The Table comes First : Family, France and the meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik 2011
Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-307-47696-8
A really great read that searches for a truth in the meanings we give to food, a search through history, philosophy, literature and culture of our food obsessed world.
Max Dingle 30 January 2014
Here is an extract:
Cooking is the faith that raw ingredients can be conjured into a nightly miracle.
The oldest of all recorded stories is the story of Enkidu from the epic of Gilgamesh, and it is a story of the divine power of food, sex and wine to make human.
Enkidu, wild and uncivilized is saved by a prostitute.
"Nothing does Enkidu know of eating bread,
and to drink strong drink he has not been taught." she says
'The whore opened her mouth , saying to Enkidu,
"Eat the bread, O Enkidu, it is the staff of life;
drink the strong drink,
it is the custom of the land."
Enkidu ate bread until he was sated: Of the strong drink he drank seven goblets. His soul was free and happy, his heart rejoiced, and his face shone.....
he anointed himself with oil and at that moment became human.'
In honour of Enkidu and the whore:
The four essential savoury secrets : anchovies, bacon, cinnamon, saffron
The five humble helpers: frozen peas, canned beans, corn syrup, gelatin, cornflour
The three miraculous drugs: sugar, caffeine, spirits
The three basic principles:
1. The rule of triple action : take something to eat, do something to it, do something else to it.
But for goodness sake do not do something else after that, or if you do, it had better be really worth doing.
2. The rule of three and four: almost anything ( salmon, chicken breasts, fish steaks, beef steaks, mushrooms, grilled bread) tastes best if it is sautéed for four hot minutes on one side and then three slightly cooler minutes on the other.
3. The truth of oven extremes: there is no golden mean behind the oven door - let your oven be very hot or rather cool, but never in between.
The truth of taste : taste is a fiction, shaped by a time. But the fiction is not the barrier to the feeling. It is what gives the feeling force. We make up our tastes as we make up our pesto, and it is the making-up that makes it matter.
