Product Description

Rick Stein offers over 100 new recipes, based on the best of all British produce, as well as a directory of the producers that he has met and recommends. He includes his own variations on traditional British dishes, such as Welsh rarebit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1194495 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-28
• Released on: 2007-08-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 204 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
What a likeable cook and writer Rick Stein is, apparently quite without side or any need to posture. Tirelessly generous, Food Heroes salutes those people who work hard, in the face of market pressures and often widespread indifference, to make available the very best British produce. Cheese, eggs, poultry, meat and game, fruit and seafood--the list of foodstuffs over which many of us have relinquished any claim to demand quality is a long and depressing one. Top marks, then to Stein for travelling the country and bringing a bit of publicity to those who labour in the vineyard. He is remarkably good at making clear just why quality matters so much, not only in terms of flavour, but on humanitarian grounds too. (. He pointedly muses on how very much more cruelty might be prevented if single-issue anti-hunt campaigners broadened their concerns to include intensive farming.)

Some of the names here are more familiar than others: many people have eaten Mrs Kirkham's remarkable Lancashire cheese #40;though some apparently think she is no more real then Mr Kipling), or enjoyed the products of Loch Fyne and the Duchy of Cornwall; they are merely the most prominent among more than 300 producers and suppliers listed in the extraordinarily thorough and useful directory. One wishes them all well and hopes that this book (and the TV series) will have an appreciable effect on the nation's food buying. At least no-one can say that Rick Stein hasn't tried. The recipes he produces to demonstrate how to make the best of this fine produce are, as always, simple and impeccable, mingling a nice appreciation for tradition with a clear-sighted modern practicality. Roast Grouse with Bread Sauce and all the Trimmings rubs shoulders, as it were, with Medallions of Venison with Red Wine and Morello Cherries accompanied by Roasted Hazelnut Spätzle (a remarkable dish), while simple, old-fashioned puddings like Coeur à la Crème and Summer Pudding sit happily alongside chef's creations such as Fresh Raspberry Tart in Coconut and Hazelnut Pastry. The book is a feast and a pleasure, and if used as Rick Stein intends, may make the world a slightly better place. --Robin Davidson

Review
Rick Stein's "Food Heroes" is not about his favourite chefs as might at first be assumed. It is about the top food producers in Britain today. His love of fresh ingredients is well-known and here he travels the length and breadth of the country in his hunt for people of like mind, people who care more about their produce than their profit. Whilst acknowledging supermarkets today offer a range of foods far more global and wide-ranging than ever dreamt of, he draws the cooks attention to ingredients fresher and better than those sold by profit-making conglomerates. Handmade cheeses, organic watercress, free-range chickens and ducks and his favourite, freshly caught fish. Stein meets the people and explains their philosophy behind what could all too easily be loss-making ventures. But such is their belief in what they do they can translate it to chefs like Stein to promote and educate the general public. Accompanied by over 100 scrumptious Stein recipes, and attractively illustrated with colour photographs, this is an ideal gift to anyone wanting to cook and taste the very best of British produce. - Lucy Watson

About the Author
Rick Stein (Padstow, U.K.) wrote the award-winning English Seafood Cookery, Taste of the Sea and Rick Stein's Food Heroes: Another Helping.