The River Cottage Cookbook

I think the book is quite amazing - I haven't had the opportunity to read a cookbook like this before. It is a book that one must take seriously - its not the sort of book you pull off the shelf when you are wondering what to cook for dinner. This is about how you approach food from birth to death, seed to fruit.This a book that needs to time to read and digest and then think about what you can apply to your life style and where you live. River Cottage was a place only one can dream about, however to produce the results takes a lot more work than is immediately obvious.I would have like a little bit more information on how the book focuses on lifestyle and what is needed to make theis book come to reality - it is for many the stuff of dreams.

I had a copy of this before but sold it with other books when I needed money so I've been wanting to acquire a copy again for some time. He is down to earth and the recipes are easy to follow. It goes from growing the product to slaughtering to cooking. Everything but the oink as another book is entitled.

Very good book of information and very good cookbook. It is all about living close to nature and how to grow and cook your own food. It is interesting to read and I learned many new things. If you are not a person who enjoys being outside this may not be the book for you.

My first exposure to this author was the River Cottage Meat book which I really enjoyed, and this book has been equally enjoyable and informative. My major criteria for enjoying a cookbook is how motivated I am to try a recipe or alter one of my own based on what I've read and observed in the pictures. This cookbook met both of those standards with ease and I'm very pleased to have it on the shelf and available for future inspiration.

The River cottage series cook books are amazing and fun to read. So much more than a cook book though. He has chapters on how to grow your own garden, raise your own animals, pick your own berries and catch your own fish with recipes on how to prepare and cook the food you harvest. The River cottage tv show is just as fantastic.

Just cut open a dry cured ham from a recipe in this book. Delectable! First try and I'm hooked! We raise our own pigs and never tried to do any dry curing before. Everything I learned about smoking meat I learned from Hugh via his cookbooks. If you want to play with your food on a whole different level, this is the book for you.

As the chief bottle washer, not the cook I do appreciate that which the chief cook does with the recipes in the book as well as the ideas portrayed.Would buy others.

We ordered from the UK site expecting a UK published book, based on a UK TV series. So WHY did it have to be re written for the US market ? We did not want an americanisation of the true British book. Anyway why cant the Americans learn to read a British book?

An inspirational book that should come with a big bold warning: `Read at your peril. This book will change your life'.This is quite simply one of the best books ever written about food production, sourcing and meal creation. The way you view food will never be the same again once you have read this book. It's a recipe book, a back to nature lifestyle book, a book of ethics and morality that really gets you questioning our modern farming practices and the quality of food it produces, and so much more.It's also a book that will have you yearning to return to nature, to start growing your own food, plant your own vegetable patch, to start raising some chickens and a pig or two. It'll get you wanting to make your own bacon, dry cure your own meats, produce your own chorizos and salami's, and make your own sausages. It'll inspire you to try new recipes, new ingredients, new food types. It'll stimulate you to be adventurous and inquisitive again about the food and what you eat. Ultimately it will get you to rediscover the joy of eating good home made food raised in a way that is respectful to both environment and animal welfare. And with it, it'll inspire a passion for food that you never had before. It did me.I read this monster of a book in one go. It was un-put-down-able, and a real education and inspiration across the board. No wonder it won all the major prestigious cook book awards when it first came out. Whilst it is so much more than just a cook book, it is being sold with the word cook book in the title, so the key question is, how good are the recipes? In my view, based on the recipes I've followed, they are very good. I like the way he keeps them pretty simple and straight forward. No really fancy ingredients or excessive long list of hard to get seasonings. He's very happy in many cases to limit seasoning to pretty much salt and freshly ground black pepper, and I must say, having made many of these recipes, he's right. Good honest food with good honest taste.I've been inspired to try a lot of things I hadn't really eaten before. His fresh tomato salsa and his rich tomato sauce with bacon recipes were really quite superb. I had low expectations on what such heavily tomato orientated recipes could deliver in terms of food enjoyment, and was delighted to find they delivered in bucketfuls.I can't remember the time I'd eaten a chutney prior to buying this book. But this book inspired me to make one. Not only was it easy, the recipe for River Cottage Chutney is absolutely delicious, a total revelation. We've gone from a household that rarely ate chutneys to one where it makes an appearance on pretty much every meal occasion we can think of.And I'd never even considered trying to make my own bacon from a piece of pork. But Hugh was so enthusiastic about this process I had to give it a go, and I'm pleased I did. My first attempt turned out a bit too salty (as Hugh had warned!) but what fun I had making it and what enjoyment I had eating it.And this really is the wonder of this book. It brings back pleasure and fun into your food preparation and eating. It makes the food you eat that much more special. And for me, never a great cook or cooker, it's added a totally new dimension to my life, as I take up the challenge of exploring new recipes and meals.I therefore have no hesitation in highly recommending this book to you. It is a must read book for anyone with the slightest interest in the food they eat. But be warned. His passion for food is contagious, and you may well end up having major lifestyle and food outlook changes. Not only will you start eating really good meals again, the chances are your views on food sourcing and farm animal welfare will never be the same again.

It was a long time ago that I bought this but it is still in regular use as the contents never go out of usefulness and it covers comprehensively many of the things other cook books dare not or assume you must surely know.

Little more needs be said about this epoch-defining work.Just be ready to change your lifestyle and shell out for at least 3 other River Cottage titles.Hugh's philosophy on food production and preparation, and indeed the value we place on what and how we eat, has single-handedly stopped my McDonald's rive-thru habit.

This fellow is one of the greatest British people alive. If I were King, I would make him one of my knights. Everyone should read this.

Totally satisfied. Good service and product in excellent condition.