Cookbook writer Anne Willan on her library of old friends

Grande Dame: teacher, author and award-winning chef Anne Willan (right, with Xanthe Clay) 'deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Elizabeth David’ Photo: Lucas Schifres/Pictobank
The idea for the school that made Willan’s name came when the book collection was already well established. After 10 years living in Europe and America, while Willan worked as food editor for the Washington Star and then as a freelance editor, Cherniavsky grew restless in his work as an economist, calling it “a golden cage”.


Anne Willan, one of our least-known, yet most successful, cookery writers has just scooped (another) top award. She explains to Xanthe Clay why the internet cannot replace a trusted book.

 Like prophets, cookbook writers are not always recognised in their own land. Yorkshire-born Anne Willan is not a household name in Britain, yet she deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Elizabeth David.
The founder of the La Varenne Cookery School in France, Willan has published more than 40 cookery books. She is recognised as a leading expert on French food, even by the French, who awarded her “Grande Dame” status in the female chef organisation Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Earlier this year in Paris, Willan scooped yet another award: entry into the World Gourmand Awards Hall of Fame, for her book The Cookbook Library, written with her husband Mark Cherniavsky. The same book was awarded the Jane Grigson prize for “outstanding literary writing” by IACP (the International Association of Culinary Professionals), as well as the prize for best in the Food History category.

Then, last month she was inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame for “body of work”, a lifetime achievement award held by Julia Child, Elizabeth David and fewer than 20 others. This American award is “the big one”, the culinary equivalent of a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars.

I met 75-year-old Willan in the discreet grandeur of the Hotel Régina Paris, just round the corner from the glass pyramids that mark the entrance to the Louvre. She is small and elegant, perfectly coiffured, in black trousers and a leopard-print jacket, with a deep, melodious English voice – BBC circa 1955 – despite having lived in France and the US for most of the past 50 years. While there’s no trace of a Northern accent, a close friend of hers confides, “Never underestimate the importance of Yorkshire in Anne’s life. She tells it like it is; never dresses things up.” Impossible to imagine Willan sexing up soufflés à la Nigella or bish-bash-boshing like Jamie.

Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinkbooks/10088831/Cookbook-writer-Anne-Willan-on-her-library-of-old-friends.html

Attribution: By Xanthe Clay, telegraph.co.uk

No comments:

Post a Comment