PIKE IN THE BASEMENT - Hardcover

Loftus, Simon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712617973 ISBN 13: 9780712617970

Publisher: Random House UK, 1987

Synopsis

Written with the charm of a master storyteller and the taste buds of a master chef, this is an ideal gift which conjures up memorable meals in far-flung spots, from Italy to Mississippi via Tehran and Pakistan. Beautifully illustrated with 18 original black and white woodcuts, A Pike in the Basement celebrates the importance of food as an aspect of culture, and the role played by taste and smell in our memories of traveling. Each chapter ends with a mouth-watering recipe.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Loftus (1946-), chairman of Adnams, the Suffolk brewers, is a wine merchant, an amateur cook and an incompetent pianist. He has variously worked as a magician's stooge, a stiltwalker, a scriptwriter and a farm labourer. He has written extensively on wine and the wine trade. He lives in Suffolk with his wife and daughter.

From Publishers Weekly:

From frozen oranges in Asia Minor to catfish in Tennessee, Loftus is bent on one thing (and ready to travel extensively to find it): enjoyment and ambience in dining. The author ( Anatomy of the Wine Trade ) on his favorite omelet, pinned down in the "deserted countryside" of France: "The ingredients were well combined: fresh eggs, good butter and the pleasure of the harvest, with the sweet smell of new hay drifting across from the other side of that tiny valley." Bursting with a desire to describe and evaluate everything he sees and tastes on four continents, and amply endowed to do so, the writer (who is an English publican) is such a food snob that he sneers at French truffles as pretentious and inferior, placed beside the "white truffle of Piedmont," and even ventures the "heretical" view that "I seldom think homemade bread is as good as that from a decent professional." This opinionated posture is so up-front, however, that readers won't mind. Brief and enticing recipes, with recommended wines, sing off each chapter. Illustrated.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0712617973
• ISBN 13: 9780712617970
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176