James A. Beard (1903–1985)

I've had my copy published by Michael Joseph since the dark ages of cookbooks. All cookbooks show their age this one has its credentials in prehistory. And I probably found it at a church fete for 5 cents thirty-five years ago. But it has a few recipes that are gold and I still use them and they sustained weekday family meals for many years.

The other day the book came off the shelf so that my youngest could make macaroni cheese. He'd just finished university exams and needed something high show more fat, high carb to celebrate. 'Mac n cheese' fitted the mood perfectly. His older brother returned home after 18 months working in another city and they piled on it serving themselves several times. It brought good cheer and closer bonds between the two of them than I'd ever seen. Well the food helped, as did the absence. For anyone interested in Mac n Cheese, and you should be, Beard's recipe elevates this humble staple as close as possible to haute cuisine for such a dish.

The Portuguese fish soup of chopped up swordfish, broth, a little tomato, orzo and a little lemon is so good, it helped us through many winter nights as the kids were growing up. The only way I could get fish on the menu.

The pesto, fettuccine with courgettes, light tomato sauce, tomato with mushrooms, fried aubergine, gnocchi formed the backbone of domestic consumption during the early years. The carbonara is distinctly regional, meaning American, by fielding ham instead of guanciale or pancetta (or bacon). So I never used it.

For the retro-stylists among us, cold pasta salads instantly transport anyone back to the 1980s, if not the 1970s. I may try one or two of these one day.

There's a nod here to the other regional pasta users - the Greeks with Orzo and Roasted lamb tomato (yiouvetsi) and the big hitting pasticcio, noodle recipes from the east, spatzle from Central Europe. Authentic? Who cares!

It's a lot of fun, of its time, worth looking at when you're tired of the various food ideologies around these days. It's lifestyle, sure. But of another era. Look for it in church fetes and charity shops. I'm looking out for a copy for each of the boys, for their dowry. It's true, Beard was a big man and he probably ate too much (it comes through in the writing that he ate what he researched) that it probably led to his medical downfall. But, hey, we live once, I bet Beard lived well. He got an award named after him. Not many of us get that! show less

I opened this book and scanned the TOC and said, "What? No grouse?"

Well it turns out that the original book, published in 1944 as "Fowl and Game Cookery", included grouse, along with "squirrel, possum, raccoon, skunk and other four-footed game". Grouse and game were dropped for the 1979 edition because they were no longer available to the average person.

So here we come to the problem of reissuing older cookbooks. Do you copy the original book or update it? I bought a book not too long ago show more that was about a famous food writer post-WW2. The recipes had been updated by a young woman chef whose mother was only a twinkle when the recipes were written. The update was ridiculous and totally unneeded. Anyone who does not know that people cooked differently back then is woefully uninformed.

Here the revisions are not so heavy handed. Beard himself made the first changes in 1979, dropping the mammals and increasing the number of chicken and turkey recipes. The grouse flew away then.

This Open Road edition seems to be from 1999 and I am not sure that it, of all the editions, is the one I would have chosen. In 1999 few people had access to the wealth of hand-reared birds we have today. I am also put off by the 1999 editor's note that butter and cream had been reduced. Phooey on that. I think the 1999 edition was chosen because it has an intro by Julia Child. Younger readers who might not know of James Beard will be attracted by the mention of Julia Child. (It is a bit of a scam that the same intro used in the other books in the 1999 series.) I would rather read about the skunk.

This is not a modern cookbook. It is not chatty. It is not full of recipes from exotic places. It is not bloated with big pictures. Recipes, ma'am, just recipes. Recipes for excellent food in the style of a bygone era of American cooking.

I received a review copy of "Beard on Birds" by James Beard (Open Road Integrated Media) through NetGalley.com. The original book was published in 1944 and has been revised and reissued in 1979, 1989, 1999, and 2001. show less

I'm always astonished by what this book turns out to have in it that is nowhere else: sweet and sour sturgeon, raw apple cake (the best use ever for slightly aged apples in the fruit bowl), on and on. Plus all the great stories.

There are some unique and elegant menus in here, but there are a greater number of so-so and unappealing menus as well. Some of the menus call for ingredients that are not seasonally compatible. Or, in a menu featuring a variety of fish-on-toast slathered in what is basically a lightened mayonnaise, he suggests shrimp dipped in aoili as a first course. A lot of the menus are like this. Not very well rounded. This is an old cookbook, 1962 or thereabouts. And it is an old American cookbook, so show more the treatment of vegetables wavers between careless and outright neglectful.

That said, most of the individual recipes--especially the fish recipes--are worth the trip to the library. But this isn't a really necessary edition to your cookbook collection. show less