Boring - but it's Neil Perry!
Neil Perry is one of Australia's earlier celebrity chefs I guess. I don't know whether he still cooks in an actual restaurant or just manages his restaurant and business empire. But he is indeed much admired.
However, somehow or other I have never really encountered him through books. Maybe he just doesn't put himself out there like Jamie Oliver, Curtis Stone and the rest. Maybe he just stuck to being a restaurant chef writing the occasional cookbook - and indeed he has written a few around a dozen I think. Maybe it's because he is Sydney based. However, I have always been aware of him as a name. So when my op shop expert friend found this book - one she already had - she bought it for me.
I was delighted because I love discovering potential new gurus. And surely Neil Perry would be one of them. He's high up on the heroes of Australian food list and even has the letters AM (Order of Australia) after his name to prove it. This photograph is taken from the website for (I think) his latest venture in Double Bay - an expensive part of Sydney - The Margaret Family. Margaret was the name of his beloved mother and is the name of one of the two fine diners - in this collection of four restaurants - the other fine diner being Gran Torino. The other two are a café - also named for Margaret and a pizzeria. That's him in the foreground with the trademark short pony tail, looking considerably older here, than he does in other photographs.
As well as these four restaurants he also heads the Rockpool empire - I'm not sure how many of them there are - certainly there is also at least one in Melbourne and probably elsewhere in the world. And possibly his most famous enterprise is as consulting menu designer for Qantas - a job he has done for some 20 years. He does it for Economy passengers as well as the upper classes. Not that I have noticed really, although if he was responsible for the serving of a Magnum for dessert, then he deserves a round of applause. A successful businessman anyway, and probably a super chef as well - who possibly still cooks in his flagship restaurant Margaret. I should also mention here, that this book - published way back in 2005 - was dedicated to his father - a butcher and keen fisherman of whom he says:
"He instilled an understanding that eating was for pleasure. `I learnt that if food was thought about, then it was remembered and it is this that makes me who I am today."
And he also names him along with Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Alice Waters and Alain Ducasse - big names in the fine dining world as his culinary influences. But then in this book he also says:
"I love all of Marcella Hazan's cookbooks - as a matter of fact, I think if you read all of hers and all of Elizabeth David's you could stop there and be just about the finest Mediterranean cook possible."
More 'real' influences if that's the right way to put it - people who are talking to a different audience. And a reminder for me to look out for a Marcella Hazan cookbook. I have none. But back to this book.
It is huge (439 pages) - and heavy and when you open it, you cannot keep the pages open unless you hold them open. I also guess that it would be too big to put in one of those cookbook holders. So - difficult to cook from easily. Moreover there are a lot of words but they are hard to read, because the font is somehow not easy to read and it's pale - on very white glossy paper as well, so in spite of the Acknowledgements stating:
"Thanks to Marylouise Brammer - your design and excitement over a new font has left me holding a truly beautiful book."
I do not think it is user friendly at all. And there is a lot of writing - especially at the beginning of the book where you get a whole lot of advice on everything from equipment and technique to how to lay a table. As I said I have not read any of his other books, so I am now thinking that this one might be the big 'How To Cook' book that some cooks go for. This one is serious and honestly - to me anyway - somewhat boring.
At the beginning of the book there are many pages that look like the above. It is an effort to read that pale, pale very sans serif font. I suppose the publishers wanted it to look serious, modern, and high-class. And there is so much technical stuff - a vital piece of equipment for Neil Perry for example is a meat thermometer and whilst you and I may have one, I'm guessing we probably don't need it. They are so vital to him that they even get a full page, rather beautiful photograph all to themselves. Which might have meant one less photograph of the food. Curtis Stone telling us how to judge when steak is done by using your fingers (I can't remember how) is rather more useful. An actual internal thermometer is rather too precise for those of us who are just trying to put something reasonably pleasurable to eat on the table. And yet, somewhere in those lengthy and instructive early pages he says:
"I love living in the new world, no rules! That is, unless they come from me, of course."
But what of the food? Well that too was somewhat boring. Please consider however, that I am someone who has now been cooking for over 60 years, has a large library of cookbooks and regularly reads the supermarket magazines, which if nothing else, keep you up with what is popular. And what we have here are a whole lot of recipes of which we have seen versions many times before. There is not a lot that is new - just refined examples of the tried and true.
An example of this is Macaroni cheese (from the Bangers and Mash website). I guess it's a bit more than the basic, pure macaroni in a cheese sauce - there are two cheeses, there is garlic, there is paprika and Dijon mustard - and bacon. I'm sure it would be delicous, and maybe I should give it ago. Apparently it's a famous Neil Perry dish - well the writers of the Bangers and Mash website presented it as such anyway. Honestly though there are heaps of variations out there, and to be fair he does also give some suggestions to vary - mushrooms or braised cabbage.
It has a photograph however - a fairly rare occurrence in this book. And there are not many photographs. And here I will turn to some words from Ottolenghi, whose next book is about to launch. A newsletter or two ago he focussed on photographs in cookbooks with these words:
"Does a recipe need a picture? Not to work, no. But we’ve learned, again and again, that to actually get cooked, it very much does. ... I suspect social media has trained us into needing this more and more. A whole generation has learned to scroll through food before they’ve ever tasted any of it - recipes judged in a fraction of a second. We eat with our eyes before anything else, and a brilliant photo of a dish is almost do or die: it holds the greatest power there is in capturing a food’s story, more than the words ever manage on their own."
There is, of course much more to be said on the subject, and I have said much in the past as well, but it is relevant here. Well I think so anyway. As I said, it was published in 2005 and by then we had indeed got used to lots of photographs in cookbooks, and yet for such an expensively produced publication there are really very few. Those that there are are of high quality, and there are also lots of arty photographs of foodie things which aren't the recipes. But so many have nothing, just lots of text - offputting in itself, especially if the recipe is really just steak and something.
Enough. Maybe I'm just at the wrong stage of my cooking life to appreciate this book. Obviously a lot of thought and work has gone into it and it is beautiful. However, I'm not quite sure what to do with it now. It's so big and I'm running out of space. And I'm certainly not going to insult my friend by giving it away. Perhaps the best thing to do is to make something from it which might change my mind. So I've picked out four for consideration: Fettucine with toasted breadcrumbs - alas the recipe is not online (not many of his are - he does not have a website with recipes) - but it's just fettucine with toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on top with a blended mix of tarragon, parsley, garlic, capers, anchovies and red vinegar; Stewed snapper with crazy water - apparently based on a Marcella Hazan recipe - and Ixta Buttrose has a truly wonderful version too; Spiced pork braised with prunes and apricots/Diane's Kitchen and Date, orange and mint salad with orange granita - also not available online but simple
And now that I look at those photos - they're all on white plates aren't they? Which makes for a kind of sameness if you're being critical, or consistent with an overall design if you're not.
If I see another Neil Perry book in an op shop some time I might at least have a look, and I will try that macaroni cheese. I would try the fettucine if it weren't for the anchovies that David hates. Overall though - thumbs down for me I think.
Oops - I just realised I do have another Neil Perry book - Good Cooking - which was smaller and better.
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YEARS GONE BY
September 2
2025 - It's never been easier
2024 - Lists, coincidence ...
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Bubbles
Not for me to be thumbs up or down on cookbooks! I have never read one. And why should I when I am so lucky to be married to one of the worlds best cooks! 😇🤪