Author:
Irving Davis
The welcome afforded the recent reissue in Britain of Colman Andrews' Catalan Cuisine is a mark of the esteem attached to this style of cookery.
Irving Davis' 'A Catalan Cookery Book: a collection of impossible recipes' is a perfect introduction; its limpid prose is a reminder of past habits of mind. There are sixty recipes, from soups to sweets, taking in a summer and a winter drink along the way. There are also eleven fine engravings by the artist Nicole Fenosa, at whose home in Vendrell Irving Davis spent many summers.
There are under a hundred recipes which are disarmingly simple yet make few concessions to the novice cook: this is not Delia Smith for the Mediterranean masses. There are eight main chapters covering soups; omelettes; pasta; snails; sea food; meat; salads and vegetables; and sweets. There is an appendix with some further documents about Irving Davis, including a few lines of his own on his life.
This book was privately published in 1969 after the author's death. It was edited and introduced by Patience Gray, who herself needs no introduction to Prospect readers. Echoes of Irving Davis, antiquarian bookseller, publisher and man of letters, abound in her own masterpiece Honey from a Weed. This book is a fragment - he was a man who sought perfection - and yet is complete enough for us to enjoy, and to cook from. He called his recipes 'impossible' because he despaired at substitution, or derogation from the original.
Publisher:
Prospect Books
150 pages 20,8 x 26,0 cm Paperback
Publishing date :
12/1/1998
ISBN:
978-0907325925
