The Pedant in the Kitchen
by Julian Barnes
Guardian Books, £9.99, pp. 96, ISBN 1843542390

‘I haven’t cooked since the War,’ proclaims the Duchess of Devon- shire in the introduction to her Chatsworth Cookery Book. Though it was put to her that writing a cookery book was, in that case, ‘like a blind woman driving down the M1’, she went ahead with blithe self-confidence. It is audacious for someone who has not cooked in 58 years to collect together her favourite dishes, but not absurd. Dr Johnson said, ‘You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table’, and some of the finest food writers of the past (e.g. Brillat-Savarin) are known more for their discriminating palates and the encouragement they gave their cooks than for their own dexterity with a paring-knife.

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