The Gentleman's Companion Volume I

Rating:
Summary: Gentleman's Companion or Experiences of the Grand Bon Vivant
Review: I first chanced upon this two-volume collection of recipes almost thirty years ago when I was a student at the University of South Florida, and I became immediately enamoured of it. The author, one Charles Henry Baker, Jr., describes anecdotally how he (seemingly) spent the better part of the 1920s and 1930s drinking and eating his way around the world - several times, rubbing elbows with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Frank Buck, Douglas Fairbanks and other adventurers of the time.

In his far-ranging travels, Baker ferreted out the most intriguing and exotic restaurants and watering holes of the time from Shanghai to Key West, assiduously recording and compiling receipts (as he calls recipes) and concoctions galore. Baker shares these recipes with the reader in the form of well-detailed and often amusing remembrances of his first and sometimes subsequent encounters with the dish or drink. Many of the establishments he visited and chronicled are now legendary or nostalgically remembered. From the Raffles Hotel in Singapore to Shepperds in Cairo to the Grand Bretagne in Athens, Baker paints the reader an epicure's picture of a very different time and world long lost to us.

Although his prose were probably somewhat tortured even in the 1930s when the book was first published, they make for interesting if not amusing reading today. In fact, Baker's style as a raconteur amplifies and potentiates his narrative of those long-ago experiences, and his sheer enjoyment of life pushes through even the most obscure verbiage. This man was a giant among bon vivants. He lived life to the fullest and with such flair and conviction that one cannot help but be envious - if not in awe - of his exploits and adventures.

Baker, an interesting character, was born in 1895, and when not travelling, hung out down in Coconut Grove - way back when it really was a Bohemian artist's place to be. He was at various times a writer for the old Town and Country and Esquire magazines, penned a few other collections, once even tried his hand at a novel, and he is still quoted in the drink-crafting tomes. But first and foremost - without a doubt - Baker was the Grand Bon Vivant

Rating:
Summary: Gentleman's Companion or Experiences of the Grand Bon Vivant
Review: I first chanced upon this two-volume collection of recipes almost thirty years ago when I was a student at the University of South Florida, and I became immediately enamoured of it. The author, one Charles Henry Baker, Jr., describes anecdotally how he (seemingly) spent the better part of the 1920s and 1930s drinking and eating his way around the world - several times, rubbing elbows with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Frank Buck, Douglas Fairbanks and other adventurers of the time.

In his far-ranging travels, Baker ferreted out the most intriguing and exotic restaurants and watering holes of the time from Shanghai to Key West, assiduously recording and compiling receipts (as he calls recipes) and concoctions galore. Baker shares these recipes with the reader in the form of well-detailed and often amusing remembrances of his first and sometimes subsequent encounters with the dish or drink. Many of the establishments he visited and chronicled are now legendary or nostalgically remembered. From the Raffles Hotel in Singapore to Shepperds in Cairo to the Grand Bretagne in Athens, Baker paints the reader an epicure's picture of a very different time and world long lost to us.

Although his prose were probably somewhat tortured even in the 1930s when the book was first published, they make for interesting if not amusing reading today. In fact, Baker's style as a raconteur amplifies and potentiates his narrative of those long-ago experiences, and his sheer enjoyment of life pushes through even the most obscure verbiage. This man was a giant among bon vivants. He lived life to the fullest and with such flair and conviction that one cannot help but be envious - if not in awe - of his exploits and adventures.

Baker, an interesting character, was born in 1895, and when not travelling, hung out down in Coconut Grove - way back when it really was a Bohemian artist's place to be. He was at various times a writer for the old Town and Country and Esquire magazines, penned a few other collections, once even tried his hand at a novel, and he is still quoted in the drink-crafting tomes. But first and foremost - without a doubt - Baker was the Grand Bon Vivant

Rating:
Summary: BEST KEPT SECRET
Review: THIS IS A GREAT COLLECTION OF RECIPES,GATHERED FROM AROUND A NOT SO POLITICALLY CORRECT WORLD.EXCELLENT VARIETY OF SELECTIONS.THTRE WERE ACTUALLY THREE TWO VOLUME BOXED SETS. THERE WAS AN ORIGINAL SET, A REVISED SET AND A "SOUTH AMERICAN SET". EACH RECIPE HAS A STORY ABOUT THE ORIGINATOR AND HOW AND WHERE THE RECIPE ORININATED.STORIES OF EATING MUSHROOMS SMETANA IN A BAR IN SHANGHI,WHILE SIPPING ON AN ICE COLD MARTINI,FOR EXAMPLE.VOLUME I IS TRADITIONALLY FOOD; VOLUME II IS STRICTLY LIBATIONS.TWO EXCELLENT SELECTIONS ARE ST.CECELIA SOCIETY PUNCH AND FISH HOUSE PUNCH. SOMETIMES THE CONTENTS CAN BE A CHALLENGE IE. "WALNUT KETSUP" OR A "PONY" OF PEACH BRANDY. ALL IN ALL A TERRIFIC READ AND THE RECIPES WORK.