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Title: Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels (Patrick O'Brian) by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman, Lisa Grossman Thomas, Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0-393-32094-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: not just for aubrey fans
Comment: When I started reading the Patrick O'Brian novels I spent a lot of time wondering what Captain Jack and the crew were eating. Drowned Baby? Spotted Dog? I was mystified and then someone told me about Lobscouse and Spotted Dog and I bought it. This cookbook is a marvelous companion to the novels and it stands on it's own as both a cookbook and a cultural artifact. Anthropologists and folklorists know that you can learn a lot about a culture by eating its food and after trying Admiral's Flip and grog (powerful stuff!) I got as close to the Napoleonic era Royal Navy as I would ever dare. This is a brilliant, amusing very well written achievement.
Rating: 5
Summary: Killick there! Another serve of drowned baby!
Comment: Which I've just got it for you here, ain't I?
If you are a fan of the Aubrey/Maturin naval fiction novels of Patrick O'Brian, there is one theme underscoring the appearance of Captain Jack Aubrey RN, and that is food, whether it be the weevilly sea biscuit and salt horse of the midshipmans' berth or the prodigious dishes served in the great cabin aft.
They are wonderful dishes with wonderful names. drowned baby is a dessert. Sea pie contains no fish. Spotted dog is not a dalmation. We are given tantalising glimpses into their nature, but recipes are not to be had. Patrick O'Brian was a wizard with words, but no cook.
The deficiency is rectified in this invaluable companion to the canon. Every dish is tracked down and recreated. The authors not only give the recipe, but tell you precisely how to do it for those unfamiliar with the utensils and methods (and ingredients) of a bygone age.
I cannot recommend this book too highly, but I must issue a hearty warning. Do not partake of the dishes described without at least a dozen mates to help you eat them! Or you will wind up as stout as Captain Jack.
And mind you lay in a good stock of madeira, sillery and port for atmosphere.
A glass of wine with you, dear reader!
Rating: 5
Summary: Another superb port of call in O'Brian's wonderful voyages
Comment: I once knew a lady who had a vast collection of cookbooks. She read them, too, even if she indulged in little adventurous cooking. I often wondered how one could find entertainment reading recipes - was the recreation as adventurous as poring over the instructions for assembling a barbecue pit one was not going to assemble?
Perhaps if I had peeked into her cookbooks I would have discovered some enchanting prose among the recipes, as I have in "Lobscouse & Spotted Dog". Open the book anywhere ... Aah, here on page 92 is the recipe for drowned baby, also called boiled baby, introduced by this passage from "The Nutmeg of Consolation":
"The gunroom feast for the Captain was if anything more copious than that of the day before. The gunroom cook, by means known to himself alone, had conserved the makings of a superb suet pudding of the kind called boiled baby in the service, known to be Jack Aubrey's favourite form of food, and it came in on a scrubbed scuttle-cover to the sound of cheering."
Sure, I read this passage during my several reads of "Nutmeg", but standing here alone it seems to sparkle with more clarity. Now I clearly see the pudding, gliding in on a scrubbed wooden hatch cover (to the surprise of no one there) and I thrill to the sound of cheering.
Here, once again, the perfect team has stepped forward to contribute an enchanting and tantalizing contribution to the Aubrey/Maturin series. A daunting task it must have been for this multi-talented mother and daughter (sailboaters, too, they are), to unearth and translate into modern terms the scores of recipes found in this book, to translate the contemporary equivalents of their ingredients.
And, in addition to its being seasoned with exquisite excerpts from the novels, we are served a selection of the songs encountered in the stories - words and music.
While you are satisfying your literary and musical appetites, you can sample some of these recipes. I found I could actually create the ones I've tried. To think that now I've figuratively dined with Aubrey and Maturin ("There you are, Doctor. Good morning."), Tom Pullings, William Babbington, Mowett ...
What is it about Patrick O'Brian's writing that so challenges and inspires readers of such fine tastes and writing ability of their own? First, it was A.E. Cunningham, who edited "Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and a Bibliography", a wonderfully enlightening collection of articles published not too long after the O'Brian wave swept ashore.
Then came Dean King with "A Sea of Words", his splendid glossary of everything we couldn't fathom in O'Brian's sea stories. With John B. Hattendorf, King followed with "Harbors & High Seas," a desperately needed atlas and geographical guide to the stories. And right on the heels of those came this beautiful work of art, a cookbook like no other. Happily, I have not observed evidence of an opportunist at work among those contributing to O'Brian's legacy.
"Lobscouse & Spotted Dog" is another brilliant achievement, infinitely worthy of standing at muster alongside the O'Brian stories and the other contributions to them. Authors Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas have labored mightily to assemble these recipes, and to season them with such delicate care. That much is evident even to the meanest understanding. Patrick O'Brian himself recognized the quality of this work and provided its apt foreword. Not surprisingly, publisher W.W. Norton put it all together very nicely.
A glass of wine with you, my dears. And let us also raise a toast to my Amazon.com friend who knew, just KNEW, that I would love your book.
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