Five books for food lovers 2019

There are so many ‘best of’ cookbook lists around at this time of year.  If you can bring yourself to read another, here’s my top 5 pick for 2019.  I’ve read and cooked from them all.  Only two are new publications.  For me, they really stand out in this year’s barrage of books.  The other three books are vintage, much-loved ones that have done more than teach me to cook.  They are still continually taken down from my bookshelf and that's why they make this list.

The New:

My top two of the new are simply books that are full of recipes I really do want to cook.

Sardine by Alex Jackson is stuffed with ‘Simple, seasonal, southern French cooking’ recipes.  It’s broken down into chapters covering the four seasons with a Grande Bouffe or two per season – a Cous-cous for summer; an autumnal grand alioli feast.  There are dishes as quick and simple as Cold almond, melon & pastis soup; Roast hake, samphire & tomato salad; and buttery Fried ceps & persillade.  And a more time-consuming rich, saffron-spiked Bourride; Nicoise-style porchetta; and, Beef shin, chestnuts, wet polenta & gruyere.  Alex’s recipe for a classic Clafoutis is the best I’ve ever come across and his Apricot & brown butter tart is a dream – I’ve substituted both pears and prunes to successfully extend the season of this one.  Check out the book’s end pages for the author’s influences and to see what a good kitchen bookshelf of southern French cooking looks like.  There is little in this book that I don’t want to cook. 

Sardine - Simple seasonal Provençal cooking

Published by Pavilion

Pasta Grannies by Vicky Bennison is subtitled The secrets of Italy’s best home cooks’.  As the author points out, “All Italians know their grandmothers are the best cooks” partly, of course, “ because they are served food with a liberal sprinkle of adoration”.  It’s the pasta-making knowledge of these Italian women who learned, in tough times, how to prepare everything from scratch and to make a few good ingredients go further through the vehicle of pasta.  This book comes out of the YouTube Channel, Pasta Grannies, which has been a little addiction for many thousands of people, including me, over the past five years.  The book, and the Channel, are a celebration of these previously unsung home cooks and a record of traditions in a rapidly changing food culture.  There are sound, intensively tried and tested recipes for fresh pastas from the Dolomites in the north to the tip of Sicily in the south.  There are portraits of no-nonsense Nonnas like Ida with her Agnolotti del Plin and Rosa with a dish of Maccheroni with salt cod and dried peppers.  I can tell you Franca’s Classic lasagne with Bolognese works wonderfully, as does Vanda’s Cappellacci with Pumpkin.  I think it will take me some time to get up to the speed of these Grannies but there’s plenty more to want to emulate.

Pasta Grannies by Vicky Bennison 

Published by Hardie Grant Books

The Vintage (all still in print):

If you have few food traditions and virtually no learning at mother’s knee to draw on, you need a comprehensive general cookbook and a ‘Guru’ or two.

My first food book covers the general.  It was a pre-loved gift, and it keeps on giving to this day.  It’s a 1976 edition of The Cookery Year, a Reader’s Digest publication that has been through many editions over the years.  My copy includes contributions from great writers like Derek Cooper, Margaret Costa, Jane Grigson and Katie Stewart.  With chapters on ‘Buying for Quality’ and  ‘Twelve Months of Recipes’, its 500+ recipes are all centred around fresh, seasonal food.  The influence of this book, and these writers, on my own thinking about food is clear.  I am, and always will be, an advocate for using the best ingredients (which doesn’t mean the most expensive or most travelled), in season and cooked simply.  Photography is real – don’t expect 1970s kitsch here – supplemented by some lovely illustrations from artists like Denys Ovenden.

The Cookery Year

Published by Reader’s Digest

Jane Grigson is my first ‘Guru’.  I could have highlighted any of her books here but as I love fruit-growing particularly, I’ve chosen her Fruit Book.  The depth of Jane Grigson’s food knowledge, the breadth of her interests and the lyricism of her writing combine to make her the most readable of writers.  A glance at her Acknowledgements page in this book, first published in 1982, tells you how well she informed herself in preparation for writing.  It is an A-Z of fruit and, therefore, ideal for dipping into when you want to know how best to make use of, say, that punnet of sour gooseberries you’ve just acquired or that glut of ripe strawberries.  The cracked spine and splattered pages of my own copy testifies to how useful I find this book.  But it is more than a source of quick inspiration.  Open the page at ‘Fig’ and you will be treated to two fascinating pages covering cultivation, religion, art, folklore, sexuality, poetry, medicine and opinion.  Beautifully simple recipes follow, from Duck in Port Wine and Figs to Spanish Fig Ice Cream, and Mme Verdier’s Black Fig Jam.  

Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book

Published by Penguin Books

And then there’s Simon Hopkinson, a guiding-light to many.  Again, it’s hard to choose which of his books to single out but Roast Chicken and Other Stories, written with the help of food journalist Lindsey Bareham, is so perfectly formed that I have to go for it.  Organised in chapters based on Hopkinson's favourite ingredients, the recipes are so good you just long for chapters on ingredients he hasn't covered - then you buy his follow-up book "second helpings of roast chicken".  Simon Hopkinson’s food, as he says himself, is designed to please rather than to impress.  He is a chef/writer with very strong opinions and there is no-one better to knock any pretentiousness out of your cooking.  He will teach you to appreciate a few good ingredients, make you think about what goes with what and how to keep things simple.  And his recipes always, always work.  You may have to settle for a paperback copy of this one.

Roast Chicken and Other Stories
Published by Ebury Press

Five books for food lovers 2018

Five books for food lovers 2018

Halfway through December, it's time to remember the food books that have proved deserving of their shelf space in 2018.  From this year's publications, there's a book of no-nonsense do-able food that banished my preconceptions of German cuisine.  Summing-up traditional home-cooked German food as “gently spiced, smoky, buttery, yet sweet and sour”, and as “warm and hearty and vinegar-laced”, the author celebrates the positive influences migration and trade has had on German food over the past seven decades.  For dessert, there's a highly seasonal book on ice cream that will have you measuring your year in ice cream scoops, longing to pick your own blood oranges in Sicily and closely guarding your source of Loganberries.  There's a 2017 publication that slipped my net last year and I'm so glad I finally scooped it up for its attention to seasonality and ingredients, and, not least, for its chapter on pasta.  I've included a re-print of a book which was out of print for some 70 years.  And there's a memoir of a true food hero to round things off.  

Caraway Dumplings with spiced carrot
from Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings: The new taste of German cooking

By Anja Dunk

I’ve followed Anja Dunk’s Instagram site for quite a while and, like many others, have been charmed by the posts of her cosy, sometimes chaotic kitchen and dining table.  This is no temple to marble and stainless steel, but a true home kitchen.  Jam pans bubble on the stove; sturdy shelves are a backdrop, packed to capacity with hand-made bowls and jars of essential nuts, dried fruits, pulses and grains; tiny hands reach across the table for another helping of Schmarren (baked pancake).  Anja is warm and engaging on social media and this comes across in this, her book, Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings ..... Read more ....

Damson and Grappa ice cream
from La Grotta Ices

La Grotta Ices

By Kitty Travers

Before I say a word about this book - La Grotta Ices which was published in June - I have to declare I know the author.  Given the trajectory of her career, I'm sure I ate Kitty Travers's food at a couple of favourite London restaurants before we met.  I love a good pudding, and ice creams in particular, so a good pastry chef is to be treasured.  Then I spotted a little Piaggio Ape van whizzing across south east London.  It was driven by a willowy tall, rosy-cheeked woman who seemed to have found the secret to happiness.  And she had..... Read more .....

Braised fennel and purple olive dressing
from Trullo: The Cookbook

Trullo: The Cookbook

By Tim Siadatan 

I'm late to Tim Siadatan's book and there are so many recipes I still want to try that I feel I've barely mopped a plate, yet here I am recommending it.  Normally I like to really get to know a recipe book before I list it but I have been several times to the Highbury Corner neighbourhood restaurant - Trullo - where most of the recipes were created - so I know what we have here is straightforward "serious cooking" ... "without the seriousness", as the author puts it.  The book is based on the author's initial focus on classic regional Italian food married with the creative freedom which comes from having his own restaurant. Previously he worked at restaurants like Fifteen, St John and Moro.  There's good practical advice on equipping your kitchen: buy quality pans and learn to keep a knife sharp rather than spend money on an expensive one; what to stock in your fridge and dry store; and how to be thoughtful about your ingredient choices.  I've cooked the last of my allotment-grown pumpkins in a dish of Gnudi and pumpkin ricotta that were as fluffy and light as promised. I've served-up Braised fennel and purple olive dressing which was as fresh and zingy as I was led to believe it would be.  I want very much to eat a bowl of Cannellini beans, King cabbage and pancetta.  A Whole baked turbot with poached leeks and aioli is also on my mind along with a Chocolate tart which the author learned to make during his time in the kitchen at Moro (enough said).  And then there's the pasta which is treated with immense respect both in the restaurant and in this book.

Coming to my Senses: The making of a counterculture cook

By Alice Waters

More than 40 years after opening her seminal restaurant and cafe, Chez Panisse, Alice Waters finally tells the inspiring story of what motivated her to create what was to become the most influential food movement in America.  Living through highly-charged political times, searching for something to believe in, she transformed her nation's relationship with food.  I've been lucky enough to eat there several times over the years - though this is a reminder that it's been a while now - and there are few places in the world where I've felt so completely happy.  It's the first place I can remember where the growers and producers of the ingredients on your plate were celebrated and their work treated with utmost respect.  And it was the first place where I was presented with a bowl of salad leaves that almost jumped off the plate with freshness, dressed and presented with due reverence.  It's at Chez Panisse that I've eaten some of my most memorable meals and the experiences have influenced my own growing, cooking and writing.  

In this book, Alice Waters's takes you, in a very personal way, from her 1950s "Betty Crocker cake-mix childhood", her formative travels through Europe, political engagement and disenchantment, learning the importance of terroir and ending with a chapter on 'Opening Night'.  The author's gradual realisation that "food is political" and that the success of Chez Panisse opened doors to projects she had only dreamed of spurred her on to be bold.  Everything she has achieved is without actually cooking at Chez Panisse herself.  But then, if she had, would she have had the time to put all the pieces in place that make Chez Panisse (and all it stands for) what it is?  Her projects, such as 'Edible Schoolyard' are only touched on in this book.  Clearly, there has to be a second book picking up where this one leaves off.

The Anatomy of Dessert With a Few Notes on Wine

By Edward A. Bunyard

My copy of The Anatomy of Dessert, out of print for some 70 years, is a Modern Library Food re-print, edited by Ruth Reichl.  Edward Ashdown Bunyard was a Kent-born nurseryman who was devoted to pomology (the study and cultivation of fruit) and shared his knowledge in books such as The Anatomy of Dessert.  First published in 1929, Bunyard's reference to 'Dessert' in the title refers to the meaning of the word in England at the time,  namely the fruit course.  Pudding came after, so, don't expect this book to be filled with any sugars except those of the natural fruit kind.  And what of the few notes on wine?  Well, his love included grapes, of course.  Such was Bunyard's love of his subject that his sensuous writing is full of, as Michael Pollen's introduction to this re-print puts it, ".... barely sublimated fruit lust ...".  His epicurean passions found release in his book The Epicure's Companion as well as writing hundreds of articles.

From Apples through to Strawberries, each chapter lyrically describes the merits of each fruit, its varieties, and when each are at their best.  Many of these varieties are, sadly, no longer grown except, hopefully, in some domestic gardens.  Reading Bunyard makes you long to taste an Old Transparent Gage plum and realise how impoverished our fruit year is today.

I love Ruth Reichl's analysis of why she loves food writing, which she mentions in her Introduction to The Modern Library Food Series- " .... food is a lens through which to view the world." ".... If you choose to pay attention, cooking is an important cultural artefact, an expression of time, place and personality."

As every year, there could have been more than 5 books in my selection, but it's a good discipline to stick to, I think.  I rarely accept a book for free, so, the books I choose are not based on any feeling of obligation.  I hope you enjoy reading about my 2018 personal choices.

La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers

La Grotta Ices book

Before I say a word about this book - La Grotta Ices which was published in June - I have to declare I know the author.  Given the trajectory of her career, I'm sure I ate Kitty Travers's food at a couple of favourite London restaurants before we met.  I love a good pudding, and ice creams in particular, so a good pastry chef is to be treasured.  Then I spotted a little Piaggio Ape van whizzing across south east London.  It was driven by a willowy tall, rosy-cheeked woman who seemed to have found the secret to happiness.  And she had.  She had followed her dream.

I'm not sure of many things but I firmly believe we all have ice cream memories.  Often it's that first lick of Mr Whippy soft-scoop vanilla (with a chocolate flake if you were flush) in a dry, brittle, tasteless cone.  It's a memory of taste, time and place that stays with us.  For me it's the jingling sound of Greensleeves announcing the arrival of the ice cream van.  A strawberry Mivvi, please.  For Kitty Travers, her memory is a slice of supermarket economy vanilla brick that, after suffering several re-freezes emerged from its damp cardboard box as a "curious foamy gum".  I remember it well.  I suspect few of our first ice cream memories would stand up to much scrutiny on taste, but they are no less fondly held.

La Grotta Ices - Scooping

As with most things, once you've tasted the good stuff, you want more.  In Kitty's case it was the flavours of abricot, cassis, groseille, and callison in a little glaciere off the Croissette in Cannes that began the seduction.  A scoop of ice cream became part of her morning ritual before a 16-hour waitressing shift.  A dip into Jeffrey Steingarten's book The Man Who Ate Everything, specifically the chapter "The Mother of All Ice Cream", fed a passion to discover how such flavours could be delivered in the form of ice cream.  An inheritance allowed her to fly to New York to study and to 'stage' for Mario Batali and Meredith Kurtzman at Otto Enoteca and for Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune.  She thrived and then the visa ran out.  The boost to her confidence returned her to London where Fergus Henderson was only too pleased to employ her at St John Bread & Wine where she scooped up her first ice cream - Fresh Mint - as pastry chef.  Holidays in Italy were spent working, sampling and learning about gelato in the best places for it - Rome, Naples and Sicily.  Not all was 'la dolce vita' and decision time came when she was assured by a gelato maker that she could never learn to make ice cream like an Italian (being in her twenties, she was far too old!).  She decided there and then that she would try to do something "relevant to the place" she came from and "make it perfect".  She would make ice cream.  La Grotta Ices was established in London in 2008, named in recognition of that little glaciere in Cannes which fed her early ice cream dreams.

If the La Grotta Ices book doesn't make you value the importance of seasonality, nothing will.  The order reflects the author's ice cream making year which changes constantly as ingredients come into their, often short, season and then bow out.  She reminds that if you buy with seasonality in mind you will find fruits that are not only ripe and tasting at their best but good value too.

Strawberry Salad Ice Cream
Recipe from La Grotta Ices

Achieving the perfect balance of water, sugar, fat, solids (proteins) and emulsifier is key.  The ethos is fresh, seasonal and minimally processed.  Expect recipes to include milk, cream, eggs, sugar, fruits and natural flavourings.  You'll find no 'fat-free' here, unless it's a sorbet - thank goodness. There's imaginativeness in flavours and textures in these 75 recipes but no 'let's see how off-the-wall we can get'.  Some combinations are creative and surprising but always thoughtful.  The recipes start logically in January with the arrival of sharp citrus fruits from Italy, their peels rich with oils, put to use in Kumquat Custard; Blood orange & Bergamot Sherbert; and Mimosa (blossom), Seville & Orange Rice.  We move through spring and summer's rhubarb, strawberries, cherries, peaches, apricots, blackcurrants and resiny early Pigeon Figs with ice creams like Leafy Blackcurrant Custard; Apricot Noyau; a sorbet of Tomato & White Peach; and Pigeon Figs & Pineau de Charentes.  Early autumn brings sticky figs, grapes, melons, plums, pear and quince, so we have Damson Grappa; Melon & Jasmine Sorbet; Pear, Myrtle & Ginger.  Late in the year there's a turn to richer flavours in the form of nuts, dried fruits, candied peels, butterscotch and malt so you'll find Pistachio; Medici Almond; and Butterscotch & Agen Prune.  Herbs, geranium leaves and fruit leaves are valued too, particularly useful if you are waiting impatiently for your fruits to ripen as the leaves (some are poisonous, so check) deliver interesting flavours on their own as well as adding another dimension to fruit ice creams.  There are recipes for Mint Chip; Blackberry and Rose Geranium; Blackcurrant Leaf Water; Peach Leaf Milk Ice; and several uses for the sublime fig leaf.

The writing around the recipes is pitch-perfect.  Little vignettes of the author's adventures in pursuit of a true passion: Memories of breakfasting on poached quince after feeding the livestock on an Urbino pig farm.  How to avoid, or enjoy, a Prickly Pear.  How eating too many Kiwis in the name of love led to a visit to a cowboy-hatted doctor, the part played by Mussolini in the drama, and how Italy can be too much if you're not careful.

Leafy Blackcurrant Custard
Recipe from La Grotta Ices

There's good advice too, like: Keep your Loganberry source to yourself - they are as rare as hen's teeth and short in season; why good quality cocoa powder works better than chocolate in ice cream; keep your eyes open and nose alert to walnut trees and lemon verbena bushes on common land; after sieving berries, use the pips for making a pip juice; and eat chocolate pudding flavoured ice cream with a good friend so they can wrestle it from you before you polish it off in one go!

I am certain I will make every recipe in this book because I have the advantage of knowing just how good La Grotta Ices is.  I already have summer favourites like Strawberry Salad, Tomato and Peach Sorbet and Leafy Blackcurrant Custard.  I badly want to make Tamarillo ice cream because of its thrillingly tropical flavour and the sumptuous colour it takes on; Carrot Seed because I'm a grower and I'm intrigued; Lime and Botanicals because I like a nice G&T; and Pistachio because it's pistachio.

The artwork in the book is eye-catching and fun and photographs, by Grant Cornett, capture perfectly the nostalgia around our ice cream memories.  I should tell you too that I attended one of Kitty Travers's early teaching classes at The School of Artisan Food.  She still runs regular Introduction courses there so I have included a link just in case you want to catch, as I did, some of her infectious enthusiasm for her passion.  And here's a link to the La Grotta Ices site for up-to-date info on where you can buy the ice creams in London.

I don't know about you, but I still wouldn't turn my nose up at my ice cream memory - though I'm told my Strawberry Mivvi has slipped from its stick for the last time.  Probably for the best.

Published by: Square Peg/Penguin Random House

I bought this book

Five Books for Food Lovers 2017

Five books for Food Lovers 2017

I bought so few food-related books in 2016 that I talked more about those trusted indispensables than the new in that round-up.  This year, I faired rather better on the new books front.  Here are the five I particularly want to recommend this year.  As usual, there's an older book in there.  And another was, strictly speaking, published in 2016.  The list could have been longer but I've got to draw the line somewhere.  There's a book to move my bread-making skills on from what has become my safe place; one to bring an antidote to that Sunday night gloom; there is a book that is spicing up my cooking; one to feed my mind with some serious talk about food production, culinary history and much more; and a book stuffed with recipes you really want to make again and again from a writer who moved Simon Hopkinson to say of her prose "Describing how to boil potatoes would inspire me...".   Here they are, in no particular order:

Two Kitchens: Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

Two Kitchens: Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome 
by Rachel Roddy

Rachel Roddy's second book, Two Kitchens - Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome is a closely linked follow-up to her award winning Five Quarters - Recipes and notes from a kitchen in Rome and, again, you get so much more than just recipes.  This time we join her in both Rome and Gela, the little town which guide books advise you to drive straight past.  To Rachel it is "... full of disrepair and despair but quietly beautiful and intriguing if you give it time ...".  It is Gela that blew away any romantic ideas about Sicily for the author - the utopian Mediterranean holiday island is a far cry from real life in the south east corner of the island.  Poverty, dilapidation and bad agricultural practices are a fact of life that are not glossed over in the book.  Yet the way of life in Gela has captivated her.  ... Read more ...

The Sunday Night Book: 52 Short Recipes to Make the Weekend Feel Longer
by Rosie Sykes

The Sunday Night Book: 52 Short Recipes to Make the Weekend Feel Longer 
by Rosie Sykes

I used to dread those last few sepulchral hours of the weekend, particularly in winter when it can feel like all traces of colour have leeched into the sodden earth.  That Sunday night feeling when the prospect of a whole week of school hit like a freight train.  How much more bearable those last few hours would have been if we had embraced the opportunity to cook together in the way chef Rosie Sykes's family did.  Based on the kind of food they liked to cook and eat, The Sunday Night Book is the antidote to that Sunday night curtains-drawn glumness.  But whatever the day of the week, it's uplifting cooking to banish the blues.  There are failsafe recipes for comforting dishes on toast; one-pot dishes that you deliberately make too much of just so you have leftovers for later in the week; a bowl of pasta, of course; something eggy; light salads for when the weekend has been too good; ideas for leftovers; and, at the end of the book, "if all else fails" there's a chapter on Cocktails and a little bite to eat.  ... Read more ...

Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese
by Bronwen & Francis Percival

Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese
by Bronwen & Francis Percival

I confess as a cheese appreciator I had been looking forward to this book, but Reinventing the Wheel is not just for cheese lovers.  It's a book for anyone who cares about the food they eat and the welfare of those who produce it.  It tackles the wisdom of mega-dairies and industrialisation and the tension between modernity and tradition.  Across 12 chapters, Bronwen and Francis Percival examine the culinary history, terroir, microbiology, sociology and politics of cheesemaking.  ... Read more ...

Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day
by Meera Sodha

Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day
by Meera Sodha
My bookshelves are light on Indian food books.  I love Indian food and relish it when someone who really knows what they are doing cooks it for me.  However, I've always been unconvinced that I can get the spicing right.  I think I do a reasonable Lamb Rogan Josh. This, I feel sure, would qualify as one of those dishes "swimming in brown sauce" which is far removed from the "fresh, vibrant and seasonal" Gujarati ones in this book.  I have a more than acceptable Chicken Biryani in my repertoire, thanks to the cook and food writer Sri Owen (yes, I know Sri Owen is Indonesian but she knows her way around a number of cuisines).  It comes with a long list of spices and yogurt for saucing and made me appreciate how subtle Indian spicing can be.  But it's the incredible range of vegetarian dishes which have come out of India that I most enjoy, and most want to be able to cook. My copy of Madhur Jaffrey's, admittedly weighty, World Vegetarian can only give me a glimpse of India.

Finally, I've found a book that is giving me the confidence to cook Indian vegetarian food myself. Fresh India by Meera Sodha is a follow-up to her well received first book Made in India.  ..... Read more ...

Tartine Book No. 3
by Chad Robertson

Tartine Book No 3
by Chad Robertson

My food books list back in 2014 included a recommendation for Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson.  He probably needs no introduction but the book is all about the use of natural leaven (levain or sourdough), which French bakers used for bread, croissants and brioche until the 1930's when commercial yeast became available.  After years of believing I could never produce a decent loaf in a domestic kitchen, I put my faith in Chad, and a 'Dutch Oven', and have never looked back. Tartine Book No. 3, published in 2013, was a welcome present this year to move my bread-making skills on from what has become my comfort zone.  Because there is much to be discovered beyond Country Whites, Wholewheats and Ryes.  A whole world of ancient, sprouted and double-fermented grains, porridge breads, crispbreads and pastries awaits.  I'm just getting started with Tartine Book No. 3 so you can take this book recommendation with a pinch of salt, but it's a recommendation built on the strength of my 'oven spring'.

If you are into bread making, or thinking about it, you might like this piece I wrote when I was getting started - The Sweet and the Sour  

Fresh India by Meera Sodha

Fresh India
by Meera Sodha

My bookshelves are light on Indian food books.  I love Indian food and relish it when someone who really knows what they are doing cooks it for me.  However, I've always been unconvinced that I can get the spicing right.  I think I do a reasonable Lamb Rogan Josh. This, I feel sure, would qualify as one of those dishes "swimming in brown sauce" which is far removed from the "fresh, vibrant and seasonal" Gujarati ones in this book.  I have a more than acceptable Chicken Biryani in my repertoire, thanks to the cook and food writer Sri Owen (yes, I know Sri Owen is Indonesian but she knows her way around a number of cuisines).  It comes with a long list of spices and yogurt for saucing and made me appreciate how subtle Indian spicing can be.  But it's the incredible range of vegetarian dishes which have come out of India that I most enjoy, and most want to be able to cook. My copy of Madhur Jaffrey's, admittedly weighty, World Vegetarian can only give me a glimpse of India.

Finally, I've found a book that is giving me the confidence to cook Indian vegetarian food myself. Fresh India by Meera Sodha is a follow-up to her well received first book Made in India.  It is informed by her family's Gujarati background, which is still a strong influence even though she grew up in a farming village in Lincolnshire.  Ready access to fresh, locally-grown seasonal vegetables and the Gujarati way of "creative, fresh and always vegetables first" when cooking chimes with my own way of thinking and cooking - goodness knows I have access to enough vegetables.  In line with the Gujarati cuisine ethos, born out of necessity, of using what is fresh and grows nearby meant a life in rural England offered up potatoes, leeks, corn, chard, cauliflower and more greens.  These ingredients are what Meera Sodha's mother turned to for her "vegetable-first" way of cooking and many take a starring role in Fresh India.

I'm not a vegetarian, but like so many others now, meat plays a small roll in my, and my family's, diet.  There's an emphasis on seasonality, a desire to "honour the seasons" which I am personally committed to - irritatingly so to some, I suspect.  I am lucky enough to be able to grow vegetables on my allotment and, when you grow, you can never have enough recipes for vegetables.  There's even a roundup of recipes here "for allotment gluts".  The recipes are also presented as "quick" and "easy". So, on flipping through the pages in the bookshop, Fresh India appealed to me on so many levels.

There are 'Starters + Snacks' based around irresistible Indian street food dishes expertly prepared by the 'one-man' stallholder - like New Potato and Chickpea Chaat, and Beetroot Pachadi.  There are really simple dishes: Smashed Jerusalem Artichokes with butter, pepper and garlic, perfumed with cumin, ginger and coriander stems and Gujarati Corn on the Cob Curry with peanuts for taste and texture.  I subscribe entirely to the writer's view that when you want to eat simply, "not much beats a tangle of soft buttery cabbage with sweet caramelised onions and crisp potatoes ..".  Savoy Cabbage, Black Kale + Potato Subji with a suggestion to serve with a fiery pickle and hot chapattis, dal or rice in the chapter 'Gloriously Green' is right up my street.  There's a chapter on Salads, despite the fact 'Kachumbar' (generally chopped cucumber, tomatoes, green chilli and lime) until recently was almost the only Indian idea of salad.  Here the writer uses her imagination for what Indian salads could be with appetising ideas like Fennel + Apple Chaat with caramelised almonds or a Hot Green Bean, Cashew + Coconut Salad.

Maharajah's Rice
cooked from Fresh India by Meerha Sodha

Eggs + Cheese (mostly in the form of paneer) are major sources of protein and here we are offered Akoori - the Parsi take on scrambled eggs; a Mumbai classic, Eggs Kejriwal - which brings to my mind a kind of Welsh Rarebit topped with a fried egg; and Sticky Mango Paneer Skewers.  Of course there are chapters on Pulses and Rice with recipes like Pumpkin, Black-Eyed Bean + Coconut Curry; sweet and creamy Bengali Coconut Dal; a Daybreak Kedgeree (kitchari) which I very much want to make; and a Maharajah's Rice which I have made - beautifully, subtly spiced, pretty as a picture and delicious.

There are recipes for all those moreish Indian breads - Roti, Paratha, Naan, and Dosa - and guidance for what each is best with; and a lovely sounding recipe for breakfast Banana and Cardamom Buns.  In a section on Pickles, Chutneys + Raitas, Mysore Lemon Pickle sits happily with Rhubarb + Ginger Chutney.  Puddings that particularly appeal are Pan-fried Pineapple with Cardamom Ice Cream and Salted Jaggery Kulfi with Bananas.

At the moment, I'm working through the book one dish at a time, excited at the prospect that one day soon I will manage to produce the bread, pickles, chutneys and raitas that I'd like to accompany them.

I love that Fresh India carries none of the usual blurb from others.  For me, this is a confidently written book that stands on its own merit.

Fresh India by Meerha Sodha
Publisher: Fig Tree London

Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese

Reinventing the Wheel
by Bronwen and Francis Percival

I confess as a cheese appreciator I had been looking forward to this book, but Reinventing the Wheel is not just for cheese lovers.  It's a book for anyone who cares about the food they eat and the welfare of those who produce it.  It tackles the wisdom of mega-dairies and industrialisation and the tension between modernity and tradition.  Across 12 chapters, Bronwen and Francis Percival examine the culinary history, terroir, microbiology, sociology and politics of cheesemaking.

We journey through 2,000 years of cheesemaking starting with the "feral", "primal" Salers cheese production on a farm in France's Auvergne region and the effect of the arrival of American factory cheese on British cheese production at the end of the 19th century.  There are stories from dairy farmers forced towards consolidation, volume and efficiency for survival; Cheesemakers weighed down by legislation and bureaucracy, and other who have already fought the system and won with the help of microbiologists.  We take in Microbes and Risks along the way.

Reinventing the Wheel examines what has been lost as cheese production has 'progressed' in tandem with intensive farming and industrialisation.  It's a tale of much loss but with reason for optimism for the future if we are prepared to learn from, rather than reject, the methods of the past. Bronwen and Francis Percival's book is a paean to artisanal cheeses.  Cheeses that once all had a sense of place thanks to the healthy microbial communities specific to their geographic location, animal husbandry and production practices that contribute to their flavour and to their safety.  This book reveals the truth about our current dairy industry and how science is revealing the positives of microbial activity.  It's a beacon of light for those farmers and cheesemakers who want to seize on scientific facts to fight back against industrial homogeneity and rescue traditional cheesemaking.

Reinventing the Wheel is a learned, fact-filled call to arms to scientists, health officials and legislators to work alongside dairy farmers and cheesemakers to enable them to produce cheese which is not only full of character but full of healthy bacteria. To work with good microbes that have a positive effect on our immune system rather than wiping out the good along with the bad.

The book is aimed at the consumer too as, the Percivals believe, a lack of understanding of the cheesemaking process threatens the integrity of cheese.  Labelling for instance is often misleading as "The label on the cheese is not there to help".  In a world where "the word 'Artisan' can be, and is, used to describe just about anything short of a Dairylea cheese slice" the consumer needs to inform herself.  We need a book like this which makes us think more deeply about our food, makes us demand real food.

Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the fight for Real Cheese
by Bronwen and Francis Percival
Bloomsbury Publishing

Two Kitchens

Peaches poached with rosé and honey
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

First things first; I know the author of Two Kitchens - Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome.  I also tested some of the recipes in the book before publication.  This review is, naturally, informed by both.  I hesitated to write it but how could I not when Simon Hopkinson, no less, says "Rachel Roddy describing how to boil potatoes would inspire me.  I want to live under Rachel's kitchen table.  There are very few who possess such a supremely uncluttered culinary voice as hers, just now".  I agree completely, so, here is my review.

Born and raised in England, Rachel Roddy took flight to Sicily 12 years ago with a vague idea of finding a Caravaggio, a volcano and a degree of equilibrium.  Needing to learn the language, she went to Rome.  Here she found her balance in an area of the city called Testaccio - in the day to day life of its people; in learning more than just the language but the habits and traditions; in finding love with Vincenzo, a Sicilian no less; and in becoming a mother to Luca.

Panelle di Fabrizia made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

Rachel Roddy's second book, Two Kitchens - Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome is a closely linked follow-up to her award winning Five Quarters - Recipes and notes from a kitchen in Rome and, again, you get so much more than just recipes.  This time we join her in both Rome and Gela, the little town which guide books advise you to drive straight past.  To Rachel it is "... full of disrepair and despair but quietly beautiful and intriguing if you give it time ...".  It is Gela that blew away any romantic ideas about Sicily for the author - the utopian Mediterranean holiday island is a far cry from real life in the south east corner of the island.  Poverty, dilapidation and bad agricultural practices are a fact of life that are not glossed over in the book.  Yet the way of life in Gela has captivated her.

Pesce alla Ghiotta made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

"Ask someone to show you how to cook something and there's a good chance you will get more than just a recipe.  Recipes live in stories .....".  It's this approach to everyday life that enables Rachel Roddy to bring her Italian and English food worlds together.  In Five Quarters it was the lives of her friends and neighbours in Rome that inspired her writing as she got to grips with cooking Roman food.  Here, in Two Kitchens, she immerses the reader once again in her Roman life interweaved with the kitchen in Gela which for so many years was the domain of Sara, Vincenzo's Nonna.  Each year now the family returns for sojourns in Sicily to unlock the house, pull up the blinds, and stand at the faded, slightly sunken marks in the kitchen, testimony to Sara's long hours at the stove preserving the harvests of Sicily.  In this tiny space she made bread, preserved the tomatoes, reduced wine dregs to must, and salted ricotta into a hard grating cheese that would keep.

Much of the book is devoted to life on Gela, even though the town's central market is long gone. These days the produce borne out of hard work on the land is sold on street corners and pavements, at front doors and from garages.  It is available for what seems like a pittance to a non-Sicilian.  Here, the food they eat is the food they grow - intensely flavoured tomatoes, dense and creamy aubergines, cucuzze squash greens,  onions "the size of frisbees", honeyed figs, peaches that go from perfectly ripe to mush in hours, and grapes "that burst in your mouth and taste almost drunken".

La torta salata di Carla made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

So, what of the recipes?  This is straightforward, family cooking that follows the seasons and the author is generous in crediting sources and influences.  They are rich in vegetables, pulses and fruits, are adaptable and need little in the way of equipment to prepare.  This is reflective of the way the author lives and cooks in a small flat in Rome and a little ramshackle house with a tiny kitchen in Gela.  Whilst respecting the traditional ways of both, the recipes are her own interpretations of what she has learned - "anarchic, resourceful and personal".

The book is structured as: Vegetables & Herbs; Fruit & Nuts; Meat, Fish & Dairy; and Storecupboard.  Within these chapters lies the essence of the food of Rome and Gela.  A Sicilian dish of Pasta chi vrocculi arriminati (Pasta with cauliflower, anchovies, saffron, pine nuts and raisins) is high on my list of 'must cook'.  Peaches poached with rosé and honey is the dish I prepared just before sitting down to write this review.  With skins removed, in the Sicilian way, they were as soft and pink as a baby's bottom, luscious and lightly perfumed with bay leaf.  It's a recipe I know I'll reach for every time those first irresistible, though not quite ripe, peaches of the season arrive.  I'm already hooked on Pesce alla Ghiotta (Fish in spicy tomato sauce with capers and olives), a dish from Messina which was traditionally made with swordfish but which is adaptable and, in my experience, particularly good made with salt cod.  Oh, a and I badly want to make Salsiccia alluvia e cipolla (Sausages with grapes and red onions) straight out of Middle-Eastern influenced Sicilian cuisine.

Pesce al forno con le patate made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

In the Meat, Fish & Dairy chapter you'll find Pesce al forno con le patate (Baked fish with potatoes) with a method straight out of the kitchen of the wonderful Carla Tomasi; and a recipe for Brutta ma buoni (Ugly-but-good) biscuits which are great for using up leftover egg whites and feed my love of hazelnuts.  From the Storecupboard chapter I would bring to your attention Zuppa di lenticchie e castagne (Lentil and chestnut soup) - sweet, nutty earthiness in a bowl which I will be eating through the coming winter; and Pasta, alici e cipolle (Pasta with anchovies and onions) because it's an irresistible combination.  

I urge you to start cooking from this book with the first recipe I tried: Panelle di Fabrizia (Fabrizia's chickpea fritters) - "Ideally the first one should be so hot that it sizzles in your mouth".  Just the best thing to get you into the rhythm of this book.   The very last recipe comes as a surprise as it's the very English Queen of Puddings.  It's there not just as a gratuitous link to the author's Englishness but an example of how she sees the connections that are constantly bringing her Italian and English Food worlds together.  In this case, a Sicilian ricotta, lemon and breadcrumb cake brought this classic English pudding to mind and provides a sweet ending to the book.

Brutta ma buoni made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

The introductions to each chapter, and to each of the sections within, are evocative and full of warmth, wit and understanding.  Every chapter makes you feel you are there; chatting with Filippo at his stall on Testaccio market and sampling the peas he has grown on his farm near Scauri; reassuring Rosa that whatever her husband Giuseppe is growing and hauling back to her garage shop is exactly what you want to buy; glimpsing private lives through the ubiquitous 'curtain doors' in Gela; or teaching English to enthusiastic five year old Romans using the language of food.  If I use this book half as much as I use Rachel's first, Five Quarters, it will have earned its place in my little kitchen.

Peaches poached with rosé and honey made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

Read Two Kitchens and you too will "want to live under Rachel's kitchen table".  As I said, I have a little partiality about this book but can such respected food voices as Simon Hopkinson, Anna del Conte and Jill Norman be wrong?