Brian Yarvin

The subtitle of this cookbook is "Authentic Pub Food, Restaurant Fare, and Home Cooking from Small Towns, Big Cities, and Country Villages Across the British Isles", which is a fair summary of the contents. The book contains 100 recipes, the majority of which come with excellent photos, spanning the traditional English breakfast to fish and chips to Cornish pasties to hearty soups and stews to sweet treats that would go well with a nice cup of tea. And of course the Ploughman's Lunch and the Miser's Feast are featured as well!

Of the recipes featured in this book, I am most keen to try the pasty recipe (especially the pie crust, which is interesting because the ingredients are *hot* instead of cold, as they would be if you're following the pie-crust recipe on a box of Crisco). The ginger snaps and the intriguingly named Fat Rascals (cookies/biscuits) may end up gracing my next tea party, while it's hard to pick just one soup to try! And now that I finally know what a ploughman's lunch is, I expect to try assembling my own on a regular basis.

The book also includes sidebars about some of the places the author visited while putting the cookbook together---Staffordshire for oatcakes, Cornwall for pasties, and Cardiff for cawl (a type of soup)---and a small glossary of British food terms. Now you too can sound knowledgeable about butties, courgettes and swedes.

I borrowed my copy from the library but would consider buying my own to look at and share with my family and friends. Recommended for Britophile foodies. Just don't read it on an empty stomach.… (plus d'informations)