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It's easy to be cynical about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's adventures as a downshifted smallholder in Escape to River Cottage; after all, given his fame and fortune, he could upshift again faster than a BMW sports gearbox whenever he chose. "Why don't you give it a go?", he asks us. Because we don't all have fat media contracts to fall back on, we roll our eyes and reply. However, despite HF-W's seeming like a Posy Simmonds character, the fact remains that no TV chef has come close when it comes to reminding the supermarket generation about where food really comes from, or indeed where it should come from, as well as the values of indigenous produce (also a largely overlooked aspect of macrobiotics, incidentally). In this well-stuffed double DVD set Weirdly-Eatingall does alarming things with a goose, smokes fish in his chimney, eats his rather cute pigs, monitors the movements of mice by marking them with lipstick (why does he just happen to have some lippy lying around?) and, almost in passing, cooks up some wonderful dishes with his home-grown ingredients. On the DVD: Escape to River Cottage two-disc set includes six episodes, plus a bonus in the form of the Christmas special. Extras are on-screen recipes, F-W's biography and some outtakes, which are deeply unfunny except when various things decide to bite the presenter, which they do fairly often. The extras are duplicated on both discs, which is pointless and/or a bit of a swizz. --Roger Thomas

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Average Rating:

Average Rating:

Description

It's easy to be cynical about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's adventures as a downshifted smallholder in Escape to River Cottage; after all, given his fame and fortune, he could upshift again faster than a BMW sports gearbox whenever he chose. "Why don't you give it a go?", he asks us. Because we don't all have fat media contracts to fall back on, we roll our eyes and reply. However, despite HF-W's seeming like a Posy Simmonds character, the fact remains that no TV chef has come close when it comes to reminding the supermarket generation about where food really comes from, or indeed where it should come from, as well as the values of indigenous produce (also a largely overlooked aspect of macrobiotics, incidentally). In this well-stuffed double DVD set Weirdly-Eatingall does alarming things with a goose, smokes fish in his chimney, eats his rather cute pigs, monitors the movements of mice by marking them with lipstick (why does he just happen to have some lippy lying around?) and, almost in passing, cooks up some wonderful dishes with his home-grown ingredients. On the DVD: Escape to River Cottage two-disc set includes six episodes, plus a bonus in the form of the Christmas special. Extras are on-screen recipes, F-W's biography and some outtakes, which are deeply unfunny except when various things decide to bite the presenter, which they do fairly often. The extras are duplicated on both discs, which is pointless and/or a bit of a swizz. --Roger Thomas

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Covers the basics of cooking - offering information about choosing the best raw materials, understanding the different cuts and the cooking techniques associated with each of them. This title offers recipes for 150 meat classics from both British and foreign food cultures.

As you would expect from the quirky and strong-minded Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The River Cottage Meat Book is a quirky and strong-minded book. This arm-straining volume (weighing in at an impressive and well illustrated 543 pages) is quite the most ambitious volume yet by an author who absolutely refuses to be categorised. Is he a cookery writer? An expert on the sociology and history of food? An eccentric TV personality? Actually, of course, he's all three (and more); and all of his various skills find expression in this, his magnum opus. The first intriguing question that The River Cottage Meat Book inspires is: what is the author's agenda? The book has so many aims it's difficult to know where to begin. First of all, this is a definitive guide to the preparation and cooking of meat, in all its various forms. Fearnley-Whittingstall deals (in assiduous detail) with such topics as roasting, grilling and preserving everything from turkey to trotters, in a variety of recipes that he obviously knows and loves. But there is far more to the book than this--fascinating sections on the many different types of meat (lamb, pork and so on) are crammed with information on the different cuts of meat and what they should be used for. But as someone who raises and utilises his own livestock at the River Cottage, Fearnley-Whittingstall is clearly passionate about the welfare of animals bred for food, and provides some unpalatable information on widespread misdemeanours in these areas. If nothing else, this book will persuade you that it's a good idea to buy your meat from butchers who are equally passionate about these issues, or even direct from reputable farms. The concept makes sound ideological sense, but also ensures that your meat dishes will have an unrivalled depth of flavour. --Barry Forshaw

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Provides an understanding of British fish, from their natural habitats to what sauce they go best with to how to respect their seasonality, in keeping with the River Cottage ethos. This book explains the ins and outs of procuring a good fish, as well as how to buy and catch fish in an ethical way, and how to prepare it for the kitchen.

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'A counter-top bible, designed for the whole family ... crammed with delicious, child-friendly recipes, simply and clearly explained' The Sunday Times

Features

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
• Guaranteed packaging
• No quibbles returns