My well thumbed, tatty, but very precious 1973 version of Leaves.

I have just heard that this wonderful book of recipes for cooking vegetables , which is in my top ten of cookbooks of all time, is about to be republished.
It was written, three generations apart, by Janet Ross and Michael Waterfield.
Let me first of all make clear my own interest.

Sile and I worked in “The Wife of Bath” in Wye in Kent in the 1970s.
There Michael Waterfield was chef, proprietor and friend to us both.
For Christmas 1975 he gave us a copy of this book (writing, to my great pride, on the flyleaf ; To Martin and Sile in thanks for leaving your native shores and coming to help and cheer us…)

So it has a certain personal resonance with me but, on any judgment, it is a marvellous and important cookbook. The fact that it has been constantly reprinted since it’s first edition in 1899 indicates its treasured place on any serious cooks bookshelf.

Michael Waterfield’s great great great Aunt, Janet Ross lived in Settignano, close to Florence, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Her villa, Poggio Gherardo, was a grand and historic villa, in which Boccaccio had set part of the Decameron.

No mean lady of letters herself, she was friend and grand dame of the artistic and ex-patriot set in Florence at that time.
Well used to literary friends and relations,(she is reputed to have refused to tie Tennyson’s shoe lace as a child) she herself presided over a literary salon in the villa, entertaining people like E M Forster, D H Lawrence and Sir Harry Luke.

There is a fascinating description of her and her villa in Kinta Beevor’s memoir , A Tuscan Childhood.

Ironically Janet Ross may well not have invented any of the vegetable recipes in this little book.
She freely admits that they were written under the direction of Giuseppe Volpi, the chef in Poggio Gherardo, and gives him pride of place with his portrait, by Hallam Murray, reproduced at the front of the book.

Giuseppe Volpi

The book is a recipe book for vegetables, simply but deliciously cooked, vegetables which would , without shame, be produced as a course on their own. (And when was the last time, even in France, that one has seen that happen?)

It could not be reprinted at a more opportune time.
We are suffering from a superabundance of proteins in our restaurants at the moment. The starring role is inevitably meat or fish with the poor veg relegated to the very minor role of garnish. Nowadays it is not strange to be given a single small turned potato and a teaspoon of beautifully cooked but scarce spinach as the vegetable section of a meal.

As a grumpy and now retired restaurateur the criticism most often levelled to me about modern restaurants is that they no longer serve dishes of vegetables with a meal.
The best effort seems to be the ghastly demi-lune saucer with four separate vegetables cooked, as the French would scathingly put it, A La Anglais, that is boiled in water.

Just let me finish by quoting a recipe for Cabbage from this book.
I tried this first in the seventies and it was an eye-opener then.
My previous experience of Cabbage would have been the green slick which, with its foul odours of sulphur, would have been sloshed next to the bacon in a watery mound for lunch.
(There is a story that people at mass on a Sunday would tell one another that they “put down” the Cabbage before they left to have it well cooked for “the dinner”)

Imagine then my surprise when I met and cooked cabbage this way;

Cavolo alla Panna

Cut one large Cabbage in four and remove the stalks.
Shred the leaves across, not too finely.
Wash in cold water.
Put in a pan of boiling salted water for ten minutes.
Drain well.
Return to the pan and add;
½ pint thin cream, salt pepper nutmeg, and 1 dessert spoon of grated horseradish.
Cover the pan with a lid and finish cooking gently.
When nearly cooked remove the lid and boil fiercely to reduce.

The result is ambrosial.

As I said at the beginning the book is just about to be republished and they are already accepting orders for it .
Be first in the queue.

The 2006 edition, brought up to date by Michael Waterfield.
(I’m going to buy this copy too)
Available from Grub Street