The Readable Feast: On Simon Hopkinson's Second Helpings of Roast Chicken

Second Helpings of Roast Chicken
by Simon Hopkinson

If you'd written a book that was voted "the most useful cookbook of all time" by the critics and became a huge bestseller, I bet you'd see about writing another while the fat was still in the fire, so to speak. If you were British chef and author Simon Hopkinson you would, and he did.

His first book, Roast Chicken and Other Stories, was published in 1994 in Great Britain and then followed, in 2001, by the next, Second Helpings of Roast Chicken; we on this side of the pond won't have to wait as long. His first book was published in the U.S. to rave reviews last fall, and now his second is being brought over for us to enjoy.

The opening line of Roast Chicken and Other Stories is: "Good cooking, in the final analysis, depends on two things: common sense and good taste." That's a line that's hard to read without smiling and nodding in agreement. And perhaps shuddering at those instances where you have been presented with cooking which had neither common sense nor good taste. (Think perhaps of some of the more lamentable manifestations of fusion cuisine.)

The opening of this one is not quite as catchy, but early on in the introduction we find a lamentation on the state of British cookery. "Along with many other like-minded folk, I just sometimes feel that we have all but lost the grasp of how to cook nicely at all… Conversely—and irritatingly and maddeningly—as a nation we now possibly buy more cookery books per capita than any other country (bar, perhaps, the US, but I bet you they cook from them more than we do). We watch endless cookery programmes (the primary source of most of those books in the first place) but prefer, finally, to spend lots of money on supermarket ready meals while idly turning the pages of (spotlessly clean) cookery books until the microwave pings." (As I presume the vast majority of you reading this are in the US, please don't get to feeling all smug about your cooking superiority, as there are many who say the same things about American habits as Hopkinson says about his countrymen's.) If you only read the introduction, you'll get more information out of this book than you'll have imagined possible in such a short space, and you may also find yourself walking around the house trying to find someone to read particularly juicy tidbits to.

This new charmer consists of forty-seven sections (which we would call chapters), from "Almonds" to "Vinegar." Each consists of a rather short preface and is followed by three recipes, which are also individually introduced. (And yes, he does include another Chicken chapter, so if you own both books, you'll have six chicken recipes.)

I've selected some morsels from a few of those sections to better whet your appetite: "Almonds": "Once I realized that I was happily destined for cookery for most of my working life, I soon became an expensive little show-off in my patient mother's kitchen."

"Chicken (Southern-Style)": "The only significant preparation known to us Limeys, of course, is Chicken Maryland, with its garnish of fried banana and sweetcorn fritters—never, ever heard of in the US, and particularly not by Marylanders."

"Cocktails": "Enthusiasm is one thing, knowledge and expertise quite another. However, I do know how to make a good drink."

"Fennel": "After all, the law of good cookery demands that if one ever finds oneself cooking something one feels uncomfortable with, it is never going to be particularly special."

"Linguine": "Furthermore, I am absolutely sick and tired of this incessant desire to continually 'garnish' each and every dish with this cretinous coil of twiddled pasta turrets. My, how I loathe them. And then there is this other growing fashion: that witty little raviolo pillow, all plumped up with some nonsense—often wildly inappropriate—and slithering around a huge white soup plate like some demented dodgem car."

"Peas": "When you come to think about it—and most people rarely do—a more perfect frozen vegetable than the pea you could never wish for. Of course, there are some bewildered folk who also buy frozen sprouts, carrots and even cauliflower—and possibly a packet of six frozen ready-risen 'Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire Puddings' too, to cap it all."

"Suet": "When asked questions about traditional British cookery, I am often stumped as to what it really is these days; that tiresome moniker 'Modern British' seems to refer to nothing more than something in a sticky jus surrounded by bits of vegetable garnish and served in huge, deep soup plates."

"Truffles": "The very first Perigord black truffle I ever put in my mouth I ate with sweetened whipped cream. Not a perfect match of flavours, I have to admit. But when you're a sixteen-year-old completely obsessed with cooking and eating (the order is interchangeable)…sneakily snaffling one's first truffle employs a similar mentality to rapidly smoking three No. 6 cigarettes behind the school bike sheds before throwing up all over Martineau."

Second Helpings of Roast Chicken, like a plate of good chips, is addictive. And you needn't have read the first volume to enjoy the second. Though I can't imagine why any American foodie wouldn't want to add both to the night table and savor them both a chapter at a time.

P.S. We are importing and selling the British edition of Second Helpings of Roast Chicken, so the measures are not Americanized. However, fear not: all you'll need is a good kitchen scale to adapt the recipes to your own kitchen. (You might also want a pocket dictionary around if some of the ingredients strike you as strange.) The edition of Roast Chicken and Other Stories you'll find was published in this country, so the measurements are all American.