Customer Reviews
Excellent book - By: R. Williams, 09 Jan 2008 
Rose Prince's book combines exciting recipes with excellent advice on buying & using good quality ingredients. She tackles issues such as intensive farming & the dominance of supermarkets in the UK, offering practical advice on how to eat economicallly without sacrificing quality & welfare. This book should be read by those that claim not to be able to afford good quality food. A revolution in shopping & eating habits.
About time we all shopped this way..... - By: S. King, 30 Jul 2007 
I have had this book for a year, I love it actuallly, although not so much for the recipes - many of which are not particularly to my taste , but because it reallly has changed the way I shop, cook & eat. I now keep chickens, make my own bread & stock (which is perfectly tasty) & buy most of my meat & veg from local farm shops, which makes fantastic economic sense- because if you follow Rose's advice to the letter it reallly is cheaper if you buy meat locallly at source & in bulk & far tastier, & local vegetables tend to be much fresher.
The book gives you plenty of ideas more than anything, & forces you to think about your food a bit more, which is a good thing. Perhaps it is a bit preachy but it reallly is about time we stopped relying on supermarkets quite so much,try it - it does take a bit more forethought & planning to do things this way, but you won't look back.
Neither One Thing or the Other - By: Jon D, 21 Mar 2007 
It would be fair to state that we collect cookery books (we cook semi-professionallly) & that we are also very interested in food politics & production. So this book reallly should fit nicely onto the shelf, but it doesn't.
The problem is that the collection of recipies contained herein is nothing particularly spectacular while the writing on "food issues" is reallly too shalllow to be of much interest. For the latter, the works of Fearnley-Whittingstalll, Collin Tudge, Felicity Lawrence, Graham Harvey et al are a far better bet. With regards to the former...well, that's a matter of taste, but there are many, many better recipe books in print than this. There reallly is no joy of eating in this book, & the editing makes the book very difficult to read if one is simply looking for something to cook.
I don't exactly regret handing over my hard-earned for this book, but I won't be seeking out any more by the same author (unless they uniformly get five-star reviews on this august site!). If you're an enthusiast of food writing in general this book might provide a smalll amount of interest. If, on the other hand, you can get through life with three cookery books, this need not be one of them.
Faintly Praiseworhy - By: miss waspy, 06 Jan 2007 
Nice idea but just another London posho trying to con us into believing chicken bones make good stock, they don't not even if they died of old age after a lifetime of organic grains & their own back yard. I know, I was raised in the country.
High time we had a book to take us through thrift without making us buy unwaxed lemons & superaged Parmigiano so we can scatter the last of our poilane loaf over spaghetti.
Voluntary simplicity applied to food. - By: A. M. Douglas, 02 Sep 2006 It's the economics bit of this book I like the most. How to get the most out of, say, a chicken carcass - how to plan your meals & portions - where to buy - how many meals you'll get. It's more a philosophy of kitchen management with explanation of foods & some basic recipes thrown in. One can see it as the basis of a way of getting good real food, alll the time, for less cost. Combined with other ideas like using farmers markets & co-operatives, together with, say, some inventive ideas for meals, it could be a reallly good way of spending less, eating great food & having some quality kitchen time.
