Who doesn’t love a good cookbook? At Christmas time it’s easy to get excited by the new releases and their lovely glossy covers. However, let’s not forget those classic cookbooks and their pages full of delicious, simple seafood recipes. We love receiving a cookbook at Christmas and here’s our Top Five Classic Cookbooks for Christmas. They’re classics for a reason!
5. Jane Grigson’s Fish Book
Our copy of Jane Grigson’s Fish Book is looking a bit battered. That’s because we use it an awful lot. The simple beauty of the book comes not only from the enormous compendium of fine recipes, but also the warm and generous manner in which it’s all delivered by Grigson.
Sadly, Grigson died of cancer in 1990, but’s she left us with a magnificent seafood cookbook. She was also a genuine champion for seafood and the British fishing industry. This is important, as her clear passion for the subject means that us, as kitchen amateurs, are being taught by somebody who really cares about what they are doing.
First published in 1973, Grigson attempts to confront and challenge the still-popular myths and misunderstandings of the strange British mentality towards seafood. ‘I suppose, too, that most of us grow up with a firm impression that fish means cod and plaice, overcooked and coated with greasy batter or coloured substances of unpleasant flavour,’ she writes. We must continue this fight on her behalf.
Jane Grigson’s Fish Book is available to buy at Amazon.
4. Floyd on France – by Keith Floyd
The introduction to Floyd on France reads, ‘My book, Floyd on France, is a highly personal selection of some favourite dishes that I have enjoyed over long periods spent in France’.
Keith Floyd was a passionate Francophile. He lived in France, and breathed, ate, and yes, drank, the country with gusto.
Floyd writes that the book contains recipes for meals you might eat if staying with a French family. These recipes might not get you on Masterchef, but they will make you incredibly happy. Of the seafood recipes, Floyd tell us we don’t have to be geniuses to cook them. A little common sense can go a long way. For me personally, that’s good news.
There’s more good news if you’re a fish stew type of person. The book contains some crackers. We have a classic Fish Stew, Cotriade, Bourride, Bouillabaisse and more. You’ll need a good mouli – which you can buy at Amazon.
The book also contains the recipe for what we cooked for Christmas Dinner last year – Gigot de lotte, Roast Monkfish. It’s a fantastic dish.
Talking of fantastic, the television series to accompany the book is must-watch TV. If you’ve never seen it, immediately stop what you’re doing and go and track it down. It really is cracking television, and arguably, Keith Floyd’s finest series. Once you’ve watched it, buy the book and recreate some Keith Floyd madness in the comfort of your own kitchen.
Like Jane Grigson, Floyd is passionate about challenging the very British misconceptions towards seafood. ‘Fish is good for you. There are so many varieties and so many ways to cook it that it’s a travesty that here in Britain we don’t take full advantage of the riches of our shores’. We couldn’t agree more.
You can buy Floyd on France at Amazon.
3. Elizabeth David – French Provincial Cooking
Number three on our Classic Cookbooks for Christmas list is Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking.
First published in 1960, French Provincial Cooking helped transform home cooking in Britain and is still a great book for those looking to master some useful kitchen basics such as the making of mayonnaise or a parsley butter.
The introduction to the chapter on Fish, sorry, Le Poisson, is an interesting read. Davidson finishes the passage by bemoaning the ‘utter lack of dishes suitable to the service of large fish’. She continues for a good while, ending with, ‘in a country in which the fishing industry is of the greatest importance this is, to say the least, odd’. Indeed it is.
Lack of suitable size dishes aside, there are some superb, simple recipes for us home cooks. Some of which, like Red Gurnard with cheese sauce and soft roes in baked potato may be in danger of being forgotten.
There’s also one of the best recipes for Bourride we’ve come across and a fine selection of Mussels recipes, among many other highlights.
French Provincial Cooking is available to buy at Amazon.
2. Floyd on Fish – by Keith Floyd
If you’ve read our review of Floyd on Fish then you’ll know just how much we idolise this book. As we put it, ‘the personable tone used throughout brings Floyd’s enormous personality to every page, making it feel as if he’s written the book solely for you. Excuse me now. I must leave the typewriter and return to the kitchen to clean the mussels for lunch’.
Floyd on Fish is more than a recipe book. It’s an impassioned plea to embrace and enjoy the enormous diversity of the seafood on our doorstep. Refreshingly, he blames us a consumers:
‘It’s our fault for buying scampi flavoured crisps. It’s our fault for not encouraging the fishmongers. The trouble is we are lazy snobs. Much better, we often say, a frozen salmon or some other exotic and expensive fish than a simple plate of fresh sprats or dogfish; because we’d rather be talking about it, glass in hand In our sitting room that has been designed by the marketing man, than rolling up our sleeves around the kitchen table where real life, love food and fun belong’.
Need we say more?
You can buy Floyd on Fish at Amazon.
1. Rick Stein’s Seafood – by Rick Stein
Ok, Rick Stein Seafood may have made the top spot on our Classic Cookbooks for Christmas list for sentimental reasons. The book was the first seafood cookbook I ever owned.
Well, when I say owned, it was actually leant to me by my brother-in-law. That was 10 years ago. I’ve never given it back.
This is the book that helped ignite my passion for seafood. It made me believe that I could cook such things as Crab, Red Mullet, Squid, Langoustines, Turbot, Sardines… the list is long, so I’ll stop.
From this book I’ve experienced kitchen disasters (such as non-devilled Mackerel) and magnificent masterpieces (such as Singapore Chilli Crab). The point is this book, through trial and error, has made me a better, and more knowledgeable cook.
Casting sentimental value aside, Rick Stein Seafood is a super seafood cookery book. Or as Rick puts it, ‘I thought a book that contained detailed information on how to buy and store fish, then prepare and cook it, together with hundreds of good photographs showing not just important techniques such as filleting, but also step-by-step cooking and serving methods would be of real benefit to everyone’.
Rick’s right.
Rick Stein Seafood is available to buy at Amazon – at a very good price, it has to be said!
Merry Christmas!