Cooking in a Bedsitter
Katharine Whitehorn
Published by Penguin Handbooks, 1979 (Paperback)
First published as Kitchen in the Corner by MacGibbon & Kee, 1961, first Penguin edition, 1963
Set by Cox & Wyman Ltd
Cover photograph by Alain Spain and Nelson Christmas
This book has been in print for over 40 years and it is easy to understand why. The recipes are easy to follow, having been designed for cooking in the confines of a bedsitter but, to some extent, they are also aspirational: the author’s acknowledgement of the god-like Elizabeth David and references to less commonplace ingredients suggests that although the cooking facilities may be basic, the bedsit dweller can aim for something more sophisticated. The typography is simple and systematic and helps the reader navigate the contents; it also suggests authority with its neo-Classical centred stylings, engendering trust in the reader that the recipes will work. The occasional use of italics - for recipe titles and chapter headings - creates a contrasting conversational tone that stops the more formal typographic elements becoming too overbearing. I am not sure what the interior of this book looks like in the current edition: I hope that it retains the well-considered typography of the 1963 edition: the formality of the typography is sometimes at odds with the informal tone of Whitehorn’s prose but, to contemporary readers, this creates an enjoyable tension which makes the book seems as irreverent, anarchic and proto-feminist as it did when it was originally published.
Front cover
The cover has a full-bleed photograph of a Victorian bedstead made of black painted iron with a polished brass bedknob and rail. From the brass rail, on hooks normally found in butcher’s shops, hang a small white coffee cup; a large knife; an artisan sausage; angel hair pasta; and a kipper. A lit white candle is stuck on the point of the bedknob. The juxtaposition of items normally found in the kitchen with a bedstead, signifies the idea of a bedsitter and cooking in one room, the room that you also sleep in . The old-fashioned bedstead signifies the faded and aged furniture of the bedsit. The photograph has a romantic, nostalgic atmosphere but, in the 1960s when this book was written and in the 1970s when the photograph was taken, Victoriana was viewed in a less favourable light than the present day, signifying old-fashioned ideas and uptight morality.
This carefully-composed still-life is photographed against a brown-black background: the objects are precisely lit with a raking light that comes from the left-hand side of the image, emerging from the gloom like sparkling jewels. Through the careful use of studio lighting, the photograph subtly suggests a room without actually picturing it. The over-riding effect of the photograph is of romanticised squalor: the reality of sharing a bed with a kipper and a sharp knife would be very different from the aestheticised image on the cover of the book. It is interesting that the current edition of the book revisits the original 1960s cover illustration which also features a Victorian bedstead where a couple share a meal amongst pots and pans and a gas burner; this original illustration has a more light-hearted tone and atmosphere than the photograph on the 1979 edition shown above, though both are whimsical in their own ways and use a similar economy of means to suggest the bedsitter.
The title of the book and the author's name is set in a titlecase sans-serif typeface, which could be Helvetica or possibly Intertype Standard, a version of Akzidenz Grotesk, which had been introduced by Romek Marber as part of the rationalistaion of Penguin covers in 1961. The title and author’s name are ranged left in the upper right-hand corner. A Penguin logo, reversed out of the photograph is the only other element on the cover. The photograph is the dominant element in the cover hierarchy with the title of the book second, the Penguin logo third and the author’s name the last element. The current edition of the book places the author (now much more well-known) at the top of the cover and higher in the hierarchy of cover elements, it also adds two straplines; one which contextualises the author ('author of Selective Memory'); the other contextualises the book ('The famous book - in print for over 40 years).
Inside Pages
The book is a standard Penguin paperback, 11 cm by 18 cm with black text on off-white (now very yellowed) uncoated paper. The layout uses a one-column grid with narrow inside and wider outside margins and symmetrical facing pages. Monotype Imprint is used throughout the book. A complex hierarchy, using small caps, normal caps, italics indents and other typographic devices is used throughout to order the various kinds of information in the book. The book is divided into two sections; each section is anounced with a double-page spread with the title of the section set in centred uppercase on the recto. The title of the chapter is centred and set in italic titlecase Imprint with the word ‘chapter’ above, also centred, in small caps with old style figures. Above the chapter title is a line of fleurons which, with the italic titling, creates an informal and ‘jolly’ atmosphere in contrast to the ‘authority’ of the neo-Classical centred typography used elsewhere throughout the book. Recipe titles are also set in italics, ranged left. The recipe methods or instructions are, like the bulk of the book, set justified. The lists of ingredients are set in two columns, ranged left at the same size as the instructions. Running heads are centred and set in small caps; pagination is also centred and set in old style non-aligning figures.
This is a very easy book to navigate: the well-considered and elegant typography guides the reader through a book that has no colour and no images. The book has a clear contents page at the front, which uses a simple typographic hierarchy to show the contents of the book, breaking it down into the various sections and sub-sections. Recipes are easy to find: a quick flick through the book will be rewarded with finding something interesting and inspiring to cook; the designer has emphasised the titles of the recipes using the italic version of Imprint at a larger point size than elsewhere.
The writer acknowledges the influence of the food writer Elizabeth David at the start of the book; like Elizabeth David, Whitehorn is a great writer who is entertaining and enlightening to read and, like David’s books, parts of Whitehorn's book are meant for reading as opposed to consulting while cooking. However, one of the strengths of the book lies in the simplicity of the recipes, designed to be made on one or two gas rings, and which have few ingredients and very few instructions; this simplicty of information is amplified by the clarity of the typography which inspires the reader to cook.