The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

by Robert Farrar Capon

Overview

From the gifted chef and Episcopalian priest Robert F. Capon comes “one of the funniest, wisest, and most unorthodox cookbooks ever written.” —(New York Times)

Writing with a light and easy style that belies his gusto for food and for life, Father Capon has produced a wholly delightful book that is filled with the wisdom of a man in harmony with himself, his world, and, as 'The Supper of the Lamb' amply demonstrates, with his table.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429931380
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	10/01/1989
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	295 KB

About the Author

Robert F. Capon is the author of Supper of the Lamb.

Read an Excerpt

Supper of the Lamb
PREFACEOnce upon a time, there was a musician who complained that half the notes he wanted to play were not on the piano. They lay, he claimed, between the keys where he could never get at them. Accordingly, he took up fiddling, which has no such limitations, and lived happily ever after.This is a book on cooking; but like the musician, it concentrates more on the cracks and interstices of the culinary keyboard than on the conventional notes themselves. It, too, involves considerable fiddling around--some of it rather low, but some of it very high indeed. Nevertheless, I commend it to you in all seriousness. From it, you may learn things you never knew, or be confirmed in prejudices you have always held--or even come away with a recipe or two to add to your collection. In any case, you will find it a leisurely and unhurried book: The outlandish recipe with which it begins lasts the whole work through and provides, not so much an outline, as a fixed star under which the length and breadth of cooking is explored.As I look it over in its finished form, two matters seem to require a word of explanation. For the first, only those recipes which fit logically within the framework of the book occur in the text itself. All the others have been assembled in the appendix in the usual order, together with page references to the ones previously given. No recipes, however, have been included for mere completeness' stuffy sake: I have given you only what I know and like. It is, after all, my book.The second matter is the fact that I seem never to have settled in my mind the question of the sex of the reader. Some of my comments are obviously only for women's ears; others will make little sense except to men. I thought for a while about going through the book and straightening this out, but decided against it. It is just such narrow-mindedness about sex that has nearly deprived us of the heights and depths of the sexuality which is our glory. I offer it to you, therefore, as the first androgynous cookbook and spare myself the labor of revision. We are all true men--or women--here. Vive la difference, and let it lie where it falls.Port Jefferson, New York August 1968COPYRIGHT © 1967, 1969 BY ROBERT FARRAR CAPON

Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
PREFACE,
ONE - Ingredients,
TWO - The First Session,
THREE - The Burnt Offering,
FOUR - The Generous Ox,
FIVE - Wave Breast and Heave Shoulder,
SIX - The Tin Fiddle,
SEVEN - Living Water,
EIGHT - Water in Excelsis,
NINE - The Suspended Solution,
TEN - And She Took Flour ...,
ELEVEN - Better a Dinner of Herbs ...,
TWELVE - The Mysterious East,
THIRTEEN - Bread to Strengthen Man's Heart,
FOURTEEN - One Good Turn Deserves Another,
FIFTEEN - The Long Session,
SIXTEEN - The Burning Heart,
SEVENTEEN - Recipes,
I BREADS, FLOUR MIXTURES, AND RICE,
II EGGS, CHEESE, AND SOUPS,
III FISH AND SHELLFISH,
IV MEAT AND POULTRY,
V VEGETABLES,
VI DESSERTS,
VII BEVERAGES,
Also by,
Notes,
Copyright Page,

Editorial Reviews

One of the funniest, wisest, and most unorthodox cookbooks ever written.”
—Craig Claiborne, The New York Times

“The Supper of the Lamb is a rare, distilling nectar, albeit fizzy with bubbles of humor and wit...it is fully capable of rescuing us from the dangers of mediocrity daily foisted upon us by the too-fast pace of our lives.”
—From the Introduction by Deborah Madison

“The Supper of the Lamb is as awesomely funny, wise, beautiful, moving, preposterous a book as this reviewer has come across for years....It is a love letter to a world that ‘will always be more delicious than it is useful.’”
—The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher