The qualities that make a good cookbook are as subjective as those of any creative output. Some people prefer ornate prose and a healthy dose of memoir interspersed with gentle invitations to take inspiration from the author’s own cooking. Others seek out the austere and didactic – culinary textbooks with scientific methods and nothing superfluous. One-pot wonders and baking tray dinners are popular with many home cooks for a reason – easing the mid-week grind of family feeding – but depth and complexity draw crowds too, and some people are quite happy to pull out every pot, pan, and utensil (as well as all the stops) for a special occasion.
The Changing Tides is a new cookbook by Edinburgh restaurateur Roberta Hall-McCarron (of The Little Chartroom), which sets out to celebrate Scottish seasonal produce and the joy of convivial dining. The book follows the tried-and-tested formula of presenting recipes across four chapters dedicated to the seasons. It lands squarely at the more complex chef-y end of the spectrum, and although the reader is encouraged to curate a ‘showstopper’ dinner party menu from each chapter’s offerings, many combinations would see you in the kitchen for hours, and leave you washing up for almost as long as you’d cooked.
The photography is beautiful and the eclectic recipes are leanly written so as to focus on ingredients and method over florid description. The seasonal chapters are bookended by invaluable sections on Skills (think shucking an oyster and tying a game bird) and Core Recipes (e.g. stocks and rough puff pastry) – giving this book the feel of an apprenticeship at Hall-McCarron’s apron strings in the kitchens of the Little Chartroom.
And therein lies the rub. This is a book brimming with culinary potential - comprising the kind of flavour-forward produce-led cooking I love to see when eating out. The issue for the home cook, however, is that many of the recipes read as though they are geared toward professional kitchens. In restaurants, for example, 1KG of langoustine shells is a byproduct just waiting to be reborn as a bisque (as it is in Hall-McCarron’s Red Mullet with Langoustine Sauce) - at home, it’s an awkward domestic freezer-filler. A recipe for Haggis Sausage Roll begins with making your own haggis, and whilst I am all for learning new skills and luxuriating over the stove (not slaving) – my enthusiasm for making my own haggis as a component of another dish (which itself is a component of a larger menu), before serving, clearing, and cleaning up, is limited.
This is a book which brings together the knowledge and experience of an accomplished chef with classic flavours and quality produce. The dishes I cooked turned out beautifully – Coffee and Chocolate Mousse a personal highlight, and well worth what felt at the time like an excessively complicated method.
While much of the book is far from simple, and ‘midweek one pot meals’ this is not, I can highly recommend the book to chefs and chef-y types with the time and inclination – especially if they let me be their taster.
