/ 30 April 2010

A mama in your kitchen

For a cookbook to qualify as a “bible” it seems it must be at least as thick as two unabridged King James’s. Either that or a Thomas Pynchon novel.

Publishing house Phaidon, better known for its books on art, design and architecture, has now waded into the cookbook market with a series of bibles from Greece, Italy, Spain and France. Some of the books aren’t new but have been repackaged and updated.

The Italian one, Il Cucchiaio d’Argento, or The Silver Spoon, was first published in 1950 and was often given as a wedding present. It’s Italy’s best-selling cookbook and is seen as the grand reference work of Italian home cooking.

Think of any modern Italian cookbook you know. They’re usually based around a personality — Jamie Oliver, Giorgio Locatelli, Marcella Hazan — a restaurant, such as the River Café or Harry’s Bar in Venice, or a region. At best, there’ll be a handful of pasta recipes and the same for risotto. The Silver Spoon is intoxicating and leaves all other Italian cookbooks in the shade. At 1263 pages, it’s a vast tome and contains more than 2000 recipes, drawing on the seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity of Italian cooks.

When the editors set to work it became clear that it wouldn’t do simply to translate the recipes “as there is a fundamental difference between the Italian approach to cooking and that of English-speaking countries”, which is a nicer way of saying the rest of us will be better off with Mr Delivery unless it’s spelled out in plain English.

Emilia Terragni, the Phaidon editorial director, stranded in Phaidon’s office in Switzerland — a victim of volcanic ash — puts it another way. “The Italian edition [of The Silver Spoon] is much more spare in terms of explanation. Italians learn to cook very early and a lot of things are taken for granted.

“They’re recipes that have been developed by people who cook at home. This really makes the difference. The level of cooking in Italian homes is high.”

Terragni says Phaidon “practically bumped into this book”. “We were not looking for it. We were going to see a design publisher and he said: ‘There is this book that we can do —’ We don’t do cookbooks, but I was so passionate about this book — I knew it was really good.”

“We started with The Silver Spoon and we followed a slightly different approach that comes from our background, which is art, architecture design. We are concerned with design, photographs, [good quality] paper. And that the recipes work. The recipes have to work. They have to be brilliant. It’s important that the book as an object is appealing and desirable.”

I showed the book to an Italian friend — who knows her copy of Il Cucchiaio d’Argento backwards — and she sniffed at the inclusion of Worcestershire sauce in a recipe for spicy marinade. Terragni swears it was in the original and that they suggested other ingredients only when there was no alternative, such as certain species of Mediterannean fish not available outside the region.

“Even for the most complicated recipes you don’t need specific skills. If you follow it [the recipe] and have the patience, you can do it.”

You’ll certainly need patience for the fantastically complicated Sartu. It’s a timbale — usually a cylindrical baked pie — and, as the book says, was born from the imagination of chefs who were expected to excel on special occasions.

Briefly, it contains reconstituted mushrooms, small meatballs, chicken livers fried in butter, Italian sausage and melted mozzarella, all encased in a rich risotto flavoured with passata and stock. And in case that isn’t rich enough, beaten eggs are tipped over the pie before it’s baked. Terragni’s eaten it, but not “done” it.

There’s also a section showing off the joys of offal, a section that “we were strongly advised to delete … for the American audience. Most people don’t eat offal, but we decided to keep them. What we present is an Italian cookbook.”

The success of The Silver Spoon — with a print run of a million and more on the way — suggested Phaidon was on to a good thing and, as Terragni says, “we started to look around other countries”.

The result was I Know How to Cook by Ginette Mathiot, published in France in the Thirties, Vefa’s Kitchen from Greece and 1080 Recipes from Spain. There’s also a Silver Spoon for Children: Favorite Italian Recipes, as well as The Silver Spoon Pasta, which features more pasta recipes — 360 in total — than the original.

The Silver Spoon taught us a lot. We didn’t know anything about — taking content and repackaging it from a visual point of view. We test, rewrite and make it more suitable for an Anglo-Saxon audience. Whether it’s from France, Spain or Greece, you can use it as an English-speaking person.”

There’s also plenty to look forward to. A comprehensive book of tapas will be published soon, as well as a basic step-by-step book including everything from “roast chicken to pad thai”. Another bible is also on the way, this time from India.

“I have a very nice job,” says Terragni.