The Pedant in the Kitchen - Julian Barnes

I have epic love for Julian Barnes, his writing hits all the right notes with me. He's poetical and dry and witty and really literary and clever yet nothing at all resembling a butthead. Read my earlier review of his amazing book Arthur & George, then go read Arthur & George. This is the first non-fiction book I've reviewed here and indeed read in years (if we don't count boring uni stuff - and let's not). But I was happy to pick this up and put the three other books I was reading down because a) it's Barnes and he's my literary version of Bear Grylls - I'm strangely but completely addicted; b) it was two bucks at Co-op and I would have been happy to pay up to $5 for a Barnes with the crazy warp and bent cover I was awarded as a bonus; and c) it's a book about cooking, and I like cooking.

The title is pretty intriguing too - pedants in kitchens is something I know everyone is familiar with but I wasn't sure how on earth you'd write a book about it. And I was pretty darn pleased with the results of my investigation. Barnes was as sparkly and delightful as usual in his writing and since he turned out to be The Pedant in the Kitchen I was pleased to see some glimpses of his life and forge an understanding of his personality a bit better through his relationship with food and cooking. It's probably a maxi somewhere but I bet you can tell a whole lot about people by looking at their attitude about cooking, in much the same way as you can surmise whether someone is good or evil depending on if they prefer cats or dogs, Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, Jacob or Edward.


Barnes is the titular Pedant which means he is a perfectionist in the kitchen and believes in the truth claims made by cookery books and follows recipes down to the last letter, gram and degree. So The Pedant in the Kitchen is really the story of Barnes the writer, reader and amateur cook, reading and reviewing the cook books and recipes that have influenced or inspired him. So we find he loves Jane Grigson, becomes frustrated with Nigel Slater and finds comfort in the old-fashioned charms of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Other than recipes that just don't work because household kitchens aren't anything like those in restaurants, what Barnes the Pedant is actually fighting against is the vocabulary of cooking. He calls for a more accurate dialect that can actually indicate what a 'pinch', a 'heap' a 'slug' and  a 'handful' actually equate to in terms of chilli, salt or blueberries.


Though I don't agree that a lot of reform is needed - actually I don't think any is needed, I'm the exact opposite of Barnes in the kitchen, being physically, mentally and emotionally unable to follow a recipe exactly - I really liked that Barnes' book about cooking, a non-fiction memoir sort of book about cooking, showed all the same preoccupations as his fiction. The playfulness masking quite an ingrained struggle for truth is here. A sort of metaphysical  game of hide and seek with the value of words. It's cool and I'm not even sure he knew he was doing it in The Pedant in the Kitchen. If he didn't it makes it even cooler. That, and that there's no mention of Nigella Lawson - I don't know if this book was too early to fall under the siren's call of her cooking shows / books / life or if Barnes just never bothered with her. I guess we won't until I read it in his memoir. My favourite part of the whole thing was actually the dedication- 'To She For Whom The Pedant Cooks' which became 'She For Whom' throughout the book where Barnes was The Pedant. That's pretty nice don't you think?

***^/***** (3.5 stars for an easy as pie, light and fluffy read)