Food & Drink Books

Book SynopsisThis BBQ book designed exclusively for dads offers the hottest recipes for any time the weather calls for a fire-fuelled feastThe BBQ is the domain of dads. This is a universal fact. Whether you are hosting a large gathering or you want to whip up something quick and easy for one, this book covers all BBQ bases, including: - Meat, fish and veggie grills - raise your culinary game with BBQ pulled pork and creamy slaw burgers, grilled squid with a Thai dipping sauce, and mixed vegetable and seitan skewers, to name just a few!- Sauces, marinades and rubs - heighten the flavours of your food with BBQ and whisky glaze, homemade mayonnaise, Cajun rub, and much, much more! - Side dishes - serve up some old favourites and new delights, such as chargrilled aubergine and quinoa salad, cheesy Portobello mushrooms and classic egg mayonnaise. - Sweet treats - top off the feast with some delicious desserts, including s''mores and grilled fruit kebabs. It''s time to don your apron, fuel the flames and get grilling!

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary tale of the wildfire spread of a drink which is embedded in our history and our daily cultural life – and which provides a compelling allegory for corporate greed, mercantile ruthlessness and global expansion. Arguably the most valuable legally traded commodity in the world after oil, coffee's dark five-hundred year history links alchemy and anthropology, poetry and politics, and science and slavery. Revolutions have been hatched in coffee houses, secret socities and commercial alliances formed, and politics and art endlessly debated. With over a hundred million people looking to it for their livelihood, the coffee industry is now the world's largest employer and the financial lifeblood of many third-world countries (or the blood with which they feed the global capitalist vampire, depending on your point of view). But with world prices at a historic low, the future looks uncertain. In this thought-provoking exposé, Antony Wild, coffee trader and historian, explores coffee's dismal colonial past and its perilous corporate present, revealing the shocking exploitation at the heart of the industry. To many people, coffee has become largely just another commodity. Black Gold restores our faith in the mystery of this unique beverage.Trade Review'an aromatic blend of colonial history and globalisation criticism' Ecologist 'an impressive mix of historical overview and contemporary analysis' Time Out 'Perfect ammo for destroying your Starbucks-guzzling workmates' Arena ‘an elegantly written, witty book, so wide in scope, so rich in detail, so thought-provoking in the subtle way that it develops its central thesis, that it is a challenge to do justice to it’ Joanna Blythman ‘This adrenalised swipe through the story of the mightiest of elixirs is written by a genius with all the economic facts and figures at his fingertips’ Good Book Guide ‘full of fascinating anecdotal detail about our favourite stimulant’ Geographical

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Book SynopsisPoet and historian Angus Martin was born in Campbeltown in 1952 and has lived there all his life. In this, his thirty-seventh book, he has employed his intimate knowledge of the history and families of his native community to produce the definitive account of the distillers, distilleries and related trades and industries which transformed a small West Highland fishing town into the whisky-making capital of the world. Exhaustive research in neglected sources has resulted a study with unprecedented detail and insight.Trade Review[I] .. can't think of a better historian to tell the story of [this] regional whisky, and no one has done it at this level of detail.' Frank Winter, Whisky-Botschafter

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Book SynopsisUntil the 18th century or even later, beer was the staple drink of most men and women at all levels of society. Tea and coffee were expensive luxuries while water might well carry disease. To supply the needs of both owners and servants, every country house with an accessible source of water had a brewhouse, usually close at hand. Although many of the brewhouses still stand, in some cases with the original brewing vessels (as at Lacock and Charlecote), their habitual conversion to other uses has allowed them to be ignored. Yet they are distinctive buildings - as much part of a country house as an ice-house or stables - which need both to be recognized and preserved. The scale of brewing in country houses, which went on to a surprisingly late date in the 19th century (with odd survivals, such as Hickleton in Yorkshire, in the 20th), was often considerable, if small besides that of commercial brewing. Copious records for both brewing and consumption exist. Pamela Sambrook describes the brewing equipment, such as coppers, mash tuns, underbacks and coolers; the types of beers brewed, from strong ale to small beer, and how they were kept; and the brewers themselves, their skills and attitudes. "English Country House Brewing, 1500-1900" shows the role beer played in the life of the country house, with beer allowances and beer money an integral part of servants' rewards. Generous allowances were made for arduous tasks, such as harvesting. For celebrations, such as the heir's coming of age, extra-strong ale was provided. This book, which is heavily illustrated, is an important and original contribution to architectural, brewing and social history.

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Book SynopsisThis is a nostalgic reissue of the best of the classic text of Irish cookery. The original "Full & Plenty" was published as a single volume book in 1960. It was the definitive reference book in every Irish kitchen. In this newly formatted and redesigned hardback, Mercier Press now brings the best of these classic Irish recipes to a whole new audience. Including the best 150 classic Irish recipes with everything from wholemeal brown bread to lamb stew, "Full & Plenty: Classic Irish Recipes" is an excellent addition to the cookery book shelf of any kitchen.

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Book SynopsisProusts famous madeleine captures the power of food to evoke some of our deepest memories. Why does food hold such power? What does the growing commodification and globalization of food mean for our capacity to store the past in our meals in the smell of olive oil or the taste of a fresh-cut fig? This book offers a theoretical account of the interrelationship of culture, food and memory. Sutton challenges and expands anthropology's current focus on issues of embodiment, memory and material culture, especially in relation to transnational migration and the flow of culture across borders and boundaries. The Greek island of Kalymnos in the eastern Aegean, where Islanders claim to remember meals long past -- both humble and spectacular provides the main setting for these issues, as well as comparative materials drawn from England and the United States. Despite the growing interest in anthropological accounts of food and in the cultural construction of memory, the intersection of food with memory has not been accorded sustained examination. Cultural practices of feasting and fasting, global flows of food as both gifts and commodities, the rise of processed food and the relationship of orally transmitted recipes to the vast market in speciality cookbooks tie traditional anthropological mainstays such as ritual, exchange and death to more current concerns with structure and history, cognition and the anthropology of the senses. Arguing for the crucial role of a simultaneous consideration of food and memory, this book significantly advances our understanding of cultural processes and reformulates current theoretical preoccupations.Trade Review'A charming book about food's role in the construction of memory. It must be important to say something that everybody knows, but is ignored by the specialists. It will stop nutritionists, psychologists and philosophers of mind from systematically ignoring that eating is primarily social, and memory is embedded in taste and smell.' Mary Douglas 'An excellent contribution to the anthropology of the politics of the senses and emotion.' South European Society and Politics 'The recipe [Sutton] has chosen to present, the Kalymnian Filla, is indeed one of the best strategies of remembering Greece and of planning in the present to re-taste it in the future.' South European Society and Politics 'Sutton is a keenly sensitive observer of the everyday routines and subtle variations of life and brings a greatly appreciated seriousness to his study of the performances of everyday life.' Gastronomica 'Sutton has put the topic of food and memory firmly onto the map of anthropological inquiry and theory... Not only to new vistas of investigation and methodology open up, but there is the particularly pleasing side-effect that reading this stimulating book makes one aware of personal, seemingly long-forgotten food memories' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5:1

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Book SynopsisThe book begins in New York in 1951 where Olney, a struggling artist, waited tables in Greenwich Village, then moves to Paris and weaves a magical description of food that becomes so real -- as if you were actually there with Olney: 'My first meal in Paris was in a glum little dining room for boarders, in the Hôtel de l'Académie, at the corner of rue de l'Université and the rue des Saints-Pères. The plat du jour was 'gibelotte, pommes mousseline' -- rabbit and white wine fricassee with mashed potatoes. The gibelotte was all right, the mashed potatoes the best I had ever eaten, pushed through a sieve, buttered and moistened with enough of their hot cooking water to bring them to a supple, not quite pourable consistency -- no milk, no cream, no beating. I had never dreamt of mashing potatoes without milk and, in Iowa, everyone believed that, the more you beat them, the better they were.' This book is a long-awaited story of the man who brought the simplicity of French cooking to the United States, and a statement about one of the finest and most important food professionals in the world.

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