Friday, 24 October 2008

Culinary History Collection

With the help of some of the Culinary Arts lecturers, Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire and Pat Zaidan amongst others, we are planning on building up a special collection of books and possibly at a later stage artifacts on Culinary History. It's still very much in its infancy with just over 60 titles in the collection at present but already it includes some rare gems and early 1st editions. Highlights:
an 1861 ed. of "Modern cookery for private families" by Eliza Action, "A woman's work is never done" George Vicaires' "Bibliographie Gastronomique" Alexandre Dumas (he of Count of Monte Cristo fame) on food , A copy of "Fancy ices" with the most magnificent cover illustration of a polar bear carrying a tray of sorbets.
My favourite at present is "The good housewife's jewel" by Thomas Dawson which will instruct you how to boil larks, plovers or purtenance, how to bake red deer, hares or porpoises (make sure to take off the skin), how to force a pig, smother a coney or bray gold. Also, and where would any houswife be without these, remedies for tissick, strangurie, for all manner of scabs, for sinews that be broken in two and even a fennel drink "for to make one slender"

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

The road less travelled


one of the magazines (what librarians call journals or periodicals ) that our Library subscribes to is Conde Nast Traveller - a glossy dream on porno-travel coffee table flicker featuring hideaways in the Maldives and hidden gems in Shangri-La. Great fun altogether. In the latest issue there is a lovely anecdote to all this over indulgence in a piece written by Alain de Botton (author of The art of travel) asking us to consider instead...holiday in Heathrow (not just overnight delay i suppose with baggage in Amsterdam) with optional trips to hangers and warehouses meeting baggage handlers, catering staff etc. Treat it he says like visiting a far flung remote civilisation and village. Or what about the Pylon route (as opposed to the Pilgrim route i suppose) following the line of pylons that bring London its electricity from Dungeness. Or an architectural tour of bridges and service stations on the M1. Just don't forget the sun cream.

PS in this same issue are the 2008 readers' travel awards. over 000's of nominations in many categories. The only mention that Ireland gets is at no.20 of favourite countries. Full results in Traveller in the library