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Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery by A. G. Payne

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RADISH SAUCE.--Take a few bunches of radishes and grate them, and mix this
grated radish with a little oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. You can colour
the sauce red by adding a little beetroot, and make the sauce hot by adding
a little grated horse-radish. This cold sauce is exceedingly nice with
cheese. These _grated_ radishes are more digestible than radishes served
whole.


RASPBERRY SAUCE.--This sauce is simply stewed raspberries rubbed through a
wire sieve and sweetened. Some red-currant juice should be added to give
it a colour. It is very nice made hot and then added to one or two
beaten-up eggs and poured over any plain puddings, such as boiled rice, &c.


RATAFIA SAUCE.--Add a few drops of essence of ratafia to some sweetened
arrowroot or to some butter sauce. The sauce can be coloured pink with a
few drops of cochineal.


RAVIGOTTE SAUCE.--Put a tablespoonful each of Harvey's sauce, tarragon
vinegar, and chilli vinegar into a small saucepan, and let it boil till it
is reduced to almost one-half in quantity, in order to get rid of the
acidity. Now add about half a pint of butter sauce, and throw in a
tablespoonful of chopped blanched parsley.


ROBERT SAUCE.--Take a couple of onions, cut them up into small pieces, and
fry them with about an ounce of butter in a frying-pan. Drain off the
butter and add a couple of tablespoonfuls of vinegar to the frying-pan, and
let it simmer for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour so as to get rid of
the acidity of the vinegar. Now add a very little stock or water, stir it
tip, and thicken the sauce with a little brown roux. Add a dessertspoonful
of fresh mustard and a little pepper and salt.


SOUBISE SAUCE.--Sauce Soubise is simply white onion sauce, rubbed through a
wire sieve, and a little cream added. It is more delicate than ordinary
onion sauce, and is often served in France with roast pheasant. It owes
its name to a famous French general.


SORREL SAUCE.--Put about a quart of fresh green sorrel leaves (after being
thoroughly washed) into an enamelled saucepan, with a little fresh butter,
and let the sorrel stew till it is tender. Rub this through a wire sieve,
add a little powdered sugar and a little lemon juice; a little cream may be
added, but is not absolutely essential.


SWEET SAUCE.--Take half a pint of butter sauce, and sweeten it with a
little sugar. It can be flavoured by rubbing a little sugar on the outside
of a lemon, or with vanilla, essence of almonds, or any kind of sweet
essence. A little wine, brandy, or, still better, rum, is a great
improvement. Some persons add cream.


TARRAGON SAUCE.--Blanch a dozen tarragon leaves, chop them up, and stew
them in any kind of stock thickened with brown roux.


TARTAR SAUCE.--Take two or three tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise sauce, and
add to this a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley, as well as
a piece of onion or shallot about as big as the top of the thumb down to
the first joint, chopped very fine, and a brimming teaspoonful of French
mustard. Mix the whole well together.

N.B.--A teaspoonful of anchovy sauce would be a great improvement were
anchovy sauce allowed in vegetarian cookery.

TOMATO SAUCE.--The great secret of tomato sauce is to taste nothing but the
tomato. Take a dozen ripe tomatoes, cut off the stalks, and squeeze out
the pips, and put them in a stew-pan with a little butter, and let them
stew till they are tender, and then rub the whole through a wire sieve.
This, in our opinion, is the best tomato sauce that can be made, the only
seasoning being a little pepper and salt. This wholesome and delicious
sauce can, however, be spoilt in a variety of ways--by the addition of
mace, cloves, shallots, onions, thyme, &c. It can also be made very
unwholesome by the addition of a quantity of vinegar.

TRUFFLE SAUCE.--This sauce is very expensive if made from whole fresh
truffles, but can be made more cheaply if you can obtain some truffle chips
or parings. These must be stewed in a little stock, thickened with brown
roux, and then rubbed through a wire sieve, a little sherry being a great
improvement if wine is allowed.


VANILLA SAUCE.--Add some essence of vanilla to some sweetened butter sauce.


WHITE SAUCE.--White sauce is sometimes required for vegetables and
sometimes for puddings. In the former case some good-flavoured, uncoloured
stock must be thickened with white roux, and then have sufficient cream
added to it to make the sauce a pure white.

When white sauce is wanted for puddings, sufficient butter sauce must be
sweetened, and very slightly flavoured with nutmeg or almond, and then an
equal quantity of cream added to it to make it a pure white. White sauce
should not have with it any strong predominant flavour.




CHAPTER III.

SAVOURY RICE, MACARONI, OATMEAL, &c.

RICE.


Probably all persons will admit that rice is a too much neglected form of
food in England. When we remember how small a quantity of rice weekly is
found sufficient to keep alive millions and millions of our
fellow-creatures in the East, it seems to be a matter of regret that rice
as an article of food is not more used by the thousands and thousands of
our fellow creatures in the East--not in the ordinary acceptation of the
term, but East of Temple Bar. Rice is cheap, nourishing, easily cooked,
and equally easily digested, yet that monster, custom, seems to step in and
prevent the bulk of the poor availing themselves of this light and
nourishing food solely for the reason that, as their grandfathers and
grandmothers did not eat rice before them, they do not see any reason why
they should, like the Irishman who objected to have his feet washed on the
same ground. Of the different kinds of rice Carolina is the best, the
largest, and the most expensive. Patna rice is almost as good; the grains
are long, small, and white, and it is the best rice for curry. Madras rice
is the cheapest.

Rice, pure and simple, is the food most suited for hot climates and where a
natural indolence of disposition results in one's day's work of an ordinary
Englishman being divided among twenty people. As we move towards more
temperate zones it will be found the universal custom to qualify it by
mixing it with some other substance; thus, though rice is largely eaten in
Italy, it is almost invariably used in conjunction with Parmesan cheese.
Rice contains no flesh-forming properties whatever, as it contains no
nitrogen; and with all due respect to vegetarians, it will be found that as
we recede from the Equator and advance towards the Poles our food must of
necessity vary with the latitude, and, whereas we may start on a diet of
rice, we shall be forced, sooner or later, to depend upon a diet of
pemmican, or food of a similar nature.


RICE, TO BOIL.--The best method of boiling rice is, at any rate, a much
disputed point, if not an open question. There are as many ways almost of
boiling rice as dressing a salad, and each one thinks his own way the best.
We will mention a few of the most simple, and will illustrate it by boiling
a small quantity that can be contained in a teacup. Of course, boiling
rice is very much simplified if you want some rice-water as well as rice
itself. Rice-water contains a great deal of nourishment, a fact which is
well illustrated by the well-known story of the black troops who served in
India under Clive, who, at the siege of Arcot, told Clive, when they were
short of provisions, that the water in which the rice was boiled would be
sufficient for them, while the more substantial grain could be preserved
for the European troops. Take a teacupful of rice and wash the rice in
several waters till the water ceases to be discoloured. Now throw the rice
into boiling water, say a quart; let the rice boil gently till it is
tender, strain off the rice and reserve the rice-water for other purposes.
The time rice will take to boil treated this way would be probably about
twenty minutes, but this time would vary slightly with the quality and size
of the rice.

* * * * *

Many years ago we watched a black man boiling rice on board a P. and O.
boat (the _Mizapore_); he proceeded as follows:--He boiled the rice for
about ten minutes, or perhaps a minute or two longer, strained it off in a
sieve, and then washed the rice with cold water, and then put the rice back
in the stew-pan to once more get hot and swell. Of course, this rice was
being boiled for curry, and certainly the result was that each grain was
beautifully separated from every other grain. We do not think, however,
that this method of boiling rice is customary on all the boats of the P.
and O. Company. Of course this method of boiling rice was somewhat
wasteful.

By far the most economical method of boiling rice is as follows; and we
would recommend it to all who are in the habit of practising economy on the
grounds of either duty or necessity. Wash thoroughly, as before, a
teacupful of rice and put it in a small stew-pan or saucepan with two
breakfastcupfuls of water, bring this to a boil and let it boil for ten
minutes, then remove the saucepan to the side of the fire and let the rice
soak and swell for about twenty minutes. After a little time, you can put
a cloth on the top of the saucepan to absorb the steam, similar to the way
you treat potatoes after having strained off the water.

In boiling rice we must remember that there are two ways in which rice is
served. One is as a meal in itself, the other as an accompaniment to some
other kind of food. It will be found in Italy and Turkey and in the East
generally, where rice forms, so to speak, the staff of life, that it is not
cooked so soft and tender as it is in England, where it is generally served
with something else. In fact, each grain of rice may be said to resemble
an Irish potato, inasmuch as it has a heart in it. In Ireland potatoes, as
a rule, are not cooked so much as they are in most parts of England.
Probably the reason of this is, in most cases, that experience has taught
people that there is more stay in rice and potatoes when served in a state
that English people would call "under-done." There is no doubt that the
waste throughout the length and breadth of this prosperous land through
over-cooking is something appalling.

Another very good method of boiling rice is the American style. Take a
good-sized stew-pan or saucepan that has a tight-fitting lid. Put a cloth
over the saucepan, after first pouring in, say, a pint of water; push down
the cloth, keeping it tight, so as to make a well, but do not let the cloth
reach the water; wash the rice as before, and put on the lid tight. Of
course, with the cloth the lid will fit very tight indeed. Now put the
saucepan on the fire and make the water boil continuously. By these means
you steam the rice till it is tender and lose none of the nourishment. We
can always learn from America.


RISOTTO A LA MILANNAISE.--Take a teacupful of rice, wash it thoroughly and
dry it. Chop up a small onion and put it in the bottom of a small stew-pan
and fry the onion to a light-brown colour. Now add the dry rice, and stir
this up with the onion and butter till the rice also is fried of a nice
light-brown colour. Now add two breakfastcupfuls of stock or water and a
pinch of powdered saffron, about sufficient to cover a threepenny-piece;
let the rice boil for ten or eleven minutes, move the saucepan to the side
of the fire and let it stand for twenty minutes or half an hour till it has
absorbed all the stock or water. Now mix in a couple of tablespoonfuls of
grated Parmesan cheese. Flavour with a little pepper and salt, and serve
the whole very hot.


RICE WITH CABBAGE AND CHEESE.--Wash some rice and let it soak in some hot
water, with a cabbage sliced up, for about an hour; then strain it off and
put the rice and cabbage in a stew-pan with some butter, a little pepper
and salt, and about a quarter of a grated nutmeg. Toss these about in the
butter for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour over the fire, but do not
let them turn colour; then add a small quantity of water or stock, let it
stew till it is tender, and then serve it very hot with some grated cheese
sprinkled over the top.

N.B.--The end of cheese rind can be utilised with this dish.


RICE WITH CHEESE.--Wash some rice and then boil it for ten or eleven
minutes in some milk, and let it stand till it has soaked up all the milk.
The proportion generally is, as we have said before, a teacupful of rice to
two breakfastcupfuls of milk; but as we shall want the rice rather moist on
the present occasion, we must allow a little more milk. Now mix in some
grated cheese and a little pepper and salt, place the mixture in a
pie-dish, and cover the top with grated cheese, and place the pie-dish in
the oven and bake till the top is nicely browned, and then serve.

Some cooks add a good spoonful of made mustard to the mixture. Some
persons prefer it and some don't; it is therefore best to serve some made
mustard with the rice and cheese at table. Unless the mixture was fairly
moist before it was put into the pie-dish, it would dry up in the oven and
become uneatable.


RICE, CURRIED.--Boil a teacupful of well-washed rice in two
breakfastcupfuls of water, and let the rice absorb all the water; put a
cloth in the saucepan, and stir up the rice occasionally with a fork till
the grains become dry and separate easily the one from the other. Now mix
it up with some curry sauce, make the whole hot, and send it to table with
a few whole bay-leaves mixed in with the rice. Only sufficient curry sauce
should be added to moisten the rice--it must not be rice swimming in gravy;
or you can make a well in the middle of the boiled rice and pour the curry
sauce into this.


RICE BORDERS (CASSEROLES).--Casseroles, or rice borders, form a very
handsome dish. It consists of a large border made of rice, the outside of
which can be ornamented and the centre of which can be filled with a
macedoine (_i.e._, a mixture) of fruit or vegetables. As you are probably
aware, grocers have in their shop-windows small tins with copper labels, on
which the word is printed "Macedoine." This tin contains a mixture of
cut-up, cooked vegetables. These are very useful to have in the house, as
a nice dish can be served at a few moments' notice. Mixed fruits are also
sold in bottles under the name of Macedoine of Fruits. Of course, both
vegetables and fruit can be prepared at home much cheaper from fresh fruit
and vegetables, but this requires time and forethought. These mixtures are
very much improved in appearance when served in a handsomely made rice
border, and as the border is eaten with the vegetables and fruit there is
no want of economy in the recipe. Suppose we are going to make a rice
border. Take a pound of rice and wash it carefully if we are going to fill
it with fruit we must boil it in sweetened milk, but if we are going to
fill it with vegetables we must boil it in vegetable stock or water. Add,
as the case may be, sufficient liquid to boil the rice till it is
thoroughly tender and soft. Now place it in a large bowl, and with a
wooden spoon mash it till it becomes a sort of firm, compact paste; then
take it out and roll it into the shape of a cannon-ball, and having done
this, flatten it till it becomes of the shape of the cheeses one meets with
in Holland--flat top and bottom, with rounded edges. You can now ornament
the outside by making it resemble a fluted mould of jelly. The best way of
doing this is to cut a carrot in half and scoop out part of the inside with
a cheese-scoop, so that the width of the part where it is scooped is about
the same as the two flat sides. Make the outside of the rice perfectly
smooth with the back of a wooden spoon. Butter the carrot mould to prevent
it sticking, and press this gently on the outside of the shape of rice till
it resembles the outside of a column in Gothic architecture, then place it
in the oven and let it bake till it is firm and dry. Then scoop out the
centre and put it back for a short time. If the border is going to be used
for a macedoine of vegetables, beat up a yolk of egg and paint the outside
of the casserole with this, and then it will bake a nice golden-brown
colour. Now take it out of the oven and fill it accordingly. It can be
served hot or cold, or it can be filled with a German salad. (_See_
MACEDOINE OF FRUIT; MACEDOINE OF VEGETABLES; SALAD, GERMAN.)


RICE CROQUETTES, SAVOURY.--Boil a teacupful of rice in some stock or water
(about two breakfastcupfuls), till it is tender, and until the rice has
absorbed all the water or stock. Chop up a small onion very fine, fry it
till tender in a very little butter, but do not let it brown; add a small
teaspoonful of mixed savoury herbs, a brimming teaspoonful of chopped
parsley, to the contents of the frying-pan for two or three minutes, and
then add them to the rice. Mix it well together, and let the rice dry in
the oven till the mixture is capable of being rolled into balls. Now take
two eggs, separate the yolk from the white of one, beat up the whole egg
and one white thoroughly in a basin, but do no beat it to a froth; add the
rice mixture to this, mix it again very thoroughly, and then roll it into
balls about the size of a small walnut, seasoning the mixture with
sufficient pepper and salt. Roll these balls in flour, in order to insure
the outside being dry, and roll them backwards and forwards on the sieve in
order to get rid of the superfluous flour. Make some very fine
bread-crumbs from some stale bread; next beat up the yolk of egg with about
a dessertspoonful of warm water. Dip the rice-balls into this, and then
cover them with the bread-crumbs. Let them stand for an hour or two for
the bread-crumbs to get dry, and then fry them a light golden-brown colour
in a little oil. Fried parsley can be served with them.

Instead of bread-crumbs you can use up broken vermicelli--the bottom of a
jar of vermicelli can sometimes be utilised this way. This has a very
pretty appearance. The vermicelli browns quickly, and the croquettes have
the appearance of little balls covered in brown network.


RICE, SAVOURY.--There are several ways of serving savoury rice. The rice
can be boiled in some stock, strongly flavoured with onion and celery, and
when cooked sufficiently tender one or two eggs can be beaten up with it,
pepper and salt added, and the mixture served with grated cheese.

Rice can also be rendered savoury by the addition of chopped mushrooms,
pepper and salt, and a little butter, and if a tin of mushrooms is used,
the liquor in the tin should be added to the boiled rice, but in every case
the rice should be made to absorb the liquor in which it is boiled. Eggs
can again be added, as well as grated Parmesan cheese.

A cheap and quick way of making rice savoury is to mix it with a large
tablespoonful of chutney; make it hot with a little butter, and add
pepper--cayenne if preferred--and a little lemon-juice.

Rice can also be served as savoury by boiling it in any of the sauces that
may be termed savoury in distinction to those that are sweet, given in the
chapter entitled "Sauces."


RICE AND EGGS.--Boil, say half a pound of rice, and let it absorb the water
in which it is boiled. Take four hard-boiled eggs, separate the yolks from
the whites, chop the whites very fine, and add them to the rice with about
a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley and sufficient savoury
herbs to cover a sixpence. Put this in the saucepan and make it hot, with
a little butter, and flavour with plenty of pepper and salt. In the
meantime beat the yellow hard-boiled yolks to a yellow powder, turn out the
rice mixture, when thoroughly hot, into a vegetable dish, and put the
yellow powder either in the centre or make a ring of the yellow powder
round the edge of the rice, and serve a little pile of fried parsley in the
middle.


RICE AND TOMATO.--Take half-a-dozen ripe tomatoes, squeeze out the pips,
and put them in a tin in the oven with a little butter to bake; baste them
occasionally with a little butter. In the meantime boil half a pound of
rice in a little stock or water, only adding sufficient so that the rice
can absorb the liquid. When this is done (and this will take about the
same time as the tomatoes take to bake), pour all the liquid and butter in
the tin on to the rice and stir it well up with some pepper and salt. Put
this on a dish, and serve the tomatoes on the rice with the red, unbroken
side uppermost.


MACARONI.--Macaroni is a preparation of pure wheaten flour. It is chiefly
made in Italy, though a good deal is made in Geneva and Switzerland. The
best macaroni is made in the neighbourhood of Naples. The wheat that grows
there ripens quickly under the pure blue sky and hot sun, and consequently
the outside of the wheat is browner while the inside of the wheat is whiter
than that grown in England. The wheat is ground and sifted repeatedly. It
is generally sifted about five times, and the pure snow-white flour that
falls from the last sifting is made into macaroni. It is first mixed with
water and made into a sort of dough, the dough being kneaded in the truly
orthodox Eastern style by being trodden out with the feet. It is then
forced by a sort of rough machinery through holes, partially baked during
the process, and then hung up to dry. Macaroni contains a great amount of
nourishment, and it is only made from the purest and finest flour. It is
the staple dish throughout Italy, and in whatever form or way it is cooked,
except as a sweet, tomatoes and grated Parmesan cheese seem bound to
accompany it.


SPARGHETTI.--Sparghetti is a peculiar form of macaroni. Ordinary macaroni
is made in the form of long tubes, and when macaroni pudding is served in
schools, it is often irreverently nicknamed by the boys gas-pipes.
Sparghetti is not a tube, but simply macaroni made in the shape of ordinary
wax-tapers, which it resembles very much in appearance. In Italy it is
often customary to commence dinner with a dish of sparghetti, and should
the dinner consist as well of soup, fish, entree, salad, and sweet, the
sparghetti would be served before the soup. Take, say, half a pound of
sparghetti, wash it in cold water, and throw it instantly into boiling
salted water; boil it till it is tender, about twenty minutes, drain it,
put it into a hot vegetable-dish, and mix in two or three tablespoonfuls of
grated Parmesan cheese; toss it about lightly with a couple of forks, till
the cheese melts and forms what may be called cobwebs on tossing it about.
Add also two tablespoonfuls of tomato conserve (sold by all grocers, in
bottles), and serve immediately. This is very cheap, very satisfying, and
very nourishing; and it is to be regretted that this popular dish is not
more often used by those who are not vegetarians, who would benefit both in
pocket and in health were they to lessen their butcher's bill by at any
rate commencing dinner, like the Italians, with a dish of sparghetti.


MACARONI--ITALIAN FASHION.--This is very similar to sparghetti, only
ordinary pipe macaroni is used. Take, say, a teacupful of macaroni, wash
it, break it up into two-inch pieces, and throw it into boiling water that
has been salted. Strain it of off, put it in the stew-pan for a few
minutes, with a little piece of butter and some pepper and salt. Add a
tablespoonful of tomato conserve, and serve it with some grated Parmesan
cheese, served separate in a dish.

Some rub the stew-pan with a head of garlic. This gives it what may be
called a more foreign flavour, but this should not be done unless you know
your guests like garlic. Unfortunately, the proper use of garlic is very
little understood in this country.

MACARONI CHEESE.--Some years back this was almost the only form in which
macaroni was served in this country. Macaroni cheese used to be served at
the finish of dinner in a dried-up state, and was perhaps one of the most
indigestible dishes which the skill, or want of skill, of our English cooks
was able to produce. Wash and then boil a quarter of a pound of macaroni
in a little milk till it is quite tender, then put into a well-buttered
oval tin a layer of macaroni, and cover this with a layer of bread-crumbs,
mixed with grated cheese, and add a few little lumps of butter; then put
another layer of macaroni and another layer of bread-crumbs and cheese.
Continue alternate layers till you pile up the dish, taking care to have a
layer of dried bread-crumbs at the top. Warm some butter, but do not oil
it, and pour some of this warm butter over the top of the dish to moisten
them; put the dish in the oven till it is hot through, then take it out and
brown the top quickly with a red-hot salamander. If you leave the macaroni
cheese in the oven too long the dish will taste oily and the cheese get so
hard as to become absolutely indigestible. Any kind of grated cheese will
do for this dish, but to the English palate it is best when made from a
moist cheese similar to that which would be used in making Welsh rabbit.

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A way with tears makes Magorian a worthy Costa winner
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Perfumes: the Guide – a portal to a whole new art

Michelle Magorian scooped the 2008 Costa Children's Book Award with Just Henry, a huge 700-page book that made me cry. Not many authors can do that but Magorian handles dangerously emotional stuff and pulls it off without slipping into mawkish sentimentality. Hence tears.

The same quality marked out Goodnight Mister Tom, her first novel, which won the 1980 Guardian children's book prize and has been read by every child in year 6 and many others both younger and older – rightly so – ever since. Goodnight Mister Tom is avowedly weepy. Only the hardest heart could remain unmoved. I once met a child who'd sticky-taped three pages together because they made her cry too much – I'm sure everyone who's read the book will know which three.

In Goodnight Mister Tom, Magorian had the external drama of the second world war as an emotional backdrop: put simply, there was a lot to weep over. In Just Henry, however, the setting is 1949 and there should be – and is – a feeling of optimism and hope. It is a period that's rarely used in fiction but Just Henry reveals it to be one that's worth exploring. The effect of the war is still being felt in the social changes it brought about. Life didn't just "slip back": few families were lucky enough to remain unaffected. Fathers were lost or altered; mothers found themselves raising families alone, or having to return abruptly to a subordinate role; children were forced to make adjustments either way.

In her big, bold novel, knitted together with more mysteries and coincidences than are credible, Magorian wonderfully captures that uncertainty and shows children's ability to move forward and embrace change far faster than their parents or grandparents. Lest this realism and the solving of the mysteries is too mundane, Michelle adds an extra layer of emotion by weaving in the stories of film stars from the movies of the day. For once, the current fashion of long, long, long books is justified. Just Henry is a wallowing great read. Just don't forget your hanky.

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Leona Lewis to write autobiography

I touched on Perfumes: the Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez in today's G2 arts diary. What a wonderful book (I've just opened it and, in a synaesthesic overture, it's offering me Amouage Gold, a spray-sample of which I left between its leaves). It offers a critical analysis – smelling notes, if you will – of 1,500 perfumes. I suppose the authors' language and technique relates somewhat to wine criticism. But the art of writing about something so emotionally rich and elusive (and at the same time entirely unlockable by the proper technical expertise) reminded me a bit of how people write (or try to write) about music (a subject I'm speaking about at this year's Association of British Orchestras annual conference). As it happens, Turin and Sanchez often use musical metaphor to help explain the nature of a perfume (they talk in terms of "brassy" or "melodic line" or "string section"; Shalimar has a "uniquely sweet, penetrating tune"; Yatagan a "high-pitched, hissing tone"). What about a job swap between these two and Andrew Clements or Alexis Petridis, I wonder.

Over Christmas I did a lot of smelling in the various perfumery halls and perfumery shops of London, and had enormous fun trying to get to grips with the artform. The joy of it is that most perfumes are widely available and can be squirted by the curious with impunity. The scent I've been wearing for the past few years – Irisia by Creed – Turin and Sanchez write off, with a cutting one-star review, as a "green floral chypre of exceptional banality and unpleasantness", so I have have had the amusement of trying to find a replacement.

By the way, Sanchez notes the importance of the web in writing and sharing knowledge about perfume. She writes: "Until recently, talking intelligently about the art of perfume seemed impossible. Then suddenly it seemed inevitable. What changed? The obvious: the Internet. Online now you can read historical and technical information, find discontinued or otherwise elusive perfumes, order samples of raw materials to smell out of curiosity, and, most important, find communities of people clustered around this single obsession. Half of what I know I owe to the 24-hour-a-day pajama party that is the fragrance board of Makeup Alley... Online communities can criticise perfume in a way that magazines have never dared: there's no advertising to lose... Perfume blogs now seem to outnumber the sample vials around my desk: there are men and women of intelligence sitting down every day and thinking and writing about perfume."

It's a bit like the way Alex Ross talks about the way the web has affected his relationship with and access to contemporary music. It's that old long tail.

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