Product Description

Published to tie in with the third series of the acclaimed Channel 4 River Cottage , this book draws on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's experiences at his home in Dorset. Hugh writes:"There are two reasons why you may want to buy this book. The first is more or less selfish, because the main aim here is simply to help you enjoy your life more - your life with food, that is. One of the most satisfying things about my life at River Cottage is that I've hardly ever had a bad meal here. Of course I've burned things and messed up once in a while. But I rarely have that experience that used to seem all too common, where I find myself thinking "why am I eating this rubbish?" The second reason is more political. This book is written with a strong awareness that our current food production system leaves a great deal to be desired. Most of the meat we eat comes from industrially farmed animals who lead miserable lives and are fed on inappropriate diets. It is neither as tasty nor as healthy as it should be. Much of the fruit and vegetables we eat is the product of intensive agriculture that pollutes the land we live on and leaves unnecessary residues on and in the produce. I don't like that, and I know more and more people who feel the same way. How much of this book you incorporate into your life is up to you. But if all you do is grow a few herbs in a window box, make nettle soup once a year, and try a free range goose for Christmas instead of a frozen turkey, you will already, I hope, be enjoying your life more." With over 100 recipes, and Simon Wheeler's acclaimed photography, "The River Cottage Cookbook" should appeal to all downshifters and to all those who prefer their food to be full-blooded and wholesome.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1462644 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Ordinarily the word "lifestyle" is more likely to be applied to slender magazine articles puffing lofts full of Eames furniture rather than books about smallholdings in Dorset. The River Cottage Cookbook, however, is a hefty 450 pages of pure, gumbooted rural lifestyle; and one could not wish it shorter. Cook, broadcaster and food-writer-at-large Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been ensconced at River Cottage for a number of years, cultivating his vegetable garden, raising chickens, pigs and even cattle for his table, and taking occasional potshots at the local wildlife. His achievements have been chronicled on television; now they appear between hard covers. Although it calls itself a cookbook, and of course does Contain a large number of fine recipes, the scope is much broader. Really, this is more like one of those "Enquire Within on Everything" volumes nineteenth-century settlers used to take to the outback with them, full of instructions for mixing whitewash, worming dogs, or making a bag pudding. Starting with vegetables, proceeding to livestock and fish (River Cottage does indeed have a river and is only five miles from the sea) and concluding with the wild food, floral and faunal, of the hedgerow, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall explains how he grows, gathers, kills and cooks his own food. There is a lot of information here, and a lot of hard reality, too: he is very clear and forthright about the place of death in this kind of life. But then this is a very clear and forthright book overall, a very engaging and really quite inspirational manual of how to live the country life so many of us dream about. Well-illustrated, too, with Simon Wheeler's fine photographs of Hugh at work chasing chickens, skinning eels, carrying piglets and so on. The food in the River Cottage kitchen looks wonderful, too, though the photo of a cod-head glaring resentfully from under a beehive of parsley in a stock pot carries many more resonances than it is possible to summarise here. --Robin Davidson

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Readers in search of a single tome illustrating not only how to deal with a pig carcass but also how to prepare a Shrimp and Sea Lettuce Tempura need look no further. English carnivore extraordinaire Fearnley-Whittingstall (The River Cottage Meat Book) has revised his 2001 answer to the Whole Earth Cookbook into this new, slightly Americanized, edition. There are 95 healthy recipes, everything from Strawberry Sandwiches to Nettle Soup, Crispy Pig's Ears to Pigeon Pitas (yes, real pigeons), but the work is primarily an intense and heartfelt almanac of raising and eating organic plants and animals without the intrusive use of slaughterhouses, packaging plants or grocery stores. For cooks with an acre or two of land, or with access to woodlands, there are priceless lessons in raising sheep (a good ram is hard to find), choosing the right cow (bright eyes and lumpless udders) and picking the perfect wild mushroom. For city dwellers, the author, pictured on the cover with a plump piglet under each arm and later shown happily tearing apart a rabbit, might just be the Edgar Allan Poe of poultry. As a benchmark, somewhere between horror and hors d'oeuvre, consider this typical set of instructions before delving into the text: A chicken is not ready to kill for the table until you think it is. Pick it up, feel its weight, and feel its breast. If it feels tempting, then you should kill it if you want to. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Philippa Davenport, Financial Times, 17 February 2001
A practical and lively smallholder's bible, essential reading ... I am prepared to bet this will prove one of my favourite cookery titles this year