Keith Floyd in China. If you are a fan of Jamie, Rick or Keith then you will find a lot to enjoy from their lavishly illustrated, garnished-in-colour books.
In ‘Jamie’s Italy’ Jamie Oliver acknowledges his debt to his Alma Mater, the ‘Riverside Café’ of Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray. These two were among the first wave of contemporary chefs to seek out the fresh, seasonal ingredients essential to authentic Italian cooking and ‘Jamie’s Italy’ echoes their sentiments and philosophy. In his introduction Oliver is explicit: ‘Good cooks only champion local, seasonal and fresh produce’. Considering his association with a leading national supermarket one suspects that Jamie wants to have his panatone and eat it too.
Rick Stein is another personality chef who knows all the right things to say regarding local, seasonal and fresh. Indeed Stein’s previous ‘Food Heroes’ books championed exactly those qualities in regional suppliers around the UK. ‘French Odyssey’ charts Stein’s aquatic and gastronomic exploration of the French Canal network, a double helping of eye-pleasing rural landscapes and mouth-watering recipes inspired by his travels. Both Stein’s and Oliver’s books are beautifully produced and look gorgeous enough to eat. Just how local, seasonal and fresh you can be with these sunny Mediterranean recipes when you spend December in Egremont or Flimby is a moot point. These books are snapshots, still frames from the moving images of the television series, and the pictures naturally take precedence over the text. The temptation is to forego the cooking and consume the books instead of the real thing.
Nigel Slater, author of ‘Real Food’, is the real thing. His ‘Kitchen Diaries’ record his daily culinary chores throughout one calendar year, an audit trail that proves he walks the talk; we witness him buy fresh produce, in season and sourced from local markets. Slater’s mantra is ‘the right food in the right place at the right time’, so he actively avoids the ‘all year round’ availability of the supermarkets. Instead he favours the local farmers’ markets and quality specialist butchers, fishmongers and delicatessens. He claims loudly and proudly in his introduction: “I have honestly never set foot inside a branch of Tesco.” This is a beautiful, honest book; part recipe for the season and part recipe for life – part gastronomic guide, part gastro-manifesto.
Annette Gibbons is a professional cook who has used the experience of her ITV Border series ‘Home Grown’ to provide the raw ingredients for her book ‘Home Grown in Cumbria’. Annette showcases and celebrates the local producers of fresh quality food in Cumbria. If Nigel Slater has motivated you to track down real food then Annette has provided the roadmap. In addition to the recipes, her well researched, beautifully illustrated book contains a directory of where to buy the best food that Cumbria has to offer. This home grown publication is more than equal to the glossy heavyweights of Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein – Annette’s is the better book for being the genuine champion of local, seasonal and fresh.
This review first appeared in 'The Times & Star' 9th December 2005. Copyright belongs to The Derwent Bookshop.
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