Eggs à la Nabocoque

There is little more personal than a recipe. Not those that fill cookbooks and magazines, honed, tested and edited by professionals. But rather those recipes that are passed on informally, and which reside in kitchens and memories, rather than books. Such recipes provide windows into the kitchen of the author. And when those authors are famous, but better known to us through their other, less functional, writing, such a peek into their personal life is delicious.

Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake is irresistible. This Compendium of classic authors’ favourite recipes, as the subtitle has it, is a beautifully produced and charming volume, with a thoughtful foreword by Bee Wilson. It is whimsical and compulsive, with Norman Mailer’s stuffed mushrooms sitting alongside Vladimir Nabokov’s “Eggs à la Nabocoque” (his incredibly precise recipe for soft boiled eggs).

A recipe can be remarkably telling about its author: it reveals tastes, both literal and figurative, and demonstrates how a person approaches eating and cooking. But it also tells us how the writer organizes their thoughts, what is important to them and what isn’t, what warrants explanation or elision. Although both are recipes, Allen Ginsberg’s note-like instructions for borscht could not be more different from George Orwell’s meditation on the Britishness of high tea, masquerading as a recipe for plum cake. And for some reason it is particularly endearing to think of Christopher Isherwood rustling up a batch of brownies – in which he repeatedly urges the reader to ensure that the ingredients are properly mixed.

In this collection, the recipes stand alone, without individual introduction, which allows them to speak for themselves, each brimming with personality. Barbara Pym’s ten-word method for marmalade contrasts strikingly with Angela Carter’s four-page recipe for potato soup – both suggesting a proficiency in the kitchen, albeit in very different ways. I do not doubt for one moment that Katherine Mansfield made a beautiful orange soufflé (which in fact appears to be some kind of baked trifle or queen of puddings), but I absolutely could not recreate it by following her bonkers recipe. And Dodie Smith’s recipe for strawberry shortcake is perfectly undercut with the throw-away remark “I’ve never made it, of course”.

Reader beware, though: there’s a danger here too – that the recipes will change the way you view the author. Try reading Ballet Shoes (1936) in the same way, knowing that Noel Streatfeild’s alarming contribution is filets de boeuf aux bananes. Or reading any Beryl Bainbridge now without thinking of her “instant mince” (“boil furiously for less than fifteen minutes”).

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