Customer Reviews

Roast Chicken And Other Stories

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This award winning book is wonderful. It is full of stories about food, with short fanfares for some of their favorite cookery writers, restauranteurs, and chefs. But best of all are the recipes; every one that I have tried has been scrumptious, and I look forward to trying more.

The book is arranged as chapters with titles such as: 'Anchovies', 'Garlic','Saffron', 'Chicken', 'Scallops','Endive', 'Chocolate', ..... Each chapter starts with a description or story about the subject followed by 3 or 4 recipes.

Simon Hopkinson writes a weekly food column in the UK newspaper, The Independant, and has worked as a chef in both the UK and France. His column is always fun to read, just like this book...... and you get the idea that Simon Hopkinson knows what it is like buying food at the local supermarket with the rest of us mortals! The recipes are accessible and 'doable' and the results are dishes that are classy and very satisfying.

If you like Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cookery books, or Elizabeth David's Cookery Books, you'll probably like this book too. You may also want to look out for their book called 'The Prawn Cocktail Years', which is also very good.

"The most useful cookbook of all time." That's what Britain's Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine said in 2005 about "Roast Chicken and Other Stories" after surveying English food writers, restaurateurs and chefs.

Simon Hopkinson's triumph was something of a surprise. His book was thin: just 148 recipes. There wasn't a single photograph of food in the book. And when it was first published in England in 1993, it hadn't been a huge seller.

The award changed all that so dramatically that "Roast Chicken" started outselling "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" on Amazon.com's English site. Now, fourteen years after Brits started cooking from it, "Roast Chicken" has finally been published in the United States. Talk about delayed gratification!

Why is this book so esteemed?

Hopkinson thinks he has a clue: "Without blowing my trumpet, I always knew it was a good book because it had nice things in it which you couldn't help but want to eat. And as long as the recipes work, I knew it would be a useful book to have."

Your detective work need go no further than the clues in his response. "Nice things...you want to eat" --- that means simple, familiar food, food that smells as good as it tastes. And "the recipes work" is a bottom-line explanation that, yes, if you follow directions, you can actually make these dishes more or less as well as Hopkinson.

Still, "useful" needs a bit of explanation --- it means of use to the English. For that reason, there are many, many recipes in these pages that will have doubtful appeal to American cooks and eaters. Five recipes for...brains. Another five for...cod. Grouse. Hake. Kidneys. Rabbit. Haddock. Sweetbreads. Tripe.

What's left? Start with Hopkinson's amusing, contrarian and extremely helpful meditations on food that launch each section.

Like this: "Anchovies are best by far when accompanying meaty things."

Or this: "Tuna is redundant in a salade Nicoise...I don't think cooked tuna is anything to write home about."

Or this: "The more boiling water you can have around a green vegetable, the greener the vegetable will stay."

Or this: "When it comes to using tomatoes in sauces and stews, the canned Italian ones will do a much better job than most of the fresh varieties that are available to us."

And then there's the prose that, simply, sings. Here is Hopkinson's way of encouraging you to add potato cakes to your repertoire: "My mother makes really good potato cakes. They are sort of misshapen, soft, gooey, and floury. They are at their best eaten on a Sunday afternoon, melting in front of the fire in their pool of butter. It should be winter, about 5 PM, dark outside, and a Marx Brothers film has just finished on the television." Makes me want to gather that recipe's five ingredients --- okay, so one of them is about eight tablespoons of butter --- and get cooking.

Finally, there are the recipes that look, as the Brits say, brilliant: Asparagus soup, vichyssoise, roast chicken from Chez L'Ami Louis, chicken sauteed in vinegar, provencal scallops, steak au poivre (with "two good slugs" of Cognac), olive oil mashed potatoes, and lemon surprise pudding.

For once, literally following orders is nothing but smart.

I happened to stumble on a description of this book somewhere and read it was recently reprinted and was rated the most popular cook book in England. I can see why it's so popular. A pleasure to read, not just for the recipes, which are a mixture of western European classics, English 'comfort foods' and a few more contemporary recipes from the 70's era. It's the stories in this book that make it so endearing. This book is an obvious labor of love.

I like that the author chose to share his favorite foods with us. In my opinion the best part of this cook book is the stories he tells about each recipe, how he discovered it and his experiences in the pleasures of enjoying a well made meal. This is not a book meant to impress, it's a sharing of the joys of cooking and eating from the author's heart.

A few of his recipes will seem very foreign to the American palate and some of his cooking directions may take a bit of getting used to for the less experienced American cook. In some cases he gives very clear directions and in other cases he assumes you know what you're doing and the directions are more sparse. Still, don't be intimidated by my description here. This is worth having in your kitchen.

All in all, a pure delight.

I bought this book largely because of the extensive hype it received in the New York Times. Now it's arrived, I'm disappointed. The book is organized around specific ingredients; once I take out those I can't face the thought of eating (brains, rabbit, liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, tripe) and those I'll never find (squab, smoked haddock, hake, cepes, grouse), there's not much of the book left. There are not very many recipes and quite a few of them cover familiar ground--olive oil mashed potatoes, lemon surprise pudding, roast leg of lamb, etc. I'm sure I'll find a few good ideas in here, but calling this "the most useful cookbook of all time" is a real stretch.

Simon Hopkinson is a venerable English chef and newspaper columnist who enjoys pushing for simple, home-y food. This cookbook, originally published in London in 1994, is a small but useful collection of Hopkinson's favorite recipes, along with personal stories and asides to accompany each one.

My husband is a retired chef and his most basic meals are my favorites. Not that I don't love the rolled and stuffed game hens or the complex patés, but nothing compares to his beef lentil soup and his roast chicken with garlic buttermilk mashed potatoes.

In Roast Chicken and Other Stories we find a celebration of simple home cooking. There's plenty of butter, cream, and other "no-no's" to be found, but very little processed pre-cooked and microwaved food. This book celebrates fresh food, be it potatoes, chicken, or calves brains. It is simply organized around Hopkinson's favorite ingredients, and while many of them are not appetizing to an American taste (i.e., kidneys, tripe, sweetbreads) there is enough that is universal enough to suit us all.

Hopkinson writes in a very conversational style with many cooking tips in the prose and not in the recipes, so it is important that you read the entire book and then bookmark the recipes you like. For example, he tells us that boiling is better than steaming for vegetables to maintain color and texture (just don't overdo it) and that canned Italian tomatoes will work better in most stews and sauces than fresh Western tomatoes.

My favorite recipes? The Eggs Florentine, the Chocolate Tart, and the ubiquitous Roast Chicken. But again, don't just buy Roast Chicken and Other Stories for the recipes - but for the prose. Witty, warm, and interesting tales will make you feel like you are in the kitchen with a good friend who also happens to be great cook, and who doesn't like that?

Again and again we learn and learn again that simplicity in life, especially in cooking, is the key to success. The author has studied cooking to the point of expertise that allows him to do things and, more importantly, to say things simply and convincingly. When politicians gain this level of authority they become legendary: think Churchill. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Hopkinson takes good, clean fresh ingredients and makes hearty dishes which he believes are vital to the good life. He avoids all chef snobbery, all foodie elitism. Instead, we have the wholesome attitude of the farm, the cookery philosophy of America's Alice Waters. There is no avoidance of the fat and buttery; this is no dieter's bible. The artificial is avoided in favor of authenticity. Hopkinson seem to believe that what is wholesome and fresh is good for you, and rejects all the short cuts and alternate ingredients which have made cooks everywhere confuse substitutes for the real thing. The author is able to convey great warmth, that special brand of English decency and refreshing unpretentiousness. The author loves food, animals, vegetables, customs, tradition, the drama known as life. What is especially surprising and refreshing is his celebration of ethnic cuisines as diverse as the obligatory French and the exotic Mexican. He has expertise in both. This is the food channel between hard covers.

I can't begin to tell you how dreadful this cookbook is. How it received a rave review from chef Jeremiah Tower I don't know. Let's just take one recipe: Cepes (Porcini mushrooms. Chef (?) Hopkinson tells us to fry them in olive oil until crusty and golden brown and finish with chopped garlic and a squeeze of lemon. If you live in the United States and can find good porcini mushrooms (which it doubtful) please don't destroy them by frying them crusty brown! Ugh! Slice them (he doesn't mention this)and saute in extra virgin olive oil and garlic for a few minutes. Add salt. Lemon destroys and changes the taste of these expensive mushrooms (unless they are served raw - in which case they must be small and very firm so they can be sliced thinly),and adding raw garlic at the end is a really bad idea.
Chef Hopkinson also mentions that if the stems feel hollow it is an indication of worms! Nonsense. I have lived in France and in Italy for many years - where I taught Italian and French cooking. I always felt the stems to see if they were firm - because they grow hollow after being kept a day or two too long. I never found a worm in a cepe (firm or hollow)in 25 years.
I'll not bore you with more than one more example of his silliness: For the anchovy and onion tart he says to "Sweat the onions until you get a thick mush" Unheard of. Onions are cooked (sweated) in olive oil until they are soft and slightly colored...unless you like mush!
I hope Mr. Tower reads this and responds.
Most of the recipies are ridiculous. Salade Nicoise without the tuna? If you buy cheap lousy tuna (instead of a good Italian brand)that's how it will taste - but if you don't like tuna make something else. We don't need to pay $25.00 for a book that tells us to leave out the tuna, do we?
Lastly, I hope you're not cholesterol conscious. This "chef" loves his cream and butter to excess - even when they are unecessary.
I returned the book to the shop.
The man is a legend in his own mind.
Save your money - and your stomach.

This book was voted most popular cookbook in UK recently, but the panel of judges were food writers and professional cooks. Beautifully illustrated with watercolor and line drawings, and an enjoyable read with witty anecdotes. However, it is more a cookbook that you spend a Sunday afternoon reading and then put on the shelf and never cook from. So if you are thinking that this is actually useful to have around the house and cook from, beware - the recipes are a little fancy for a busy working woman (let alone mum with kids)!

I read an article about this book and thought it was a novel; only when I ordered and received did I realize it was cookbook ( I am kinda slow ); however, wonderful and all encompassing cookbook which covers a tremendous range of foods with easily understood instructions; who would have thought what a cup of red wine vinegar would do to a stewing chicknen!

Any one who loves to cook and eat will enjoy this charming, useful, and even -- culinarily speaking -- inspiring book.