Cookbook Review: André Simon awards food book reviews part two
The winner: Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby with Jemima Lewis
Reviewed by Andy Lynes
What’s the USP
An examination of the global food system, what’s gone wrong with it, how it’s damaging our health and what can be done to improve it.
Who are the authors
Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of Leon restaurants and the Sustainable Restaurant Association and is the author of the government-commissioned National Food Strategy. He is the co-author of a series of Leon cookbooks. Jemima Lewis is the former editor of The Week magazine and is a columnist for The Telegraph.
Is it good bedtime reading?
Only if you want to have nightmares. ‘The food system is no longer simply a means of sustenance. It is one of the most successful, most innovative and most destructive industries on earth’ . . . .‘Over 80 per cent of processed food sold in the UK is unhealthy’ . . . . ‘Diet-related disease is now the biggest cause of avoidable illness and death in the developed world’. . . . and that’s just the first few pages of the introduction. Chapter headings include ‘Trapped in the System’ ‘Inequality: Eating well is much harder if you are poor’ and ‘Sentient Food: The miseries of intensive farming’. I don’t think they’ll Dimbleby and Lewis will be launching a stand-up double act based on the book anytime soon.
What will I love?
Divided into three parts: ‘Our Bodies’, ‘Our Land’ and ‘Our Future’, the book tackles a wide range of interconnected issues, covering everything from obesity, ultra-processed foods, food inequality, and legislating against junk food to how food production contributes to climate change, intensive farming practices, food security, food waste and alternative proteins (lab-grown meat).
You’ll learn the real reason why diets don’t work (hormones, basically), why exercise is not a good way to lose weight, although it can help you keep it off, and why semaglutide, while not a perfect solution, could be one answer to the obesity epidemic. You’ll discover the environmental arguments for eating less meat and why the three compartment model of mixed land use - high-yield farms, agroecological farms and rewilding - would help in the battle against global warming,
What won’t I love so much?
There are graphs, charts, stats and quotes from reports aplenty. There is a lot of information to process, although it is presented in a very readable way. Dimbleby is a very strong believer in state intervention as a way to improve the UK’s food culture and quotes the Japanese model that includes mandatory waistband measurement for the over 40s (it’s called the Metabo Law and it’s real) and laws to prevent supermarkets and food manufacturers from dominating the food system. If you’re of a more libertarian viewpoint you may find this aspect of the book difficult to swallow.
As author of the National Food Strategy, Dimbleby of course has his own opinions on how to address the country’s dietary deficiencies. In an appendix titled ‘How to change the food system: actions for government’ he outlines fifteen recommendations that include a sugar and salt tax, restricting the advertising of junk food, extending free school meals and an ‘Eat and Learn’ schools initiative to improve the standard of food education.
Should I buy it? If you care about what you eat and how it impacts the environment (and shouldn’t we all?) then Ravenous is an essential purchase.
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars
Click the link to buy this book:
Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby with Jemima Lewis
£10.99, Profile Books
Shortlisted books
Brutto by Russell Norman
Reviewed by Andy Lynes
What’s the USP? Simple Florentine recipes for the home cook inspired by the author’s travels in the city and surrounding region.
Who’s the author? The late Russell Norman, who sadly passed away in 2023, was an award-winning and highly influential restaurateur, author and broadcaster. His restaurant Polpo, opened in 2009 not only popularised Venetian food in the UK but helped inspire a whole generation of restauranteurs both in London and further afield. In 2021, Norman opened Brutto, a Tuscan-style trattoria that serves some of the dishes found in the book.
Is it good bedtime reading? Norman writes with great style and authority. His great affection for the city of Florence, its food and people is obvious and he evokes them all with the skill of the finest food and travel writer. In addition to a general introduction and chapter introductions, Norman makes great use of recipe introductions, imparting a lot of information in a small number of words. You’ll feel more intelligent for reading the introduction to ‘Roman Grain Salad’ for example which tells you that farro dates back 20,000 years to Mesopotamia, was an essential element in Roman soldier’s mealtimes and is still popular in the regions around Lazio including Tuscany.
How annoyingly vague are the recipes? Let’s take that ‘Roman Grain Salad’ as an example. Ingredients include flaky sea salt, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar for which no quantities are given. There’s ‘a large handful’ of basil leaves and one ‘large’ courgette and tomato. Norman does at least give weights for the farro and ricotta. That is an extreme example and most of the recipes have measurements for the majority of their ingredients, but don’t expect Ottolenghi-levels of specificity. However, given that Norman says that one of the most important ingredients in Tuscan cooking is ‘simplicity’, his style of recipe writing that encourages the cook to rely on their instincts and good taste is perhaps appropriate for the subject matter.
How much difficulty will I have getting hold of the ingredients? The ideal reader of Brutto will live in a major city with access to excellent delis and specialist food shops and will also have a garden or allotment where they grow their own veg. Then they can pop out and cut a few courgettes and pick some borlotti beans for a bowl of ‘Roasted Courgettes with Borlotti Beans and Green Sauce’, or nip to the deli for the best Cantabrian or Sicilian tinned anchovies to serve with excellent unsalted butter and unsalted Tuscan bread.
If like many of us you have succumbed to the stranglehold that supermarkets have on the British food system, you will still be able to get versions of most of the ingredients you’ll need for the dishes, even if the Florentines wouldn’t approve. Exceptions could include stracchino cheese that is part of a Brutto signature dish served with fried dough ball ‘cuddles’ and prosciutto; courgette flowers for deep frying; lampredotto tripe; Florentino Costoluto tomatoes; wild boar sausages to put in a sauce with Chinati for rigatoni; puntarelle, and brined ox tongue to boil with brisket and serve with green sauce.
Killer recipes? There are way too many to list but a small selection includes potato, rosemary and pecorino bar pizza; pasta, borlotti bean and rosemary soup; penne with vodka and tomato sauce; risotto with meat sauce; Florentine T-bone steak; spinach cooked in the oven; Tuscan basil sauce, and from the Dolci chapter, moist almond biscuits; sweet pastry rags, and rice fritters.
What will I love? Photography by Jenny Zairns brings Florence and the food to life. There’s a very useful and highly evocative gazetteer of Florence. Recipes for Norman’s signature cocktails including his famous version of negroni are worth the price of the book alone.
Should I buy it? Brutto will make you want to become an honorary Florentine. You may never cook from another book again. It’s wonderful. Buy it.
Cuisine: Italian
Suitable for: Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars
Click the link to buy this book:
Brutto by Russell Norman
£32, Ebury Press
What’s Cooking In The Kremlin: A Modern History of Russia Through The Kitchen Door by Witold Szablowski
Reviewed by Andy Lynes
What’s the USP? A century of modern Russian history from Rasputin to Putin as viewed through a culinary lens.
Who’s the author? From the book’s biog: ‘Witold Szarblowski is a former chef and award-winning Polish journalist and critically acclaimed author of books including Dancing Bears and How to Feed a Dictator. He lives in Warsaw’
Is it good bedtime reading? Do you want to know about Lenin’s cook? (Yes, the leader of the world’s first socialist state had servants). Want to know what exactly was in the food tubes Cosmonaut Uri Gagarin ate in space? (Vegetable soup, chicken liver pate and blackcurrant juice apparently.) Want to discover that Putin’s grandfather was the chef of Astoria, the finest restaurant in St Petersburgh and once cooked for Rasputin? And want to find out what Putin’s culinary obsession is? (It’s ice cream). Then yes, it’s the perfect bedtime reading.
What will I love? Although this isn’t a cookbook as such, there are recipes dotted throughout the text, although some are more of historical interest than practical value. The Turkey in Quince and Orange Juice served at the Yalta conference in 1945 sounds so unpleasant that is surprising it didn’t start World War III. You would almost certainly get more enjoyment from trying out the borscht recipe served to Gagarin at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 1961.
Should I buy it? What’s Cooking in the Kremlin is much more than just a collection of gastronomic facts and anecdotes (although there are plenty of those and add much to the book), it’s a serious history of Russia told through its food and the people who prepared it using a mix of third-person and first-person storytelling (Kremlin Chef Viktor Belyaev who cooked for Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin tells his own story for example).
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars
Click the link to buy this book:
What’s Cooking In The Kremlin by Witold Szabtowski
£20, Icon Books
Of Cabbages and Kimchi by James Read
Reviewed by Stephen Rötzsch Thomas
What’s the USP? Of Cabbages and Kimchi is ‘a practical guide to the world of fermented food’, or so says the cover, which is adorned with strange and whimsical characters including a walking, pouring jug, and what appears to be an illustration of the cabbage that outlasted Theresa May. It’s the perfect representation of this book: an insightful education, presented alongside perhaps the most inventive cookbook visuals since those in Salt Fat Acid Heat.
Who wrote it? James Read, fermentation nerd and founder of Kim Kong Kimchi, which manufactures a vegan version of Korea’s favourite ferment. This is Read’s first foray into food writing, but you wouldn’t know it - he’s an informative and readable author who brings the requisite fizz to what might otherwise be a relatively straightforward subject.
Is it good bedtime reading? Of Cabbages and Kimchi falls into that category of cookbook that is more ‘book’ than ‘cook’. There are plenty of recipes here, but the real joy is in the reading. Read breaks down ten favourite living ferments, from the obvious (sauerkraut, kimchi) to the zeitgeist hipster choices (kefir, kvass) and some unexpected options (hot sauce, vinegar). Each chapter offers a sprightly history lesson, a quick scientific rundown, and a more pragmatic look at the preparation and uses.
How annoyingly vague are the recipes? Instructions are clear, ingredients are well measured, but ultimately this is a book about stuffing some things in a jar and letting nature do its thing. There’s always going to be an element of guesswork. Read offers a calm and reflective voice on this matter though, offering tips to simplify the process, including troubleshooting sections that explain what to do if, for example, your vinegar is filled with tiny worms. Surprisingly, his suggestion is not: vomit from sheer disgust, drive the jar out to the woods and throw it out of the window. Such restraint.
What’s the faff factor? Though the overwhelming amount of time creating these recipes will be spent passively waiting for the ferment to do its thing, there’s still something of a mental barrier to fermentation. It feels like a faff, perhaps because there’s rarely an immediate reward for your work. Time to practise mindfulness, perhaps.
Killer recipes: Spicy Miso Pickled Pineapple, Spectral Mary (a take on Bloody Marys using clarified tomato juice), Chipotle Glazed Ham in Tepache with Beans, Kimchi-pickled Eggs, Kefir Fried Chicken
Should I buy it? If you enjoy deep-dive cookbooks, or are the sort of person who actually commits to kitchen projects, Read has delivered a book that will offer real value. And if you aren’t, you should probably pick this book up anyway, because it is an absolute joy even if you simply treat it like a picture book for adults. Of Cabbages and Kimchi is absolutely riddled with Marija Tiurina’s illustrations, and unlike the worms in your vinegar, they couldn’t be more welcome. Not content with simply offering pretty little diversions, Tiurina’s drawings are magically abstract. They are weird little curiosities that will on occasion have you laughing out loud with delight. From transcendental cows to the eye-watering spice party inside a vicar’s brain, the artwork never ceases to inject a sense of the unexpected into a book that is all about putting interesting things together and seeing what happens.
Cuisine: Global
Suitable for: Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars
Click the link to buy this book:
Of Cabbages and Kimchi by James Read
£22, Particular Books