The River Cottage Cookbook

This is a practical guide to the River Cottage lifestyle from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It includes tips on how best to buy organic produce and, for the more adventurous, advice on rearing your own meat, growing your own vegetables and tapping into the free wild harvest. With over 100 recipes, and Simon Wheeler's photography, "The River Cottage Cookbook" should appeal to all downshifters and to all those who prefer their food to be full-blooded and wholesome.

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A great read - Rated
This book is wonderful, imaginative, easy to read and understand. I also found it entertaining, for a 'non cook' that is praise indeed! Although I am no great cook, I do keep chickens for eggs, the wife wont let me eat them, (yet!)I do grow lots of stuff, and much of this is credited to the Author. A man who cherishes his food and where it comes from, and how. This book comes close to being my Bible

A tome to be reckoned with! - Rated
If you're even remotely entertaining the idea of purchasing this book for yourself, your friend or your granny, then just go ahead and click the button.

Fantastic cookbook, yes, but also so much more than that. Here is someone who finally seems to love eating as much as cooking, and the whole process honestly excites him. You can't help but get swept up in his enthusiasm.

Recipes are broken down into easy to follow pieces, which work for budding cooks as well as those with more experience. Fantastically, he also does this without being condescending in the slightest.

If there were a version of Desert Island Books, this would most certainly be on my top 5 list!

The only cookbook you'll ever read... - Rated
I have just finished reading this book from cover to cover, and it is the only cookbook I have ever "read" in this way. Part of the reason is that half (at least) of the book is devoted to the smallholding economy of River Cottage, which like many I can only aspire to at the moment but still find fascinating. This part of the book is a creditable smallholder's manual, better in fact than some others I have read. There is also an immensely useful bibliography and contact list on this and related topics (from where to buy a wicker eel trap to where to get pigeon decoying tuition). But the book is a genuine cookbook as well, and a practical one at that. Personally I find the recipes absolutely mouthwatering, and they also are presented in such a way that at least the introduction and anecdote attached to each one is worth a read in itself, even if you're not in the kitchen. HFW can certainly write as well, with humour and a light touch throughout. At this price, it's an absolute bargain - being such a weighty tome I would recommend buying the hardback version.

Excellent - Rated
If after reading this book you don't want to do what he did...

The recipes are fantastic, and the writting behnd the recipies about how life comtinues is amazing

Uhm a bit though - Rated
Do not take me wrong. I enjoyed this book as much as I loved the TV series; the only problem is that I am not sure the average reader will be interested in breeding his/her own cattle. I love the recipes and have enjoyed this book more as a novel than as a manual to a do-it-yourself live in the country book.