The Pedant in the Kitchen

I have a growing respect and admiration for Julian Barnes. We didn't get off to a good start because I read his England, England book first. And hated it so much I can't explain. The only reason I ever picked up another of his books was because I read and absolutely loved Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. So I tentatively picked up Flaubert's Parrot. And loved it so much that I bought my own copy after I took the library copy back (I'd borrowed it expecting not to like it, and gave myself permission to stop reading it within the first few pages if I hated it- and I always make myself push on!) Anyway, I Absolutely Loved Flaubert's Parrot. And so I started to hope that perhaps England, England was an aberration.

Somewhere along the way I accumulated The Pedant in the Kitchen, and in an idle moment last night I picked it up. I've had a wonderful break in my scheduled reading over the past 10 days and have actually been able to pick up books on a whim! I've been very keen to read his recent Booker winner The Sense of an Ending, but have remained strong and not bought it yet.

The Pedant in the Kitchen appears to be a collection of 17 newspaper columns about Barnes' relative OCD nature  in the kitchen. He starts off telling us rather matter of factly that he is a late-onset cook. He didn't learn techniques and measurements at his mother's side as a young child. It was only as an adult, in his twenties that Julian was forced to try and prepare his own meals. With some initial disappointments of course. I think most of us go through that stage really. Wondering how your mother did very simple things, when it had just always appeared in a perfect form previously.

Julian isn't without ambition or hope in his cooking efforts though. He uses cookbooks, and relatively complicated ones at that and comes to take on some rather challenging dishes. Chocolate Nemesis from the first River Cafe Cookbook. A smoked haddock souffle from Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book. Autumn Pudding (apparently much superior to Summer Pudding- with a mix of elderberries, blackberries and crab apples) from Susan Campbell's English Cookery New and Old. Jane Grigson's Salmon in Pastry with a Herb Sauce.

Julian wants things to be extremely precise whilst creating his haddock souffle. "Why should a cookbook be less precise than a manual of surgery?" He is an "anxious pedant" in the kitchen. Should that tablespoon of currants be heaped or rounded? In truth, I'm sure it matters not. I don't think Julian has ever truly heard, and certainly hasn't internalised the wisdom conveyed in the phrase "we're not building a piano".

I adhere to gas marks and cooking times. I trust instruments rather than myself. I doubt I shall ever test whether a chunk of meat is done by prodding it with my forefinger. The only liberty I take with a recipe is to increase the quantity of an ingredient of which I particularly approve. 

I think anxiety and lack of self confidence is the key here. You should never trust instruments more than your own judgement. In the kitchen, or in surgery as it turns out.

When not obsessed about minor details in the kitchen Julian takes us rather far and wide. The trial brought about by Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. Gustave Flaubert apparently not only admired camels in Egypt on his travels but he also ate some. However, his favourite delicacies were mandarins and oysters. And Mrs Beeton died at the unfortunately young age of 28, and so was not the dowager housekeeper we all imagine.

Julian has some interesting and useful thoughts on cookbooks, which I think I will leave for another post.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Foodie's Reading Challenge

Flaubert's Parrot

I came to this book at the perfect time. I had just recently read and enjoyed Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary gave me my first introduction to 19th century French literature, and wow, Flaubert certainly wasn't anything like Jane Austen or The Brontes! I am now rather intrigued by Flaubert, son of a doctor, who clearly learnt a lot of contemporary medicine growing up at the Hotel- Dieu.

In Madame Bovary there's an amazing chapter describing the tenotomy that Charles Bovary performs on Hippolyte, the village stable hand who has been getting around perfectly well with his club foot. Sadly, Charles isn't much of a surgeon and the operation does not go well. The account of his further surgery is harrowing. In that chapter Flaubert makes mention of Ambroise Pare and Guillaume Dupuytren.

Flaubert's fascinating tale of Madame Bovary combined with the tantalising glimpses into the history of medicine made it almost compulsory for me to fall into the thrall of Flaubert. I'd heard of Flaubert's Parrot but never been particularly interested because I've read one Julian Barnes book before, the incredibly awful England, England which was somehow shortlisted for the Booker in 1998. So it was with some considerable trepidation that I borrowed this book from the library. Only to learn that it was based around the parrot that featured in A Simple Heart (Un Coeur Simple). So, I read that too before embarking on Flaubert's Parrot. Turns out I didn't really need to. Barnes' gives a two paragraph summary early on to explain why Flaubert needed to borrow a parrot from the Museum of Rouen to help in his writing of Un Coeur Simple.

Flaubert's Parrot has perhaps the most bizzare structure that I've ever come across in a novel. Indeed, it makes one wonder if this really is a novel. Barnes himself said that he wanted to mix of fact and fiction, elastic and capacious, and expected a small audience.

A great article from the Guardian.

Flaubert's Parrot makes us ponder why we should chase the writer? Because it's so damn interesting is my basic response I suppose. And Flaubert is a perfect case in point. I so wish that our upcoming trip to France could include Rouen. I would take Flaubert's Parrot with me to reread, and to walk the locations of the book, to gaze at the Hotel Dieu, to find the pictures of Flaubert. Last months Good Reading had a great article on the Flaubert trail in Rouen.

Writers are interesting in a way that actors for example can never be, IMHO. I can't understand why week after week newspapers are filled with articles about actors. When almost any other profession is more interesting in and of itself. And most of the magazines that fill the supermarkets one week and then landfills the next are choc full of articles about actors.

I think it was in this book that Braithwaite said that he was going to "save Virginia Woolf til he was dead". Sage advice, think I'll take that on board too. I fact I already have. Perhaps it should be one of my daily affirmations just in case I feel my resolve slipping.