(*NEW ARRIVAL*) (Food Writing) Nicholas Freeling. Kitchen Book

Illus. with drawings by John Lawrence. Jacket. First Edition. London: Hamish Hamilton, [1970].

This is a kitchen book. It is a book about Nicolas Freeling in the kitchen. It is a book about his papa in the kitchen. It is a book about the dull and sickening smells of burned fat and boiling stock, and the pungent odor of freshly strewn sawdust. It is a book about the view from the kitchen window of the Restaurant Lapérouse in Paris, and about Fred Roblin of Annecy. larder chef (and one of the nicest men Freeling ever met) whose passion was boxing. It is about how to handle a knife when you are carving a side of beef (and how to get all the meat off the bones); it is about a sour and sullen roast cook named Louis (roast cooks are generally nasty people); it is about carving a block of salt into the likeness of two pigeons drinking out of a birdbath, and about how to make hors d'oeuvres out of leftovers. It is about the Hotel Atlantic in Belleplage, a really splendid example of Grand Hotel Thermes et Bains de Mer-where the staff quarters were seven stories up under the slates of the roof, with two hundred staff in each wing (men east, women west) and room above the central block for two hundred more-the maids, the valets, and chauffeurs brought by the guests.
This is a book about the very strange people who live in hotels, such as the Countess Dracula, and the very rich people who visit hotels, and the people who run hotels. And especially the kitchens of hotels.

Bookplate of William Magnus Tullberg; William founded Tracklements in England in 1970, and during his 35-year career there he was instrumental in forging the business’s innovative approach to condiments – including the invention of wholegrain mustard, a widely appreciated result of following his endless food curiosity. Near fine.

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