The River Cottage Cookbook - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (photography Simon Wheeler)
Guest Reviewer: Sue Magee
Phoenix Book Reviews would like to thank Sue Magee for her review
Sue lives on the edge of Ilkley Moor and after what seemed like a lifetime working for the Inland Revenue is now realising that real life has so much more to offer.
I was tempted into this book and it was an insidious process. "Would you like Hugh's recipe for Weeping Lamb?" "If you've got a glut of tomatoes I could let you have Hugh's recipe for tomato sauce." I gave in and Amazon supplied it for the very reasonable price of £12.50 as opposed to the £25 cover price for the hardback version.
Back in the nineteen nineties Hugh had the opportunity to rent River Cottage in Dorset and he took the property with the intention of using it at weekends. Once there he started growing a few vegetables for himself and his family. A couple of years later Channel Four gave him the opportunity to film at the cottage and he moved in on a full-time basis. This, in its turn meant that he was able to extend his food production and to keep animals.
It's perhaps misleading to call this a cookbook as that suggests to me that it's primarily about cooking and recipes. It isn't. It's about the quality of the food that we eat and moving away from rubbish to good, locally produced food, some of it home-grown. It's not, though, a book about self-sufficiency as Hugh admits that he's not self-sufficient and has no intention of trying to be. There is what he describes as "the food acquisition continuum" which ranges from the people who are self-sufficient, through those who grow some of their own food to those who buy everything from the supermarket.
He's unworried about where you are on this continuum as his aim is to encourage thought about where food comes from. Once you've tasted the freshness and quality of food that you've grown yourself you realise that the produce in the supermarket is very poor in comparison. Each section of the book takes a class of food, such as garden produce, livestock, fish or hedgerow and gives some basic instruction as to how the food should be grown, reared or caught. This is then followed by some relevant recipes.
The instruction given is basic. Don't buy this book if you're looking for the definitive book on fruit and vegetable gardening or how to rear livestock. It's written from the perspective of an amateur "having a go" and if I seriously wanted to grow or rear I would want to have more detail and the words of the expert who has years of experience. It's an excellent taster though and I know of one person who plucked up the courage to keep some livestock because of this book. I'm planning to grow more of our own fruit and vegetables next year. It's a book that enthuses the reader.
Some parts of the book are more confident than others. Some are obviously written from personal experience, whilst others have the flavour of book learning. I was engrossed in what he has to say about keeping pigs and cattle as it obviously comes from his own personal experience, but I'm less impressed with the section on sheep. Some vegetables he obviously grows and loves; others I suspect he avoids altogether.
It's the recipes that sing with flavour though. I'd already tried the weeping lamb, where the lamb is cooked directly on the oven rack and drips onto a tray of vegetables below. The meat and the vegetables are heavenly. Buying the book coincided with my courgette glut and the first recipe that I tried was for a courgette sauce for pasta. It's a combination of courgettes, cream and parmesan cheese and went beautifully with freshly-cooked pasta. It did, however, illustrate that some of the recipes are a little imprecise. "Cook... exactly as for the bruschetta" the recipe said. I looked at the bruschetta recipe only to find that the courgettes should be cooked "as for the soufflé" , which used different ingredients.
For a confident cook such matters are no problem. It's easy to see what Hugh's trying to achieve, but it might be rather daunting to someone who lacks experience. On the other hand there's a recipe for the simplest-ever ice cream which requires just some cream and a tin of peaches!
I've made considerable use of the Directory at the back of the book. It's a list of addresses and websites which give advice or supply food or equipment. Some I already knew and used, but there are some gems in there, such as Mrs Tee, the supplier of wild mushrooms.
Hugh's style of writing makes for comfortable, easy reading. I was so engrossed in some parts that I read them as though they were a story. Other parts such as those about food production are more political than I am used to finding in a cookery book. I'm in complete sympathy with his views though, so this was particularly enjoyable.
Photography in the book is by Simon Wheeler. He seems to be specialising in this type of book, having completed Monty and Sarah's Don's "Fork to Fork" just before he started on "The River Cottage Cookbook". The pictures are good and I've only got one quibble and that's the fact that there is nothing to tell you what they are. Admittedly "Hugh chasing a chicken" is probably unnecessary, but there were certain dishes pictured and I'd like to know what they are. I think the pictures are there as eye-candy rather than to support the text!
I looked at this book when it was first published, back in 2001 and I was put off it when I glanced at the bits about slaughtering animals. I'm hypocritical enough to eat meat in the knowledge that if I had to have any part in the slaughter I would become a vegetarian. I now know that I was missing something rather good.
Now, who's for starting a compost heap?
Sue's rating: 4 stars.
Publisher: Harper Collins.
ISBN: 0-00-220204-2
Price: £17.99 p/b / $40.00 h/b (at time of writing available for half price from amazon.co.uk)
Date reviewed: February 2004
Sue's rating 4/5
