The British kitchen door is wide open these days, it seems. For five years Alastair Little and Richard Whittington—a chef and a food-writer—jointly wrote a weekly newspaper column in which they addressed a huge variety of cookery questions sent in by readers. The thousands of letters they received have borne fruit in the Daily Mail Modern British Cookbook, a highly eclectic and wide-ranging collection of recipes, advice and "kitchen know-how" that demonstrates just how broad Britain's taste in food and cookery is these days. We all know why this should be—travel, television, new types of restaurants opening all the time—-but it's fascinating to see it reflected in this way. Ingredients range from ackee (Jamaica) to zampone (Italy); explanations of cooking methods run from a thoughtful account of the theory and practice of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to Cantonese Roast Duck, in which the skin of the bird is inflated with a bicycle pump then glazed with maltose ("a strange thick purplish substance that looks like hair gel"). Between these extremes lie over 500 recipes and dozens of tips. Even the simplest recipes rarely fail to illuminate what are often very well-known dishes. Ultimately, perhaps, the authors' intention is really to teach us to be better cooks, not simply slavish followers of brass-bound formulae. —Robin Davidson

For apparently no very good reason, except that he wants to, Loyd Grossman publishes a collection of The 125 Best Recipes. And why not? It is a highly agreeable book, an anthology of favourite recipes from favourite food writers. The recipes are published as they first appeared, with comments and explanations from Grossman. There is little point in quibbling over the criteria for inclusion: no doubt anyone could come up with hundreds of recipes just as good, but these are all excellent. They comprise, as Grossman explains, "my hit parade of recipes I think no cook should be without". Among the most pleasurable aspects of this book may bethe discovery (if one didn't already know it) that, away from the inanities of Masterchef, and in print, where the mysteries of his strangulated Bostonian accent form no barrier to comprehension, Loyd Grossman is a witty, civilised and immensely knowledgeable companion, with great taste.He draws on an impressively wide range of cooks from around the world,including just about all the top-flight writers one has ever heardof—David, Grigson, Mosimann, Robuchon, del Conte, Hazan, Blanc, among dozens of others, all first-rate, including the remarkable Sheila Ferguson, an American cook and author who moonlighted as the lead singer of the Three Degrees.—Robin Davidson