Price V. B. - Cooking Price-Wise: a Culinary Legacy

A new Preface by Victoria Price and a new Foreword by V.B. Price have been included in this edition. The excerpts from Vincent Prices journals are reproduced with minor corrections. Peter Fuller has kindly provided the journal material for this edition. International Standard Book NumberISBN-13: 978-0-486-81907-5ISBN-10: 0-486-81907-8 Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications 81907801 2017 www.doverpublications.com ContentsPreface to the New Edition In 1971, my father was asked to host Cooking Price-Wise, a British television show on cookingor cookery, as the English call it. He eagerly agreed.

First of all, he was an Anglophile. So, anything that gave him an excuse to be or work in England always earned his immediate Yes. Second, in the United States he had become almost as well known as a gourmet chef as he was as an actor. Now he was eager to share his love and advocacy of the culinary arts with the British public. But mostly, third, he loved the premise of the show, because it matched his life philosophy: Anyone can see and taste the world without ever having to leave their hometown. All the ingredients for both an extraordinary life and an extraordinary meal must first be discovered within our own imaginations.

The show, however, proved to be short-lived; it is even hard to find copies of it on video. I was thrilled to finally see some clips of it a few years ago. It did not turn out to be what I had expected. The program was filmed on rather a low budget, and, as a result, hilarity often ensued. But, as we learned from the inimitable Julia Child, hilarity often ensues in the kitchen. Moreover, hilarity is far better than the alternative.

Because, lets face it, all culinary endeavors have a margin for error. And laughing at our mistakes is a far better way of learning to be a better cook than having a hissy fit. My father always laughed and learned from his mistakes. So, at one point, when his tiny television show kitchen left him no empty surfaces on which to put down the turkey he had just trussed, while he tried and failed to open the oven door, he just nonchalantly put the turkey on the floor, chuckled... and went on with the show. His dear friend Julia would have thoroughly approved.

Although the show did not have a long run, this cookbook has become a collectors item. So, I was very grateful for this opportunity to republish it. Furthermore, this new edition has allowed us to share even more of my fathers lifelong adventure with food and fine diningas well as the Price familys culinary legacy. We have been able to include some of the recipes from my great-grandfathers cookbook, as well as sections of my fathers journal from his first trip to Europe, taken when he was seventeen years old! Ive even tossed in a few of our favorite family recipes as I remember them. Lastly, I am particularly grateful to be able to include a short essay about my father that was written in 2011 to honor what would have been his 100th birthday. Never published, this insightful piece by my brother, V.B.

Price, allows a glimpse of my father that is deeply meaningful and illuminating. Cooking Price-Wise, as it all turns out, was far more than a cookbook or cookery show. It is a way of life. Cooking Price-Wise means seeing the world as your oyster, and then learning how to enjoy it by sharing it with others. My father always believed that a man who limits his interests limits his life. His interest in cooking came first and foremost from his love of foodshopping for it, preparing it, eating it, but mostly savoring it with others in gratitude and celebration.

He would be absolutely delighted to know that he still gets to do all of that with all of you. So, without further ado, dig in and enjoy. As he always wrote when he autographed one of his cookbooks Bon Apptit! VICTORIA PRICE 2017 Foreword to the New Edition Vincent Price: A Legacy of Pleasure It almost goes without saying, that Vincent Price was many things to many peoplemore than most, Id say. He was a man possessed of a joyous curiosity, and it took him wherever he wanted to go. His hunger for knowledge was utterly genuine. It allowed him to do his work with the ease and precision of a master and a pro.

He was, as everyone knows, a marvelous actor, an arch comedian, an educator and lecturer, a lover and student of the arts, a writer of insightful and moving books, a creative philanthropist, a tireless champion of other peoples talent, and, above all, a master appreciator. He really was all those things even if he didnt think of himself in that way. And thats why he could also be such a good father and such a fine friend. He was grateful for his fame, but never believed it. He saw himself as a student devoted to the practice of learning and refining his talents. Thats how I knew him.

He used to say that there was no excuse in this world to ever be bored. And I dont think he ever was. He loved being alive, though I dont think he would have called himself a happy person. He was too self-critical for that. He wanted the best out of himself, and he, like all of us, often found that hard to come by. But he would be the first to say that his life was full of amazing good luck, that he waswhat he said of me because of my wonderful marriageFortunes Child.

Hed never boast that he made the best of it, but he did. That was the hallmark of his life as an artist and a scholarhe made the most of what came along, and he always felt that the right doors opened at the right time for him and that opportunity appeared just when he needed it. His expression for that sensation of Lady Luck smiling upon him was Ive fallen into a tub of butter. Its the depth and delight of his love of life, of living each day all out, of trying to never miss an experience or take anything for granted, that was the great gift he gave to his friends and children. Wherever he went, people loved to be around him. His enthusiasm and attentiveness made us all feel empowered.

His legacy, from my perspective, is a philosophy and a way of life. Im sure he would have demurred at the idea that he could serve as a model of how to live a full, rich life, no matter how star-crossed, self-critical, or anxiety-ridden one might be. But at seventy-one years old, and after nearly twenty years since his death, thats how he seems to me now. He was a man full of romantic enthusiasms who didnt, as it turns out, marry well. Domestic sufferings seriously wounded him. He was what could be called a workaholic, driven to maximize his talent and keep his enterprises flourishing despite many setbacks, and while escaping many insoluble dilemmas and shortcomings.

He suffered from feelings of inadequacy. He enjoyed good health, but had numerous physical difficulties. He had all the troubles and despairs that most of us do. And he reproached himself with vigor and consistency. Yet he was an exuberant, unstoppable person, animated by native joy and enthusiasm that simply could not be diluted for long by pressure or disappointment. He knew what the great consolations of life really arecuriosity, generosity, gratitude, and appreciation.