A Hedgerow Cookbook - Glennie Kindred

Advantages: A real treasure of a book
Disadvantages: None

...The River Cottage Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall is a real book about cookery. There's none of the plastic-looking artistically arranged fripperies that pass for food in the cook books of many so-called chefs and self-styled experts. Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall gives us real food, cooked really well. The book won the Glenfiddich Trophy for 2002. It is not hard to see why. With Hugh, there's none of the schlepping down to Waitrose, Tesco, Sainbury's or wherever. No. Hugh preaches the gospel of good, wholesome food. Now, whilst Hugh is keen on people growing their own food, he is not silly enough to believe that everyone can grow their own food, as he does. But Hugh does point out that just about everyone can grow something at home. Even if it is just herbs grown in small pots, inside or out. Hugh also believes most... Read review

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Advantages: Entertaining, inspiring, funny.
Disadvantages: Utopian, incomplete, nice but silly photography.

...to recipes. But Hugh's best quality is that virtue I first noticed in him – his tolerance. The River Cottage Cookbook is more openly political than the TV series, but it never preaches and it never tells you what to do. It gives you a rather Utopian ideal and how much you take from it is entirely up to you. Divided into five main sections – Garden, Livestock, Fish, Hedgerow, Directory – The River Cottage Cookbook takes you through anything you might ever care to put on your plate, advising you how best to buy it, grow it, rear it, kill it, cook it. Hugh's aim is to move leftwards on his "food acquisition continuum" – a self-mocking phrase typical of my wee pal. I'll let him explain: "… at one end (the far right if you like) total dependence on the industrial food retailers to, at the other (far left) end, total self-sufficiency. My contention... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: It might convince you to produce more of your own food.
Disadvantages: You might like spending money at the supermarket.

...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... Read review

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