Jane Grigson

[7] On her return to the UK she became the assistant to Bryan Robertson, the curator at the Heffer Gallery in Cambridge;[8] an interest in painting, silver and textiles led her to apply for positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but she was unsuccessful.

[6] Shortly after the birth, the couple purchased a cave-cottage in Trôo, France,[n 3] and it was there, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, that Grigson developed a conviction that "because cooking is a central part of life it should be as carefully written about as any other art form".

[51] Reviewing the first edition, Skeffington Ardron wrote in The Guardian that choosing between the many recipes "will drive you wild, for there is here such a magnificent collection" ranging from simple economical dishes to "the extravagant, impossible, ridiculous Poulard Derbe with its champagne, foie gras and truffles".

[54] In The New York Times Mimi Sheraton wrote that the book was a "large, handsome volume [with] helpful shopping, storing and cooking information on all the vegetables included in recipes, and the range of dishes is worldwide if strongest on European specialties".

Sheraton remarked on the "especially good lentil recipes, wonderful fragrant and bracing soups, and intriguing preparations for lesserknown vegetables such as chayote squash, Jerusalem artichokes and hop shoots".

As was her usual practice, she interspersed classic recipes—carrots à la Forestière[n 8] and peas in the French style with spring onions and lettuce—with less well known dishes such as artichokes stuffed with a purée of broad beans.

[97] After a brief introduction outlining the history of the pig in European agriculture and cuisine,[98] the main text begins with a "Picnic guide to the charcutier's shop", in which the author details the pork products available in a good French charcuterie.

She says of lobsters that there is nothing more delicious, so sweet, firm and succulent, discusses the most humane way of killing them, and although advancing the proposition that they are best eaten hot with only lemon juice and butter on them, she gives the recipes for homard à l'Americaine (quoting Édouard de Pomiane's view that it is "a gastronomic cacophony") and Thermidor, as well as bisque, which she calls "without qualification ... the best of all soups".

[124] Her influences were not exclusively European: among those she credited in her Fish Cookery (1973) were Claudia Roden's A Book of Middle Eastern Food, Mary Lamb's New Orleans Cuisine and James Beard's Delights and Prejudices.

She points out that there are more than fifty species native to British waters, not including shellfish or freshwater fish, and she urges cooks to venture beyond "cod and plaice, overcooked and coated with greasy batter".

Grigson emphasises the advantages of good, locally produced food, which she says, is not only better but usually cheaper than that offered by the large commercial concerns: "Words such as 'fresh' and 'home-made' have been borrowed by commerce to tell lies.

Cooke quotes the critic Fay Maschler's view that Grigson "restored pride to the subject of English food and gave evidence that there is a valid regional quality still extant in this somewhat beleaguered cuisine.

[152] The next chapter, dealing with preserved mushrooms, sauces, stuffings, and soups, gives modern and old recipes, including some by Hannah Glasse, Eliza Acton, Marie-Antoine Carême, Hilda Leyel and Grigson's mentor and friend Elizabeth David.

The author does not play down her own likes and dislikes; she praises artichokes[n 16] and asparagus as "the two finest vegetables we can grow",[160] but calls winter turnips and swedes "that grim pair", and admits to a lifelong detestation of kale.

[169] Her publisher wrote that she "re-read favourite novels, re-examined pictures in the great galleries, explored houses, letters, journals, and the cookery books used (or written) by her choice of famous men and women".

Her other examples are from the 18th century (Parson James Woodforde), the cusp of the 18th and 19th (Jane Austen, Thomas Jefferson, and the Rev Sydney Smith), the high-19th (Lord and Lady Shaftesbury, Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola); and on into the 20th "with Marcel Proust in the gourmet's Paris, and Claude Monet among the water-lilies at Giverny".

[169] In the introduction to Evelyn's chapter, Grigson describes his contribution to British food—translating the works of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, promoting ice-houses and recording the earliest example of the pressure cooker.

A 1991 bibliography describes Grigson's section—a 47-page "Anthology of French cooking and kitchen terms"—as "an alphabetic listing of descriptions written in condensed but detailed prose, full of personal observation; almost a little book in itself".

[191] Reviewing the book in Petits Propos Culinaires, Jane Davidson called it "brilliant", adding, "Anecdotes, history, poetry and personal appreciation are all here as well as practical suggestions on how to use both the familiar and less so. ...

[197] Italian recipes include classics such as osso buco with risotto milanese, Parmigiana di melanzane and vitello tonnato,[198] but also grilled eel, sole with Parmesan, tripe with pig's trotters, and lamb sautéed with olives.

[233] This booklet (16 pages) containing six recipes by Grigson, originally published in The Radio Times, was issued to accompany the BBC Television series of the same name, "A calendar of French life in 12 film portraits".

Each section of the booklet has a one or two-page introduction by Grigson relating the recipe to a representative French person shown in the series, from the driver of a TGV to the octogenarian head of a beaujolais wine-growers collective.

In addition to descriptions and some historical notes, Grigson includes practical advice such as, for preparing fegato alla veneziana, "Half-freeze the liver so that it is solid enough to cut into thin, tissue-paper slivers".

There are recipes from writers of the past such as Eliza Acton, Hannah Glasse, Maria Rundell and Auguste Escoffier, and contemporaries including Elizabeth David, Richard Olney, Julia Child, Alice Waters, Antonio Carluccio and Grigson's daughter Sophie.

[246] The recipes are interspersed with Grigson's customary historical background information: there are appearances by Lord Byron, Chaucer, Casanova, Louis XIV, and Evelyn, Sydney Smith and others from Food with the Famous.

Included are some old recipes such as Robert Southey's gooseberry pie and Elizabeth Raffald's orange custards, and many from overseas (redcurrant tart from Austria, strawberry fritters from France, and sweet pumpkin from Turkey) as well as British favourites like summer pudding.

[33] Sophie Grigson writes that her mother "thought food was the key to unlocking life";[6] in the introduction to Good Things, Jane stated: Cooking something delicious is really more satisfactory than painting pictures or throwing pots. ...

Jane Grigson's essays are, however, memorably enlivened by relevant information and quotations from a remarkably wide range of sources—poets, novelists, gardeners, earlier food writers and cookery manuals.

[258]According to the writers Hazel Castell and Kathleen Griffin, Grigson tried to show food within its historical, social and cultural context, which was "at the very heart of life, so it was natural that literature, history and poetry should be included alongside recipes".

[31] Christopher Driver writes: Grigson's range was wider than Elizabeth David's, for it extended from fish and fungi to the exotic fruits and vegetables that arrived on the international market in the eighties.