Modern Classics by Frances Bissell

This is a one-stop cookery book. You can put all the others on the top shelf and live off this ad infinitum. Frances Bissell's no nonsense approach to food is refreshing. Clean tastes and simple food pour off the pages of Modern Classics and the book is as happy to be found by the stove as by the bed. It is a good read.

The book has been divided into chapters by main ingredients, interspersed with menus for parties or a special dinner for two. Although Frances' cooking is essentially British, Modern Classics reflects her extensive travelling and cooking throughout the world. After all, she has been the guest cook at some of the world's greatest hotels and has cooked at the George V in Paris, the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong and the Mark in New York.

It is not only the recipes that are good but the advice is sensible too and you will soon be adopting the same practices as the author. Frances mentions products that she likes by name and where you can buy them. So helpful. She extols the virtues of ready-made curry pastes and wet spice mixtures. The alternative is to have a larder full of jars that rarely get used and then invariably go past their sell by date. Why not put a few cardamon berries in your pepper grinder along with black peppercorns. This is especially good for beef, pork and game and flavouring cheese sauces.

Frances loves going into other people's kitchens, markets and kitchenware shops wherever she goes. Over the years, she has accumulated much information (and equipment) on where you can buy the best fish descalers (Oslo) or pumpkin seed oil (Slovenia). But with transportation becoming ever easier, we are less in need of travelling further a field to find these magical things.

Frances positively promotes the therapeutic artistry of cooking and this is as important to her as the enjoying the results. Bear this in mind with the fact that 60 per cent of us eat ready-made meals, a quite horrific statistic. And then in the following two paragraphs she tells the reader how to knock up a delicious dinner with the minimum of effort. It really is that easy and there is certainly no excuse.

Modern Classics will not only make an excellent Christmas present but it will see you through the good times and bad. When you need something that is comforting, Frances has the answer. When you are sailing on the crest of a wave, Frances will show you how to impress your guests. Do not delay, go and buy a copy of this very special book.

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Publication Details:
297 pages. Photography by Jean Cazals. £25.
ISBN 0333741277. Published by Macmillan.
2000

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