GRAY (PATIENCE). - The Centaur's Kitchen. A book of French, Italian, Greek and Catalan dishes for ship's cook on the Blue Funnel Line.

Totnes, Prospect Books, 2009 in-12, 124 pp., broché, couverture rempliée A paperback edition of a wonderfully evocative cookery manual by one of England’s greatest modern food-writers. Her Honey from a Weed is a modern classic; her Plats du Jour, published in 1957, was an important step in the re-education of British cooks after the Second World War. The Centaur’s Kitchen, however, had never (before 2005) been shown to the public, except in the galleys and staterooms of the ships that once sailed under the ensign of the Blue Funnel Line. It was written in 1964, at the request of the company chairman, to better instruct their Chinese cooks in cooking fresh and flavoursome food