English, Scottish & Welsh Books - Page 3

Celtic Folklore Cooking

Joanne Asala

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Llewellyn Publications Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $6.89

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book has more than just traditional Celtic foods but has foods geared toward each Sabbat along with some history like the corndollies for example and some poems. What a great book!!

an absolute favorite 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is an absolute favorite of mine. Normally I love big glossy photos in a book- but this one just has something special. It is like the Joy of Cooking that way- it doesn't need it. The writing style draws you in and recipes are wonderful. Pumpkin bread, sorrel soup and cock-a-leekie are loved by people who don't think they like 'that kind' of cooking! Hearty country fare, but with wierdly wonderful herbal additions and old time drink recipes sprinkled with bits of folklore. Contains both things you can use in your regular cooking rotation and special recipes to try once in a while for historical interest.

Editorial Review:

Much of the folklore, proverbs, songs and legends of the Celtic nations revolve around this wonderful variety of food and drink. Drawn from the author's travels through Scotland, Ireland and Wales, the recipes presented in this text come with proverbs, songs and stories handed down from one generation to the next in the classic oral tradition of the Celts.

Maw Broon's but An' Ben Cookbook

Amazon Price: $14.36 List Price: $14.80 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Waverley Books Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $12.91

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Editorial Review:

A cookbook with a difference, this nostalgic collection of recipes dates back to 1940 and is entirely different, but just as good as, the first Maw Broon cookbook. Funny, inventive and full of humour and comic strips from "The Broons", with witty comments from the family members throughout, this second cookbook has more balance with both sweet, traditional, recipes as well as recipes with lighter, healthier ingredients.

Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking

Kate Colquhoun

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bloomsbury USA Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $18.18

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A fascinating history of how Britain learned to cook, from prehistory to the modern age.
 
Written with a storyteller’s flair and packed with astonishing facts, Taste is a sumptuous social history of Britain told through the development of its cooking. It encompasses royal feasts and street food, the skinning of eels and the making of strawberry jelly, mixing tales of culinary stars with those of the invisible hordes cooking in kitchens across the land. Beginning before Roman times, the book journeys through the ingredients, equipment, kitchens, feasts, fads, and famines of the British; it covers the piquancy of Norman cuisine, the influx of undreamed-of spices and new foods from the East and the New World, the Tudor pumpkin pie that journeyed with the founding fathers to become America’s national dish, the austerity of rationing during World War II, and the birth of convenience foods and take-away, right up to the age of Nigella Lawson, Heston Blumenthal, and Jamie Oliver. The first trade book to tell the story of British cooking—which is, of course, the history that led up to American colonial cooking as well—Taste shows that kitchens are not only places of steam, oil, and sweat, but of politics, invention, cultural exchange, commerce, conflict, and play.

The Haggis: A Little History

Clarissa Dickson Wright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The author, one of the "Two Fat Ladies" of television cookbook fame, handles the history of the haggis with aplomb in this little cookbook. Haggis, for the unititated, is a dish commonly made in a sheep’s maw, of minced lungs, hearts, and liver of the same animal.

However, the haggis is much more than a mere meal.

The haggis, or some version of it, may be found in the histories of countries as varied as ancient Greece, Sweden, and the United States. Yet the haggis is most closely associated with Scotland and has come to represent that country just as pasta represents Italy.

Scotland may thank its beloved bard, Robert Burns, for this. Burns immortalized the dish in perhaps his best-known poem, "Address to the Haggis." In it, he refers to the haggis as the "Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin’-race!"

How far the haggis had come!

Originally a meal of the lower classes who could not afford to waste any edible portion of their livestock, the haggis mysteriously transformed into a delicacy deemed worthy of royalty. Queen Victoria, an enthusiast for most all things Scottish, said of the haggis, "I find I like it very well."

Delia's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course

Delia Smith

Amazon Price: $35.91 List Price: $57.00 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: BBC Books Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $30.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Can't go wrong with this one 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Delia is as much a household name in Britain as Julia Child is in the U.S. These recipes will very much dispense with any myths about British food being tasteless and mainly boiled. Delia always graced my mother's cookbook shelf, and now years on I have my own greasy dog-eared copy that has become my kitchen bible. If you want an amazing desert that is simple to make, striking in presentation, and delicious to eat DO TRY the profiteroles recipe, and Pavlova Meringue.

Her instructions for making a proper roast dinner with crisp roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding are also flawless (although I like to do my puds in muffin tins instead:))
Leek and potato soup, italian baked fish, risotto, potatoes lyonaisse, marinated mushrooms... I could go on and on. Each recipe simple to follow, basic ingredients, european flair with minimum of fuss and delicious results.
Long live Delia!

Editorial Review:

An illustrated version of Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course, this book offers instructions that are clear, comprehensive, and pretty near infallible. The text is accompanied by a wide range of illustrations.

The Great Tea Rooms of Britain

Bruce Richardson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Disappointing! 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

We are getting ready to open the tea room in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I assumed this book would be helpfull but its was not. Lots of recipes were not accurate, missing steps and ingridients, the photos are nice, but they do not match the recipes. Very disappointing!
Olga Cannon.

A way to take a vacation from your armchair 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The author does a nice job of introducing us to some of the pretty places in Britain. The descriptions are good and the pictures pretty. I would like to see the complete menu in order to plan my visits. The complete address and phone number would be helpful. The book is a lovely one to inspire you.

Editorial Review:

Tea lovers off to the UK have carried Bruce Richardson's travel books since 1995. Join the noted tea authority as he takes you on another romantic journey to twenty-two of his favorite locations for afternoon tea in England, Scotland and Wales. Filled with 170 beautiful photographs, warm narrative and handy touring information, this updated and expanded 2008 edition contains 60 authentic British tea time recipes. Featured establishments include such long time favorites as The Ritz, The Dorchester, The Bridge Tea Rooms, The Pump Room, The Willow Tea Rooms and more.

The book of household management

Beeton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Simple life? I think not! 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

This book is written in such a way that you are drawn into the past and standing alongside the mistress of the house...planning your day and making sure the "household help" do their jobs well. It certainly reminds us of the benfits we have currently - with washing machines, dishwashers, automobiles, pre-packaged food and yes,fast food, yet still don't have enough time to do all the things we need/want to do. How would you like to dress your own cow or help make every article of clothing you wear (even though the "hired help" did most of it)? A brief introduction to the book instills in the reader a sense of where Mrs. Beeton arrived at her thoughts for "proper household management." She seems to have been frustrated by societal changes she was witnessing and wanted her "good ol' days" to return. It is a book I highly recommend not only for the history, but for the entertainment value. I could not put it down once I started.

Editorial Review:

An almost forgotten classic though a founding text of Victorian middle-class identity,Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management is a volume of insight and common sense. Written by what one might now describe as a Victorian Martha Stewart, the book offers advice on fashion, child-care, animal husbandry, poisons, and the management of servants. To the modern reader expecting stuffy verbosity or heavy moralizing, Beeton's book is a revelation: it explores the foods of Europe and beyond, suggesting new food stuffs and techniques, mixing domestic advice with discussions of science, religion, class, industrialism and gender roles. Alternately frugal and fashionable, anxious and self confident, the book highlights the concerns of the growing Victorian middle-class at a key moment in its history. This abridged edition serves as a cookery book, while documenting a significant aspect of Victorian social and cultural history.

Scots Cooking: The Best Traditional and Contemporary Scottish Recipes

Sue Lawrence

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks By: Headline Book Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $12.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Best Scottish Cookery Book 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Finally a book that successfully combines contemperory with the traditional.The recipes are beautifully presented with spectacular colour photographs. Unlike some cookery writer's books the recipes are usable for every day life covering such topics as breakfast, meats and baking. Being Scottish myself I know that this book genuinely reflects Scottish cooking and I love the way the author combines the recipes with anecdotes making the book not only a good cooking book but also a good read. I would highly suggest that everybody should buy this book as the recipes are the best things that have come out of Scotland since Sean Connery.

Fabulous Food! 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

If you like Scottish food, sweets in particular, this book is for you! We have made virtually all of the baking and sweet recipes in this book, and they are all delicious. Do you like Tiramisu? I did not think anything could top that, but then I tried the recipe in this book for Cranachan -- oh, my! Who'd of thought that cream and raspberries and honey could mix with some other delightful things and be so incredible?

The breakfast pancakes, with lime juice flavored golden syrup as a topping -- amazing! Real maple syrup pales in comparison. And fresh from the oven Baps and eggs for breakfast -- yum!

You'll need to buy some Lyle's Golden Syrup and some Lyle's Black Treacle for most of the baking recipes, but it is SO worth it!

We've only made one meal recipe, to date, which is the Scotch Broth. For soup/stew lovers, this one is a hearty bunch of comfort food. Eaten with some warm, crusty wheat rolls, on a cold winter's evening, you are definitly feeling some endorphins flowing!

Buy the book! :)

Editorial Review:

A bounty of traditional and contemporary Scottish recipes from one of Scotland’s foremost cooking writers.

Complete Traditional Recipe Book

Sarah Edington

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: National Trust Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $19.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Complete Traditional Recipe Book 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Love this book- many fine recipes. Only problems I found was the need for a food glossary, as many items contained in the book are not found in the US. (i.e.) Golden Syrup, blood pudding, ratafia biscuits. I was able to go online and search most of these out though, so it was ok, and really interesting to hunt ingredients down. The color photos are wonderful, and it is a high quality book, produced by the National Trust.

Editorial Review:

Providing a source of the best of traditional British cooking, these recipes range from starters to puddings, featuring Medieval Braised Rabbit with Prunes, treats such as Apple Hat and College Pudding, and delicate desserts like Damson Snow and Marbled Rose Cream. Though the emphasis is on the practical, historical background is also included for some of the key dishes within the book—from the first creamy macaroni cheese (first made in England in the 14th century but then not again until the 18th century when it returned from Italy) to 19th-century mulligatawny soup (derived from Southern India). The National Trust has researched the archives to find an authentic but delicious taste of history.

Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook

Darina Allen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent general textbook from the Irish Alice Waters. Buy It. 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

The `ballymaloe cooking school cookbook' by school co-owner and Irish TV cooking show host, Darina Allen is my second volume in my search for the perfect Irish cookbook. As it turns out, this very heavy and long (639 pages) book is much, much more than a book about Irish cooking, as well it should be, since it is comparable to the Culinary Institute of America's textbook, `The New Professional Chef'. That is, it is a general textbook for essentially all styles of European and American cooking, with a tendency to include more Irish recipes than you would expect from a French or Italian cooking textbook. In fact, a quick browse reveals recipes from around the world, many with an attribution to a close Darina Allen friend, such as Marcella Hazan.

When I saw Darina Allen on the old Sara Moulton show, `Cooking Live' on the Food Network, I had no idea that her Ballymaloe Cooking School was so big and well established to support such a comprehensive volume.

Ms. Allen's general tone in this book follows much the same path as the Chez Panisse guru, Alice Waters in that it strongly emphasizes good, fresh ingredients and a philosophy to waste nothing. Even the most lowly scraps can be recycled in the compost heap or the stock pot.

Unlike Ms. Allen's `The Festive Food of Ireland', I am happy to say that these recipes give all their units in an uncluttered and familiar English system of units, such as pounds and ounces, cups, tablespoons and teaspoons. I was just a bit surprised to see Ms. Allen recommend using standard spoons out of the silverware drawer to measure for savory recipes. On one hand, this is brilliantly simple, since a standard teaspoon (5 ml) is a rounded `teaspoon' and an English tablespoon (20 ml) is a rounded soupspoon. One important difference to note here is that the English (and Canadian) tablespoon is 25% larger than the American tablespoon (15 ml).

The book covers a very broad range of subjects, featuring 24 chapters on stocks & soups; appetizers; eggs; rice, other grains, & legumes; pasta and noodles; vegetables; salads; fish & shellfish; poultry; lamb; pork & bacon; beef; variety meats; game; desserts; cheeses; cakes & cookies; breads, scones & pizzas; jams & preserves; breakfast; barbecue; finger foods; drinks; and sauces.

One of the first things that struck me about this book is that it delves into subject which few if any other cooking texts touch, such as shopping, fashion, kitchen safety, and manners at the table. Many of the book's more conventional sections are a bit off. The `cupboard basics' section violates the notion that you should never buy an ingredient unless you have definite plans to use it in a recipe in the next week. Ms. Allen's list includes things such as dried fruit, Carr's Water Biscuits, Nam Pla (fish sauce), Pesto, and Ballymaloe's own brands of Tomato Relish and Jalapeno Relish. I would make pesto myself and I don't anticipate using nam pla, harissa, tortillas, Carr water biscuits, or chorizo in the next month, and maybe not even in the next year. The same general comment can be made of the `essential kitchen equipment' list. I always go back to Madhur Jaffrey's sound advice to simply make the recipes you want and buy for only those recipes. Sooner or later, you will have built up a pantry and assembly of cooking tools to match your personal style.

I do not weigh this too heavily against Ms. Allen, as she also has great advice on what to do if your power fails on your freezer or if you plan to move and are dealing with a full freezer.

Although this is a text for training future professional chefs, many of the classic recipes are remarkably unfussy. The master recipe for chicken stock cooks for only 3-5 hours, and adds all the vegetables at the beginning of the cooking rather than waiting for the last hour. Similarly, the master recipe for the basic omelet only cites one basic kind of French omelet and leaves out at least one of the fussier steps I have heard from various sources. The recipe for scrambled eggs is also not quite as fussy as the classic French method requiring a double boiler (bain marie).

Some techniques are illustrated with a set of photographs illustrating the steps, but these tend to be small and some major techniques are not so illustrated.

True to the author's emphasis on raw materials and the fact that the school has its own farm for vegetables, eggs, and fresh herbs, the introductory paragraphs to each section are rich in advice on how to pick and use raw materials. The introduction to eggs, one of my favorite subjects, is especially good on identifying the best eggs (how long ago was it laid) for each job.

Overall, this is an excellent reference for all sorts of recipes. I happened to check out the recipe for `basic hamburgers' and found a recipe that exactly duplicated my projected improvement over Julia Child's favorite hamburger recipe. Where Miss Julia has us put sautéed garlic and onion sandwiched between two layers of ground meat, Ms. Allen recommends the sautéed savories be mixed in with the ground meat, together with egg. A surprising touch recommends we also wrap it in caul fat, but this is optional.

One thing you will find in this book that you will not find in a CIA tome is a very personable, comradely tone which almost places Ms. Allen at your right hand as you read through the recipes. That means you will have a lot more fun reading this book than you may with a CIA text.

If you are very new to cooking, I highly recommend this as a first cookbook, especially if your ancestry can be traced back to the Emerald Isle! But, this is much, much more than a cookbook of Irish recipes.

Editorial Review:

Under the enthusiastic direction of one of Ireland's most beloved culinary artists, readers can learn over one hundred basic kitchen techniques. Applied to a mouth-watering array of over 500 recipes, these lessons are designed to instill confidence in the beginner, while encouraging experienced cooks to expand their kitchen repertoire.