The Oxford Companion to Food by
Alan Davidson
Great Reading, Some Odd Omissions. No Recipes.
Alan Davidsons Oxford Companion to Food has been over 20 years in the
assembling, but here it is; and it is superlatively worth the wait. In fact,
superlatives fall silent. A huge and authoritative dictionary of 2,650 entries
on just about every conceivable foodstuff, seasoning, cuisine, cooking
method, historical survey, significant personage, and explication of myth, it
is supplemented by some 40 longer articles on key items. Davidson
himself (no relation to this reviewer) contributes approximately 80 percent
of the 2,650 entries, thereby guaranteeing high levels of erudition,
readability, and deadpan feline wit. Since this is a monument intended to
last, nothing so frivolous as a recipe is included. A decision taken early in
the development of the project to abjure issues whose significance is
largely topical has also ensured an agreeable high-mindedness--nothing
on those crucial but essentially dreary topics of BSE and GM foods, for
example. If a fault could be found, it would only be that its often difficult to
read to the end of an entry, as the abundant cross-referencing all too

easily sends one off to another entry, thence bouncing off to another, and
all too soon the original is forgotten. A random alphabet of seductions
might include: Aardvark, Botulism, Cup Cake, David (Elizabeth), Enzymes,
Fat-Tailed Sheep, Gender/Sex and Food, Hallucinogenic Mushrooms, Ice
Cream Sundae, Jewish Dietary Laws, Kangaroos, Lobscouse, Microwave
Cooking, Norway, Offal, Puffin, Queen of Puddings, Roti, Scurvy, Termite
Heap Mushroom (or Taillevant), Umeboshi, Vegetarianism, Washing up (a
very elegant little article), sadly no X, Yin-yang, and Zabaglione. As this
might show, Alan Davidsons aim, borrowed from Dumass great Grand
Dictionnaire de Cuisine, that his work would appeal not only to persons of
serious character but also those of a much lighter disposition, is utterly
fulfilled. --Robin Davidson, Amazon.co.uk
Personal Review: The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan
Davidson
`The Oxford Companion to Food', edited by the noted English culinary
writer and diplomat, Alan Davidson is a foody reader's compendium to lots
of interesting articles about sources, history, some people, and most
places regarding food and drink. It is quite properly named a `companion'
rather than an `encyclopedia', since, unlike the seemingly similar
`Larousse Gastronomique', it contains no recipes whatsoever. This is not
an accident or oversight, as Davidson clearly states in the introduction that
this was an editorial policy from the outset.
This book has a distinctly British flavor about it with its selection of article
topics. While there is an excellent longish article on Elizabeth David, easily
the most important British food writer of the 20th century, there are no
articles on either Julia Child or James Beard, the two most popular and
well known American food writers. Alternately, there is an excellent article
on M. F. K. David who is much less well known even among Americans.
Child and Beard are mentioned but once at the end of an article on
American cookbook writing. This choice is an excellent symptom of what
this book is all about. It is not about cooking so much as the writing about
food culture. While Child and Beard were cookbook writers par excellence,
David and Fisher dealt less with food than they did with appetites,
impressions, scholarship, and recollections?
The book is oddly selective in other ways. It has an article of goodly length
on H. J. Heinz, but nothing on Milton Hershey. These two men are, in the
United States, of at least equal renown; they were contemporaries, and
both set up their businesses in Pennsylvania at about the same time.
Another oddity is the fact that there is an article on Nepal, where, I
suspect, very little grows, but no article on Senegal on the west coast of
Africa and the ancestral home of many slaves brought to the new world
and, therefore, the source of many food memories which contributed to
`soul food' cuisine.
This is not to say this is not a valuable book. Many articles give fuller
coverage to many culinary subjects than even books that specialize in

some subjects. Two sidebar articles on pasta and chilis, for example, give
fuller lists of the varieties of these two items than many good cookbooks on
the subject. The pasta article is also careful to indicate the regionality of
the names of some pasta shapes. I believe the pasta article, for one, could
have been even better if it had given us pictures of the various shapes. I
really feel that Orecchiette doesn't really look like ears, even though all
texts describing it always say it does.
The book also avoids some common mistakes with accurate information
on, for example, the components of the sharp vapors from a cut onion.
Unlike lots of simpler minds, the article on same points out that these
tearing fumes are really composed of many different components, which is
part of the reason why most methods for avoiding them don't work.
The book is so dedicated to it's no recipe policy that it doesn't even give us
articles on some basic preparations such as `buerre blanc'. It also does not
even include recipes for such basics as mayonnaise or pesto.
This book is very good, but it is not as valuable a culinary resource as the
aforementioned `Larousse Gastronomique' which provides thousands of
basic recipes and pictures for just about everything imaginable, including
uniforms of Renaissance culinary guild members. This book is also a bit
pricy, listing at close to the price of a copy of Larousse. So, if you are a
foody who must own every notable book on food, then buy this. But, if you
are only interested in books to help you cook, get the Larousse. Note that
the paperback version of this volume is published by Penguin and is
therefore known as `The Penguin Companion to Food'.
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