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How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780470173541
ISBN: 0470173548
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: June 05, 2007
Publisher: Wiley
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Review:
"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
"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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Inspirational Cooking
Like many others I bought this book because I'm a fan of Nigella's tv shows. I loved her personality and they way you can tell she really enjoys the food she's making. "How to Eat" seemed like a good place to start, and from the get go I was inspired. I wanted to bake a pie, I wanted to roast a chicken, things I'd never done or really thought about doing. She's very encouraging and honest about what can happen in the kitchen. Sometimes the recipe is going to turn out wrong or less than stellar, but ... Read More
Rating:  - Nigella "How To Eat"
Nigella Lawson's book, "How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles Of Good Food" is not only a fun read, reflecting the author's warm and inviting personality, but also a new way of looking at the lost art of home cooking. Ms. Lawson is clearly not afraid of thinking outside the box when it comes to food, and unlike a lot of her contemporaries in the rush hour world of the cooking industry, reminds us consistently that knowing how to slow down and truly enjoy eating is one of the greatest pleasures ... Read More
Rating: - A worthy kitchen bible
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 ... Read More
Rating: - Thanks, Nigella.
I bought "How to Eat" along with "Express" and between the two, I've already made several recipes. Now, I can't cook, but I've been cooking up a storm since Nigella took up residence in my home. The narrative portion of "How to Eat" is beautiful prose. I'll even grab the book when I want a good read. Her writing is so descriptive, yet approachable, it inspires even self-proclaimed non-cooks like me to venture into the kitchen. Let that be a testament to Ms. Lawson's gift.
Rating: - a book to follow
the book is really "a book to follow", it is not about what to eat, it is about how to eat. how to do it in the healthy way. I knew the book might not be very interesting to those who just want to follow an image and do something that resemles it, but I also know that those who want to understand the issues behind Nigella's cooking will highly appreciate it.
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