Welcome to A Retro Kitchen!: Jobs in the culinary and other arts

From Gerald Durrell's funny book The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium, in the "Michelin Man" chapter, re his travels in France in hmm I guess the 1960s -- he says this was years before the book was published in 1973, and it's a veteran of WW I speaking, then in his mid-80s and running a restaurant and inn when Dr. Durrell met him and heard him say this:

I found my true artistic métier was in the kitchen. However,...I tried to make a few francs by [painting] the odd portrait and pictures of people's homes....I enjoyed myself tramping through France, and if no one bought my pictures I did whatever job was offered. I have mended roads, picked grapes and cherries, and even been, for a short time, a snail farmer.

(I should probably mention that I didn't like the end of this particular chapter...though nonfiction is nonfiction!)

Huh. Google once again is reading my mind. When I did an image search for the above book, it very quickly gave me another book I have been reading in the last couple days! Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Duchess of Devonshire's delightful letters, In Tearing Haste.....(Twilight Zone soundtrack now playing.)

You'll find old and new ideas on this site...

I love playing with both food and history and am trying to combine these loves here and in various projects. My most recently published was a fun 3-volume set, which you can get free below, which speaks much of cuisine in a little known part of the world from earliest times to 700 CE....Speaking of old, this is a reincarnation of three old blogs, one shared with friends all over the world and called something like Our Favorite Food This Week, and then one called That Was Delicious that started my toying with retro food ideas, and then A History Writer in the Kitchen where I explored history more....I have kept many posts from those blogs, including many recipes I thought you might like.

Enjoy!