On Tour With Linda McCartney - Linda McCartney

.../> I received Linda McCartney on Tour as a birthday present earlier this year, and it is definitely the best vegetarian cook book I have used. It contains practical, straightforward, varied and appetising vegetarian dishes which will appeal to just about everyone!

Most people will be aware that, before her untimely death after a long battle against cancer, Linda McCartney was not only the wife of ex-Beatle Paul, but was an ardent ...
...book contains an excellent section on Nutrition for Vegetarians which explains the main food groups and the foods you should eat, as a vegetarian or vegan, to maintain a balanced and healthy diet (so no comments on here about it being unhealthy to be vegetarian please!). It also gives advice on shopping for vegetarian food and points out what you should look out for on ingredients lists if you want to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet. The book helpfully ... more

Are you a vegetarian who is bored of the same old boring and bland vegetarian food? Or are you a meat eater who is at a loss to know what to cook for your veggie dinner guests? Well, either way, this is definitely the book for you!

I received Linda McCartney on Tour as a birthday present earlier this year, and it is definitely the best vegetarian cook book I have used. It contains practical, straightforward, varied and appetising vegetarian dishes which will appeal to just about everyone!

Most people will be aware that, before her untimely death after a long battle against cancer, Linda McCartney was not only the wife of ex-Beatle Paul, but was an ardent campaigner against animal cruelty and in particular against eating meat. She and her friend, comedy writer Carla Lane (Bread, Butterflies) both campaigned tirelessly for this cause, but their views differed slightly in that whilst Carla wanted to campaign for better farming conditions for livestock, Linda felt that we shouldn’t be eating animals at all, and would only campaign for a totally non-meat-eating world. Whether or not you think this is right, or even achievable, it is certainly an admirable stance and one from which she never wavered. Accordingly, she brought out her own range of meat-free products and a number of meat-free cookery books – including this one.

The subtitle of the book is “Over 200 meat-free dishes from around the world”, and the book certainly encompasses many styles of cooking, including Mexican, American, Greek, French and Italian. Before embarking upon the recipes, the book contains an excellent section on Nutrition for Vegetarians which explains the main food groups and the foods you should eat, as a vegetarian or vegan, to maintain a balanced and healthy diet (so no comments on here about it being unhealthy to be vegetarian please!). It also gives advice on shopping for vegetarian food and points out what you should look out for on ingredients lists if you want to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet. The book helpfully caters for those, like myself, who are not avid cooks, and need a little help with weights and measures conversions and oven temperatures, containing a useful chart at the beginning!

The recipes are divided as follows, and I have included underneath each section a few examples of dishes in the section, together with their country of origin, as stated next to each recipe in the book:-

STARTERS

• Crispy vegetable wontons - China
• Asparagus crepes with tarragon and crème fresh – France
• Chilli corn fritters – Thailand

SOUPS

• Plantain and corn soup – Africa
• Cucumber quark and dill soup – Germany
• Broccoli and stilton soup – UK

SALADS

• Fennel and rocket salad – Italy
• Cajun rice salad – USA
• Watercress salad with mushrooms and gruyere – Switzerland

QUICK AND EASY MEALS

• One pot mushroom risotto – Italy
• Spicy tofu – Vietnam
• Chickpea and okra stirfry – Africa

MAIN COURSES

• Red enchiladas – Mexico
• Goulash – Hungary
• Butternut squash pilaf – Morocco

SIDE DISHES

• Mangetout with ginger and garlic - China
• Hawaiian style sweet potatoes – Hawaii
• Button onions with cream and thyme – Spain

SAUCES AND SUNDRIES

• Garlic dipping sauce – Thailand
• Yoghurt with fresh mint – Lebanon
• Curry sauce – India

DESSERTS, CAKES AND BISCUITS

• Apple pancakes – The Netherlands
• Fruit Flan – Belgium
• Rhubarb fool – Ireland

All the recipes are very well set out, unambiguous and easy to follow. Before the ingredients list there is a brief note from Linda, which could explain how she came by the recipe, or give a history of the dish, or even give tips for preparation, or suggest substituting ingredients for a vegan version of the dish. Vegan recipes are marked with a “V”. (See glossary at the end if you are not sure about the difference between vegetarian and vegan!)

Also included alongside each recipe is the preparation and cooking time – a very useful statistic if you are on a tight timescale or cooking for a dinner party. The book has beautiful photography and you will find that many of the dishes have photographs alongside them so you can see what the end result should look like – something which is often overlooked by many recipe books, and also helps inspire you if you are looking for something tasty and attractive to cook for a special occasion!

At the back of the book you will find 16 menu planners, i.e. a suggested menu for certain times of the year, celebrations, or if you want to include all the dishes from a particular country.

I am not a natural cook, and have had many, many cooking disasters both in school Home Economics lessons and at home. However, all the attempts I have had at recipes from this book have been quite successful.

The book will appeal to any vegetarians who are fed up of the usual “lentils and pulses” image that we all too often find ourselves labelled with, and also vegetarians who don’t like to miss out on trying exotic and unusual foods. Many of the recipes include soya mince, so may even appeal to meat eaters, as they could easily be adapted to use beef mince. The book would be ideal for anyone who is not vegetarian themselves, but has to cater for vegetarians, as I can testify that it contains exactly the sort of recipes that the majority of us veggies enjoy!

My only slight complaint is that as a hard back, the book will not lie flat on a table while you are cooking, which can be inconvenient and may lead to food stains or fingerprints on the pages if you have to keep opening it in between steps in the recipe!

At £16.99 it is not a cheap book, but I think that it is worth buying over and above any other vegetarian cookery book I have seen, as all the recipes are ones which you could potentially use on an every day basis, or for a small dinner party, and very few of them require any unusual or hard to come by ingredients. So, why not treat your tastebuds?!

PS I am not really a tree hugger, neither am I implying that vegetarians in general make a habit of hugging trees!

GLOSSARY

Vegetarian – a diet which contains no meat, fish or animal products, such as gelatin or rennet (used in making non-vegetarian cheeses). If someone tells you they are a vegetarian but they eat fish, then they are not a vegetarian!

Vegan – a diet which contains no meat, fish, animal products or animal by-products i.e. dairy, eggs or honey.

 

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