The River Cottage Cookbook

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

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Pages: 448 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0007164092

Pub: Collins

Pub date: 2003-10-06

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 7803

Editorial Review:

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 does contain a large number of fine recipes, the book's scope is much broader. Really, this is more like one of those "Enquire Within on Everything" volumes 19th-century settlers used to take to the outback with them, full of instructions for mixing whitewash, worming dogs and 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. It's 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

Reader Reviews:

A great read (0/0 people found this helpful)

This book is wonderful, imaginative, easy to read and understand. I also found it entertaining, for a 'non cook' that is praise indeed! Although I am no great cook, I do keep chickens for eggs, the wife wont let me eat them, (yet!)I do grow lots of stuff, and much of this is credited to the Author. A man who cherishes his food and where it comes from, and how. This book comes close to being my Bible

A tome to be reckoned with! (10/10 people found this helpful)

If you're even remotely entertaining the idea of purchasing this book for yourself, your friend or your granny, then just go ahead and click the button.

Fantastic cookbook, yes, but also so much more than that. Here is someone who finally seems to love eating as much as cooking, and the whole process honestly excites him. You can't help but get swept up in his enthusiasm.

Recipes are broken down into easy to follow pieces, which work for budding cooks as well as those with more experience. Fantastically, he also does this without being condescending in the slightest.

If there were a version of Desert Island Books, this would most certainly be on my top 5 list!

The only cookbook you'll ever read... (17/18 people found this helpful)

I have just finished reading this book from cover to cover, and it is the only cookbook I have ever "read" in this way. Part of the reason is that half (at least) of the book is devoted to the smallholding economy of River Cottage, which like many I can only aspire to at the moment but still find fascinating. This part of the book is a creditable smallholder's manual, better in fact than some others I have read. There is also an immensely useful bibliography and contact list on this and related topics (from where to buy a wicker eel trap to where to get pigeon decoying tuition). But the book is a genuine cookbook as well, and a practical one at that. Personally I find the recipes absolutely mouthwatering, and they also are presented in such a way that at least the introduction and anecdote attached to each one is worth a read in itself, even if you're not in the kitchen. HFW can certainly write as well, with humour and a light touch throughout. At this price, it's an absolute bargain - being such a weighty tome I would recommend buying the hardback version.

Excellent (4/12 people found this helpful)

If after reading this book you don't want to do what he did...

The recipes are fantastic, and the writting behnd the recipies about how life comtinues is amazing

Uhm a bit though (13/20 people found this helpful)

Do not take me wrong. I enjoyed this book as much as I loved the TV series; the only problem is that I am not sure the average reader will be interested in breeding his/her own cattle. I love the recipes and have enjoyed this book more as a novel than as a manual to a do-it-yourself live in the country book.

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