Everything tastes better the addition of tinned pineapple right? Because pineapple imbues ‘everyday meals with a tropic holiday flavour’ according to my favourite new cookbook. There’s no date on the Golden Circle Tropical Recipe Book, but from the styling I’d guess at late 60s early 70s.

Written by home economist, Ruby Borrowdale it has utilises tinned pineapple in a plethora of imaginative ways .Typical of cookbooks of its time, it was sponsored by the Golden Circle  Cannery who were obviously keen to sell the exotic virtues of the pineapple.

It kicks off with some breakfast dishes like `Hayman Scramble’ -scrambled eggs with soy sauce, prawns and of course pineapple. Then there’s the slightly disturbing looking ‘Sunny Sausages’.

And you can’t go past the classic pineapple barbie dishes-like ‘Barbecue Party Kebobs’, served of course with a pineapple based salad such as ‘Sunlit Salad’ a lovely orange hued pineapple-studded jelly surrounded by luncheon meat cigars.

While pineapple might make you think of tropical sunlight and good times around the barbie, pineapple’s not just for day time. No indeed. You can mix cuisines and jazz up boring old Italian spag bol by simply adding a 15o oz can of pineapple pieces to your sauce (made on a convenient tin of tomato soup).

My all time fave though has to be this one. I reckon it would have floored dinner party guests of the time, it’s just so perfect. What I love about it is that you absolutely have to use tinned pineapple. And look at those colour- it’s almost patriotic.

 It works like this if you want to try it at home (the author of this blog takes no responsibility for results): you drain the juice from a tin of pineapple rings, heat it in a pan an add enough boiling water to make 1 1/2 cups of liquid. To this you add 1 pkt lime flavoured jelly crystals and stir until dissolved. Once cooled, (and this is the genius bit) POUR into the tin around the pineapple. Chill and set, then run a hot knife around the inside of the tin and turn out onto a serving plate. Decorate with cream in a can and a maraschino cherry or two, you’ll be the talk of the dinner party circuit.

I love my new cookbook fiercely because it is not just about food-with vintage recipe books you can glean so much about social mores of the time. I just wonder what readers in a couple of decades will think of the cookbooks we were cooking from?

I love this second half of the year when the cookbooks start coming hard and fast as we prepare for (fark!) Christmas…

Followers of the cult of Zumbo will be very excited by the October release of his first cookbook, Zumbo ($49.99). The cover’s kind of crazy and quite retro, a theme that continues inside.

I confess it always worries me a bit when chefs start referring to themselves in the third person or (yick!) as a ‘brand’. (You know who you are Luke Mangan), so I have concerns with Adriano naming a chapter of macarons ‘zumbarons’ . (Apart from the fact the book itself is called ‘Zumbo’) I doubt that the licorice or sticky date macaron are something new. Anyway, the book looks lickably delicious- with chapters  on chocoaltes, pastries, gateaux de voyage (tea cakes), cakes and desserts. There’s also a much needed glossary with explanations of what ‘pop rocks’ and ‘pectin NH’ are. With Australia’s current obsession for sweets, I reckon this one will find its way into many keen bakers Christmas stockings.

I don’t have any Neil Perry cookboooks, but a colleague swears by them as her dinner party go-to books, which is good enough for me. I only have sneak peek preview pages of Rockpool Bar & Grill (RRP $79.99 Out October) but from the table of contents, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty weight book. Immediately appealing for me is in Perry’s intro in which he outlines the reason for putting forward some of his suppliers to tell their stories. “I could never do justice to the passion they have. I hope it goes some way to explaning why small, caring farmers and fishermen are a better option than industrially-raised food that has neither good taste nor humanity attached to it.” Right on.

The books has a classic feel; with the contents quite traditionally arranged from charcuterie and cured seafood through to desserts. I like the fact that there’s a ‘sandwiches’ section too. Nothing like a good posh sanger. Pics look to be quite moody and not unreasonably, bistro-ish in look. I think this one, due to it’s comprehensiveness, (and if my colleague is to be believed) Perry’s previous efforts, reliability is the perfect one-size-fits-all cookbook.

Just the title makes me start longing for some of those fresh Asian flavours. Being under French reign there’s a strong French flavour to some Vietnamese food. I love how they’ve some got these two seemingly incongrous cuisines to work so seamlessly together. A great illustration is Banh Mi , a baguette filled with meat such as pork, with mayonnaise, pickled vegetables  herbs and often chilli  and a special Asian style dressing. 

Indochine (RRP $69.99 Published November) is, I believe chef Luke Nguyen’s second book. (The other being The Red Lantern). Rather than recipes, it’s divided by cities; a natural fit, when one is writing about food that is so regional. It appears that each has a little vignette attached, giving the reader not just recipes, but a taste of the city itself. The blurb on the back of my preview says that Luke ‘talks to chefs, bakers, farmers and family members to explore the impact the French had on what the Vietnamese eat and cook today.” There are 100 recipes as well. One to buy for the lover of Asian food and armchair traveller.