VENUS IN THE KITCHEN or Love's Cookery Book

Edited by Norman Douglas (using the above name as an alias) and introduced by Graham Greene, this is not everyone's set of dishes, although the recipes have been collected for the purpose of stimulating, rejuvenating and restoring amatory attributes. Some are practical, some are not so, and others are here just for their own absurdities. There are comments and scholarly notations:-the innocent shamelessness is most disarming. Soups, rice, fish, shellfish, mussels, snails and oysters, entrees, mushrooms and truffles, poultry and game, meat, vegetables and salads, sauces and savories, sweets and drinks -- all call for a fat purse, unlimited patience (for the interminable sieving) and a definite knowledge of the availability of unusual spices and condiments. Banal, reliable and noble aphrodisiacs and invigorators, some that derive from the classics -- here's much warm chichi chow for cold spirits. And the Norman Douglas preface, written not later than 1936, will have a further appeal for his followers. Pleasant decorations by Bruce Roberts. A specialty.