The Voice Of The Chef

The idea of ‘voice’ in writing seems a bit odd if you stop to think about it. Consider: you’re reading this sentence. No-one is actually saying anything. What voice are you hearing in your head? It’s very unlikely it will be my Essex-via-East-Anglia twang. It’s more likely to be some version of the way you talk—unless I’ve been artful enough to use slang, idiom or odd turns of phrase to somehow get you hearing me. There’s a real trick to that, and I ain’t sure I’ve mastered it yet.

The idea of voice in a cookbook seems even more peculiar. I mean, how do you get a recipe to sound like your favourite celebrity chef—especially when so many of them are co-written with a group of testers and editors? Accuracy, many would argue, is more important than a winning turn of phrase. Clarity above chatty.

This means that, for the most part, cookery books are really dull to read. Full of great pics and delicious food, sure, but if you’re a fan of, say, Gordon Ramsay (I am assured such people exist) you will find little evidence of his sweary, fast-talking style in any of his many volumes. Everything is very careful, very precise and deeply, horribly boring.

Many TV chefs with big, distinctive personalities onscreen have the same problem, muted and bland on the page. Rick Stein, John Torode, Tom Kerridge, even the lovely Nadiya Hussein bring little of themselves to their cookbooks.

There are very few cookery books which I read for pleasure, enjoying the voice of the chef as it unspools in my head. And I speak as someone who owns a shoulder-high stack of the things. Quite literally. They’re nice to browse through when I’m looking for something yummy for dinner but otherwise—meh.

Would I lie to you?

It’s not all bad news. I have to mention The Pukka Prince, Jamie Oliver, whose books hum with his Essex vibe, even after dozens of volumes. We can’t forget the two original queens of TV cookery, Delia Smith and Madhur Jaffrey, whose books you cannot help but read in their gentle, nurturing tones.

Their spiritual successor, Nigella (I reckon she’s at the level where we can dispense with surnames) has the balance about right. Her books bulge with sensuous prose, ripe with colour and scent and flavour. She does not shirk from describing the burnished gold of properly caramelised onion, or the way fat dances on frying pancetta. Nigella goes all in on the sensory experience. At her most lush, she can make your head spin.

For me, it’s some of the lesser-known cooks who bring us their best between the covers (of a book, you pervs). As a massive fan of thrifty goddess Jack Monroe, I find half the pleasure in her recipes is the personality she imbues in them, right down to the way she carefully explains cookery terms like ‘make a well’ for those readers who may be a little unsure of the meaning. She’ll even slip jokes into the recipes, which is an outlier—humour is surprisingly hard to find in cookbooks. Another Essex denizen. I could be accused of bias.

Similarly, Hasan Semay T/A Big Has brings his big, loud personality to the big bold flavours of his cooking. It’s Norf Lundon Turkish style all the way. Has writes like he talks—the recipes in his book read as if he’s just yelled them down the phone at ya, bruv. Big Has Home is worth checking out as we roll into barbecue season—it’s rock your grill righteousness.

I sometimes wonder how MLK Fisher, whose post-war books like How To Cook A Wolf are acknowledged peaks in the food writing scene, would have come across on TV. I like to hope her dry wit, razor-sharp observation, honesty and warmth would have translated nicely. I believe she would have been a bit of a star.

We also have to mention Anthony Bourdain, who came at foody godhood in the opposite direction—writer first, telly second. Kitchen Confidential set the tone. We already knew he could write. The personality was part of the package. He’d successfully written himself onto our internal monitors. His swashbuckling Noo Yawk swagger was set up well before he strutted onto the screen.

This brings me onto the cook (he’d never call himself a chef) who got me into cooking in the first place. Nigel Slater holds the title of the writer with most volumes in my Big Stack O’ Cookbooks. He has gently moved away from the rigid constriction of recipes, preferring to set up a set of guidelines towards something good to eat. I think he was the first to understand and communicate how every kitchen is different, no hob or oven heating at predictable rates. He taught me to relax, enjoy the time I spent in the kitchen and focus on flavour rather than technique.

Although he’s been a feature on food telly for years, I don’t think it’s the medium in which he shines. He always seems a bit diffident, a little shy. His recent sojourns around the Middle East showed a different side to Nigel, an explorer and advocate of the home cook and the humble kitchen. In a house full of Lebanese or Egyptian woman all chattering away while assembling a feast he seems to come to life—more enthusiastic, more open, more relaxed. This is the Nigel I see in his books, trying out different ideas, playing with new ingredients, always ready with a cheeky smile and a smutty joke (trust me, there are moments in Real Cooking which are snort-through-your-nose filthy).

I guess we have to accept a lot of celebrity chefs are not writers. Their strengths are the reasons we buy their books, but we get little of the person in exchange. It’s so good to find writers who can also cook and are able to bring more of their personality to their recipes and food. That’s a real treat for all the senses.