Book Review - The Fat Duck

Hope everyone had a jolly festive season and received all the love, food and presents that they desired. In my presents this year I received a copy of Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck tome, which I have had on my wish list for a while now.

Now you might wonder why a vegan home cook would have any interest in the writings of a celebrity meat eating chef with a successful business where each diner has to pay half a week's minimum wage just for a meal before wine, a phenomenon that has informed restaurant food in the UK and the rest of the world for the last 10 years but has almost no application in everday cookery, where the food is poncified to an extreme state and where reservations are taken two months in advance and are most probably fully booked by half past nine on the first Monday of the next month.

Really it is precisely for all the reasons I've listed above that I needed the book. A committed vegan is never going to be able to dine at the restaurant, even the few token veggie dishes are laden with eggs and cheese and even if I could somehow persuade Heston to make an exception for me and create an animal free tasting menu I could never afford it, so the only way I can get a taste of his cooking (and of his brigade of 40 or so staff) is virtually. I can read the book and analyse the recipes and note anything that might add to the vegan cooking canon by virtue of its originality or concept. The experience might be vicarious but it's still valid, it can enhance my food skills and knowledge just as having a meal in the restaurant might do.

There is another reason. Heston isn't mad but he is driven and compulsive in his approach to cooking and that in itself is something that fascinates me; that I can admire because it so far removed from my own rather pared down approach. It is so over the top that it's half way down the other side and that makes for the sort of novelty that can hold my interest. I am captivated by his determination.

This is not to say that everything about the Fat Duck, the book and Heston's public person meets with my entire approval. The restaurant is, as noted above, heavy on the animal products and somewhat exclusive. Some of the television programmes have been annoyingly poor, with scientific and culinary errors that have had me (and the Mr.) shouting at the screen nearly as loudly as we do for Delia.

Anyway, to the book. This is the reduced version of the original Big Fat Duck cookbook that retailed for around £125 last year. I'm not sure what's missing, if anything.

This edition contains an autobiographical section, a recipe section containing many of his more renowned dishes (which presumably are being pensioned off) and a scientific section which I have yet to read. There are also rather a lot of pictures of the man, a good many high quality illustrations which sadly add very little to the experience and some excellent photos of food which is the bit that I need, the visual element of the meal I'm trying to grasp through the literature. Sadly there is no scratch and sniff nor audio chips embedded so that the full sensory experience can be shared.