The River Cottage Meat Book

The best new book of the year without a shadow of a doubt, a serious treatise, a meat cookery bible and a supremely appetising recipe collection. Fearnley-Whittingstall is our most important and eloquent food writer today. His finger is always on the pulse. He tells it as it is without pulling punches and without wagging a moralising finger. This is the work of a thoughtful and caring omnivore. Everyone who eats meat should have a copy, and some who have stopped eating meat may find reasons in it to reconsider meat-eating in a fresh light * Philippa Davenport, Financial Times * The solitary TV regular who can write a decent cookbook ... the enthusiastic carnivore will relish all 550 pages * Christopher Hirst, The Independent * A tome as heavy as a newborn piglet ... brave and deeply challenging stuff... a refreshing and triumphant antidote to dumbed-down recipe writing... positively incendiary * Joanna Blythman, Sunday Herald * Carefully researched, revelatory and powerful... The technical bits of the book are especially good and equip you with an understanding that is all too often absent from celebrity chef offerings ... delivered with lively writing and endearingly corny puns * Felicity Lawrence, Guardian * I have been unable to put it down ... I urge all meat lovers to go and buy it. It is excellent * Mervyn Hancock, Western Daily Press * The sheer wealth of information is amazing and it is truly one of the most informative and passionate books you will ever read on the subject. It should be bought by every meat-eating household, as well as every butcher and supermarket manager throughout the land * Martin Koerner, Waterstones Books Quarterly * Thumpingly enormous, extremely good, and manages to be at once a recipe collection, a series of tutorials on the principles of cooking, a directory of organic suppliers, a philosophical essay, a timely report on the state of intensive farming and a forceful polemic * Sam Leith, Daily Telegraph * Unflinching respect for the animal and commitment to the truth sets Fearnley-Whittingstall apart from the rest of the food-writing mob. This is the most honest cookbook I have found, reeking with helpful, hands-on wisdom. It is everything it should be and more ... deliciously funny, well written and neither macho nor sanctimonious. If you eat meat, you will buy, prepare and cook it better having read this book. * Jill Dupleix, The Times *

"This book aims to help you find good meat, understand it better, cook it with greater confidence, and eat it with much pleasure. "It first of all covers the basics - everything you'll need to know about choosing the very best raw materials, understanding the different cuts and the cooking techniques associated with each of them. I've then given what I hope are foolproof recipes for 150 meat classics from both British and foreign food cultures - shepherds pie, steak and kidney pie, roast pork with perfect crackling, glazed baked ham, Irish stew, roast grouse with all the trimmings, toad in the hole, oxtail stew; plus definitive, authentic versions of pot au feu, cassoulet, choucroute, steak tartare, coq au vin, bolito misto, pasticcio, jerked pork, feijoida, cozido, curried goat, satay and chilli con carne. "I would like this book to be your first stop on the shelf whether you seek either inspired recipes or technical guidance on any aspect of meat cookery" - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall