Casa Moro: The Second Cookbook Sam & Sam Clark

Casa Moro: The Second Cookbook Sam & Sam Clark

Published by Ebury Press, 2004 (Hardback)

Design and art direction by Caz Hildebrand

Photographs by Simon Wheeler

Jacket photograph by Michael Thornton/Art Directors and Trip

The authors Casa Moro, Sam and Sam Clark, travel extensively in Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean to research new dishes and find recipes that are “true to the origins of the dish”. The book establishes an idea of authenticity through several elements: through the use of photographs from the authors’ travel that locate the recipes and book in a place that is ‘other’ to the UK; through the use of colour food photography accessorised with hand-made and old-fashioned crockery and utensils; through the use of tinted paper and brown inks and the slightly quirky typeface Clarendon to suggest history, a book out of time (although this is contradicted by the use of the sharper Akzidenz Grotesk which locates the book in the present); and finally, through the cover which cleverly and subtly, through its mysterious signifiers, sets up this exotic fantasy of authenticity and history.

Front cover

The cover shows a full-bleed photograph of brightly-coloured and randomly-patterned mosaic tile wall printed on matt uncoated paper. The mosaic tiles appear dull and unglazed and are rough-hewn and irregular, in the centre of the wall is a raised tile relief showing a heraldic symbol of a large crown with a shield underneath that is divided in two and containing an image of a turbanned pale-skinned man with a red beard on the left and a red rose on the right. Underneath the heraldic symbol is the title of the book, printed in black over a panel of white tiles, set in the Arabic script-like logo that appears on the frontage of the restaurant and the word ‘Casa’ set in uppercase extended Akzidenz Grotesk. A smaller blue panel below contains the subtitle ‘The Second Cookbook’ set in uppercase Akzidenz Grotesk printed in white with the grey grout of the mosaic tiles slicing through the letterforms to create the feel of a stencil. This is the only information that appears on the front cover: the authors’ names only appear on the spine of the book.

The cover elements work together to create a rough-hewn hand-made aesthetic that feels ‘exotic’ and historic but that is given sharpness and a position in the present by the use of the crisp sans-serif Akzidenz Grotesk typeface. The ethos of the Moro restaurant is about authenticity, travel and discovery: the owners of the restaurant take pride in travelling to discover new recipes and find the roots of more familiar ones. This authenticity is encapsulated in the cover which appears to be of a mosaic wall photographed in a faraway country and adapted for a new purpose. Of course, the image could just as easilly have been constructed in a studio and the advantageously-positioned white and blue text panels suggest Photoshop has been used!

Inside Pages

The book is 19 cm by 25 cm and is printed on white uncoated paper in full colour. Each page of the book has been printed with a very subtle warm pinkish-grey that is only evident when photographs have white in them: the white appears very blue compared to the warm tones of the paper. The coloured paper creates a very subtle atmosphere which, combined with the two tones of brown ink used for the text throughout the book, creates a sense of history, of a book faded by age. Clarendon, in one weight and in two sizes, is used throughout the book for recipe ingredients (printed in dark brown ink) and methods and commentaries (printed in a lighter brown ink). Extended Akzidenz Grotesk in uppercase and printed in dark brown ink, is used for recipe titles which are centred on the central column. The layout is based on a one-column grid with symmetrical facing pages and body text is justified. Where a title is given in Spanish a translation appears below in uppercase Extended Akzidenz Grotesk set at a smaller point size. Running footers are centred, with the pagination, in a deep margin at the foot of the page.

The book is divided into sections: these are generally announced with a double page spread of a full-bleed photograph. Photographs are used extensively throughout the book to create atmosphere and reinforce the idea of research through travel: there is a wealth of details in these photographs that are used to signify not only the notion of unspoilt natural and authentic foreign parts (vegetables stacked up in markets, rich Islamic patterns, signs written in Arabic etc) but also the fact that the authors are involved in this research (the authors preparing and eating food, eating with local people and sitting in the landscape). This suggested place is ‘other’ to the UK and London, where the authors’ restaurant is based; it is different but not specific, rather through carefully-chosen signifiers an idea of a place is created in much the same way that in the restaurant, the food and accessories present the diner with an idea of a place that takes them away from Exmouth Market.

The photographs of food are presented in the same manner as in the first Moro Cookbook: full bleed, richly-saturated colour photographs show close-ups of the food, accessorised with black cast-iron pans, richly-coloured hand-painted plates and rough wooden chopping boards to emphasise the ‘natural’, roughly-chopped, unpretentious and ‘authentic’ nature of the food. The paradox is that these accessories as signifiers become very transparent in the context of the book and the construction of the idea of authenticity of the food in the book, presented through the experiences of the authors, is made very apparent. As readers we can choose to indulge in this construct or dismiss it but, given the deliciousness of the food in the book, anyone cooking these recipes at home would be happy to subscribe to the fantasy presented in the book.