Myrtle Allen's Ballymaloe Cookbook makes Vogue's list of '41 Cookbooks That Everyone Should Own'
Diana Henry's How to Eat a Peach and Myrtle Allen's The Ballymaloe Cookbook have made Vogue's list entitled 41 Cookbooks That Everyone Should Own.
Two Irish cookbooks have just made the cut in a Vogue list entitled, 41 Cookbooks That Everyone Should Own, a wide-ranging selection of contemporary cooking styles from around the world leavened with a smattering of classic old culinary tomes.
A transatlantic collaboration between American and British editors of the monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine, the list overwhelmingly comprises either British or American publications, including many of those covering cuisines from elsewhere in the world, but two classic Irish cookbooks, Diana Henry’s and Myrtle Allen’s seminal , sit at the top tier alongside some other very worthy inclusions.
Featuring a majority of women authors, and including several books on baking and desserts and the ‘proudly queer’ by Carla Perez-Gallardo, Hannah Black, and Wheeler, the selection may well trigger some sniping from the tattooed boys kitchen brigade.
There is, however, something refreshing about the manner in which it skirts the testosterone-laden books of certain male chefs, and, anyway, the inclusion of Rick Stein ( ), Thomas Keller ( ), Paul Ainsworth (who worked under Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing) and the utterly vital by Fergus Henderson, should keep the male side of the house happy.
However, there is no denying the iconic status of certain of the women authors of books that should be in any self-respecting cook or chef’s library, male or female, including Marcella Hazan ( ) and Julia Child ( ; with Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck), while more recent additions to the canon by Claire Ptak ( ) and Samin Nosrat’s superb teaching tome, are set to be classics of the future.
Other familiar names from this side of the Atlantic include Nigel Slater ( ), Nigella Lawson ( ), and River Cafe London by Ruth Rogers, Rose Gray, Sian Wyn Owen, and Joseph Trivelli, is a re-issue of another ground-breaking publication.
Towering over them is the current behemoth of the cookbook world, Yotam Ottolenghi, who merits two inclusions ( by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage; by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi).
Those in the list covering world cooking should probably be viewed more as introductions rather than definitive guides, not least a second generation take by Londoners Timothy Duval, Folayemi Brown, and Jacob Fodio Todd, while by Bryant Terry celebrates African-American foods, and by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar, and Naved Nasir, is the pick of the Indian cookbooks featured.
‘Complete’, in the title, by Ken Hom, may be a bit ambitious in claiming to comprehensively cover the myriad cuisines of this vast country built up over thousands of years but Hom is most certainly the man who introduced Britain (and Irish people in multi-channel land) to cooking Chinese food at home that was a cut above the local Chinese takeaway, and by Fadi Kattan, proprietor of London’s wonderful Akub restaurant is a more contemporary cracker.
Illustrating the extent of her talent and reach, Diana Henry, who first broke through in Britain, is the selection of one of the US editors, but Henry’s lyrical approach to creating utterly delicious food taps effortlessly into the universal language of food.
Though we are often guilty in Ireland, and Cork especially, of a parochial championing of our ‘own’, it is most definitely not the case when stating here that by Myrtle Allen may well be the most important book of all on the list.
Though it includes some classic, unique and very delicious recipes, this 50+ year old cookbook can equally be seen as a vital early staging post in the history of modern hospitality, as Myrtle Allen first set out her ethos of allowing fresh, seasonal local produce to star on the plate, the very first chef in the world to do this in a fine dining context — and it includes her famous Carrageen Moss pudding, one of the greatest Irish dishes of all!
