Charles Henry Baker, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Charles Henry Baker, Jr. | |
| Born | December 25, 1895 Zellwood, Florida |
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| Died | November 11, 1987 Naples, Florida |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Children | Pamela Baker Johnson |
| Parents | Jane P. (1859-?) Charles Henry Baker, Sr. (1848-?) |
- For the Haitian politician see: Charles Henri Baker
Charles Henry Baker, Jr. (December 25, 1895 – November 11, 1987) is an author best known for his culinary and cocktail writings. These books have become highly collectible among cocktail aficionados and culinary historians. [1] [2]
| “ | We are still heartily of the opinion that decent libation supports as many million lives as it threatens; donates pleasure and sparkle to more lives than it shadows; inspires more brilliance in the world of art, music, letters, and common ordinary intelligent conversation, than it dims. [1] | ” |
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—Charles Henry Baker, Jr. |
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Contents |
[edit] Biography
He was born on Christmas Day in 1895 in Zellwood, Florida to Jane P. (1859-?) and Charles Henry Baker, Sr. (1848-?). Both his parents were from Pennsylvania. [3] He later attended Trinity College. [1] By 1918 he was working at Norton Abrasives as a grinder in Worcester, Massachusetts. [4] He moved to New York City, where he worked as a magazine editor and submitted stories to small publications. Baker spent much of his life traveling the world and chronicling food and drink recipes for magazines like Esquire, Town & Country, and Gourmet, for which he wrote a column during the 1940s called "Here's How". [1] Baker met Pauline Elizabeth Paulsen, an heiress to the Weyerhauser fortune, on a world cruise where he had signed on as the ship’s chef. After they were married they had built for them a home called Java Head in Coconut Grove, Florida, in 1936 where they resided the rest of their lives. [5]
Baker collected many of those recipes in his two-volume set "The Gentleman's Companion: Being an Exotic Cookery and Drinking Book", originally published in 1939 by Derrydale Press. [6] John J. Poister in 1983 wrote: "Volume II of The Gentleman's Companion, by Charles H. Baker, Jr., is the best book on exotic drinks I have ever encountered." [7] Conde Nast contributing writer St. John Frizell recently wrote, "it's his prose, not his recipes, that deserves a place in the canon of culinary literature ... at times humorously grandiloquent, at times intimate and familiar, Baker fills his stories with colorful details about his environment and his drinking companions — Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner among them."[1] While his culinary nonfiction garnered Baker much praise, he was less well regarded as a novelist. His only novel, "Blood of the Lamb", was published in 1946 by Rinehart & Company. About it, a Time reviewer wrote in the magazine's April 22, 1946, issue, "Blood of the Lamb is not much of a novel, but it is long on local color, loud piety, snuff, 'stump liquor' and local talk." [8]
| “ | Words to the Wise No. VII. Offering up an earnest plea for recentness in all eggs to be used in cocktails or drinks of any kind, for that matter. A stale or storage egg in a decent mixed drink is like a stale or storage joke in critical and intelligent company. Eschew them rabidly. If really fresh eggs can't be had, mix other type drinks, for the result will reflect no merit round the hearth, no matter how hospitable it may be. [9] | ” |
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—Charles Henry Baker, Jr. in The Gentlemen's Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask |
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Some of Baker's exotic and often esoteric drink recipes from The Gentleman's Companion are once again finding favor at modern cocktail bars specializing in classic drinks, such as Manhattan's Pegu Club, where Baker's "Jimmie Roosevelt"--a mixture of champagne, cognac, and Chartreuse liquer--can be found on the menu. [1]
He died on November 11, 1987 in Naples, Florida. [10] [11]
[edit] Publications
- The Gentleman's Companion (1939 edition) [12] [13] [14]
- Blood of the Lamb; ASIN B000OEHEPQ (1946) [8] [15]
- The Gentleman's Companion - Being an Exotic Drinking Book or Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask (1946 edition)
- The Gentleman's Companion, Exotic Cookery Book; ASIN B000KTPRPO (1946 edition)
- The Gentleman's Companion: Being an Exotic Cookery/Drinking Book; ASIN B000E0XQZW (combined volume I and II) (1946 edition) [16]
- Knife, Fork, and Spoon: Eating Around the World; ISBN 1586670492
- The Esquire Culinary Companion with Maurice Sendak; ASIN B000FD7KLO (1959) [17]
- The South American gentleman's companion; OCLC 588195 (1951)
- The South American gentleman's companion: An exotic cookery book and exotic drinking book; ISBN 0710310315 (2004)
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f Epicurious
- ^ Fichtner, Margaria. "Gentleman's Gentleman", Miami Herald, March 18, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-05-22. "Oh, he was grand, and rightly so - yachtsman, raconteur, amateur botanist, friend of the famous, famous himself in certain circles, a small-town Florida Cracker who knew (or smoothly could find) his way around the world. 'He was tall, dark and handsome, with an Errol Flynn moustache,' says his daughter, Pamela Baker Johnson. 'And he was just as charming as his books.' His name was Charles H. Baker, Jr. Friends called him Bake."
- ^ Bakers in the 1900 US Census in Zellwood, Florida
- ^ World War I draft registration
- ^ Dunlop, Beth, Miami: Trends and Traditions; New York: The Montacelli Press, 1996, page 104
- ^ "Latin-American Food", Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1951. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. "Several years ago Charles H. Baker, Jr. brought out a two volume cookbook called "The Gentleman's Companion." First published in a luxurious edition by, as I recall it, the Derrydale Press at a high price, it was later issued by Crown ..."
- ^ John J. Poister; Wine Lover's Drink Book; page 71
- ^ a b "Florida Flatwoods", Time (magazine), April 22, 1946. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. "Florida tourist literature, understandably, keeps pretty mum about this kind of folk, but Novelist Baker claims to have known them all his life and makes out a good case for their being a particularly cussed and ornery lot. Blood of the Lamb is not much of a novel, but it is long on local color, loud piety, snuff, "stump liquor" and local talk."
- ^ Hedonista
- ^ Social Security Death Index
- ^ Florida Death Index
- ^ Tinker, Edward Larocque. "New editions, fine or otherwise", New York Times, August 25, 1940, Sunday. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. "Sound and practical in its directions, Mr. Baker seasons his subject with a great deal of gaiety and gusto."
- ^ The New York Public Library
- ^ "The Eclectic Epicure", Washington Post, November 19, 1939. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. "With whimsicality and an extraordinary fidelity to detail, Mr. Charles H. Baker, Jr., has done "The Gentleman's Companion," a two-volume work on fine drinking and eating. Years of world-wide research are in these splendid books with the strong implication that Mr. Baker's liver never let him down."
- ^ Poore, Charles. "Books of the Times; Powerful Nemesis Is Abandoned Time Is Early in This Century", New York Times, April 20, 1946, Sunday. Retrieved on 2007-05-22. "There seems to be almost as many Souths as there are writers about it, ranging from the chain-gang to the daisy-chain schools, realists and romantics and mysticists and folklorists and such practically unclassifiable writers as Charles H. Baker Jr., whose "Blood of the Lamb" fits neatly into no category whatever."
- ^ "Review", Virginia Quarterly Review, August, 1982, p. 138.
- ^ Claiborne, Craig. "Recipe for Pleasure; The Esquire Culinary Companion", New York Times Book Review, August 2, 1959, Sunday. Retrieved on 2007-05-22. "Caviar is not for all palates and "The Esquire Culinary Companion" will not be for the universal kitchen shelf. It is a fascinating work, however; an excellent compendium of recipes culled from many of the best kitchens in Europe."
