How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food
by Nigella Lawson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nigella LawsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-05
ISBN: 0470173548
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Wiley
Book Reviews of How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food
Book Review: A worthy kitchen bible
Summary: 5 Stars
Nigella Lawson's "How to Eat" isn't the kind of book you might typically expect from a celebrity cooking personality. It contains a whopping 526 pages, for starters. There are no pictures - not of the food being prepared or presented, nor of the attractive author cavorting about her kitchen in staged "natural" poses, smiling coquettishly for the camera. The recipes make liberal, unapologetic use of butter and cream when called for, something that many of us modern-day home cooks raised on margarine and skim milk might blanch at (especially given how 90% of the celebrity chef crop loves to rave about how "low-fat" and "healthful" their recipes are).
So "How to Eat" isn't the kind of skimpy, overpriced fluff piece under the guise of a helpful cookbook that some of the Food Network personalities have been cranking out lately. It's the real deal - these are recipes that a talented home cook and food writer has been making for years and have been tested and tried twofold. It's the rare cookbook that's as pleasing for mere readers as it is for cooks, because Lawson is a simply terrific writer, full of clever wit, interesting anecdotes, a great sense of humor and some remarkable turns of phrase. She can describe the taste of a particular dish so well that you don't even need a picture of it. This is a rare thing in today's cookbook market, and it's a pleasure to be reminded that a cookbook can be more than just a collection of recipes - it can be a statement, a declaration of intent, or simply some interesting reading beyond "1. Add flour to bowl. 2. Beat eggs with a whisk..."
Now for the recipes. I bought this book in September of 2006, and I've tried countless recipes from it since. There isn't one that hasn't worked, and most of them have been stellar (the only one that I didn't love was the Beef Braised in Beer, but only because I'm not a fan of prunes). Nigella states that she isn't a proponent of "fussy" cooking or recipes that demand too much needless effort, and her recipes reflect that. Some are involved than others, but all are easy to do - no special skills or deft reflexes needed here. The recipes read more like conversations, so you never feel like you're being barked instructions to, merely guided from a helping hand who doesn't take herself too seriously (a great confidence-booster when you're making something you'd never even dreamed of trying before, like homemade mayonnaise or rhubarb pie). And Nigella is refreshingly down-to-earth - as much as her fabulous lifestyle and celebrity status may put her on a pedestal to many of us, she freely admits that sometimes the best meal is a plain bacon sandwich.
Bottom line, this is the kind of book that you'll turn back to time and again when you want to cook something that you know will work, will taste great, and won't give you a nervous breakdown in the kitchen. Nigella wants us all to cook and eat better, and "How to Eat" is as good a starting point as any.
Summary of How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food
"A chatty, sometimes cheeky,celebration of home-cooked meals."?USA Today
Through her wildly popular television shows, her five bestselling cookbooks, her line of kitchenware, and her frequent media appearances, Nigella Lawson has emerged as one of the food world's most seductive personalities. How to Eat is the book that started it all?Nigella's signature, all-purpose cookbook, brimming with easygoing mealtime strategies and 350 mouthwatering recipes, from a truly sublime Tarragon French Roast Chicken to a totally decadent Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake. Here is Nigella's total (and totally irresistible) approach to food?the book that lays bare her secrets for finding pleasure in the simple things that we cook and eat every day.
"[Nigella] brings you into her life and tells you how she thinks about food, how meals come together in her head . . . and how she cooks for family and friends . . . A breakthrough . . . with hundreds of appealing and accessible recipes."
?Amanda Hesser, The New York Times
"Nigella Lawson serves up irony and sensuality with her comforting recipes . . . the Queen of Come-On Cooking."
?Los Angeles Times
"Nigella Lawson is, whisks down, Britain's funniest and sexiest food writer, a raconteur who is delicious whether detailing every step on the way towards a heavenly roast chicken and root vegetable couscous or explaining why 'cooking is not just about joining the dots.'"
?Richard Story, Vogue magazine
"Cooking is not about just joining the dots, following one recipe slavishly and then moving on to the next," says British food writer Nigella Lawson. "It's about developing an understanding of food, a sense of assurance in the kitchen, about the simple desire to make yourself something to eat." Lawson is not a chef, but "an eater." She writes as if she's conversing with you while beating eggs or mincing garlic in your kitchen. She explains how to make the basics, such as roast chicken, soup stock, various sauces, cake, and ice cream. She teaches you to cook more esoteric dishes, such as grouse, white truffles (mushrooms, not chocolate), and "ham in Coca-Cola." She gives advice for entertaining over the holidays, quick cooking ("the real way to make life easier for yourself: cooking in advance"), cooking for yourself ("you don't have to belong to the drearily narcissistic learn-to-love-yourself school of thought to grasp that it might be a good thing to consider yourself worth cooking for"), and weekend lunches for six to eight people. Don't expect any concessions to health recommendations in the recipes here--Lawson makes liberal and unapologetic use of egg yolks, cream, and butter. There are plenty of recipes, but the best parts of How to Eat are the well-crafted tidbits of wisdom, such as the following:
- "Cook in advance and, if the worse comes to the worst, you can ditch it. No one but you will know that it tasted disgusting, or failed to set, or curdled or whatever."
- On the proper English trifle: "When I say proper I mean proper: lots of sponge, lots of jam, lots of custard and lots of cream. This is not a timid construction ... you don't want to end up with a trifle so upmarket it's inappropriately, posturingly elegant. A degree of vulgarity is requisite."
- "Too many people cook only when they're giving a dinner party. And it's very hard to go from zero to a hundred miles an hour. How can you learn to feel at ease around food, relaxed about cooking, if every time you go into the kitchen it's to cook at competition level?"
--Joan Price
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