Study of a Spring Meal

First, Catch

NOMINATED FOR THE 2018 ANDRE SIMON FOOD &amp; DRINK BOOK OF THE YEARBBC RADIO 4 FOOD PROGRAMME BEST FOOD BOOKS OF 2018THE TIMES BEST FOOD BOOKS OF 2018FINANCIAL TIMES SUMMER FOOD BOOKS OF 2018"A one-off, the kind of food book that I believed was no longer being published... When I reached the last page, I went back to the beginning." &ndash; Bee Wilson, The Times"A book as rich and rewarding as the rabbit stew he spends so many chapters making." &ndash; Jenny Linford, Times Literary Supplement"A wonderful taste of fresh air... First, Catch is almost revolutionary... His words are delicious, musical heaven." &ndash; William Sitwell&lsquo;Thom Eagle&rsquo;s writing is pure joy &ndash; effortless and unaffected. Even such a seemingly banal and simple thing as boiling vegetables is engaging and illuminating in his hands. He is easily one of my favourite writers, and this book deserves to become a classic.&rdquo; &ndash; Olia Hercules, author of Mamushka and Kaukasis"It feels so tantalisingly transgressive to find a book that looks beautiful, feels lovely in the hand and just contains words &mdash; gorgeous, thoughtful essays... from a talented chef and writer." - Tim Hayward, Financial Times&lsquo;The thing to do is just begin. The question, of course, is where?&rsquo;So opens Thom Eagle&rsquo;s hymn to a singular early spring meal. A cookbook without recipes, this is an invitation to journey through the mind of a chef as they work. Stand next to Thom in the kitchen as he muses on the very best way to coax flavour out of an onion (slowly, and with more care than you might expect), or considers the crucial role of salt in the creation of the perfect assembly for early green shoots and leaves.In an era when we are so distracted that we eat almost without realising what we&rsquo;ve just put in our mouth, this is food and writing to savour, gently steering the cook back towards simplicity, confidence and, above all, taste.

&#39;A one-off, the kind of food book that I believed was no longer being published ...&#160;when I reached the last page, I went back to the beginning&#39;

&#39;A wonderful taste of fresh air ...&#160;First, Catch&#160;is almost revolutionary ...&#160;His words are&#160;delicious, musical heaven&#39;

&lsquo;Thom Eagle&rsquo;s writing is pure joy &ndash; effortless and unaffected. Even such a seemingly banal and simple thing as boiling vegetables is engaging and illuminating in his hands. He is easily one of my favourite writers, and this book deserves to become a classic&#39;

Olia Hercules, author of Mamushka and Kaukasis

&#39;It feels so tantalisingly transgressive to find a book that looks beautiful, feels lovely in the hand and just contains words &mdash; gorgeous, thoughtful essays ... from a talented chef and writer&#39;

Thom Eagle is a chef, writer, and Young British Foodies-nominated pickler currently based at Little Duck in East London. He blogs at In Search of Lost Thyme. This is his first book.

Thom Eagle

How to Cook Without Heat

From the author of the Fortnum &amp; Mason Debut Food Book of 2019, Summer&#39;s Lease looks at the cooking techniques we use instead of heat which, in letting us step away from the stove, lend themselves perfectly to summer eating: breaking, salting, souring and ageing.The long dog days of a tiring summer are no time to be a cook. A few charred sardines are of course a wonderful thing, but there the grill sits, pouring out heat into the already-hot kitchen; anyone with any sense who wants charred sardines is somewhere close to the seaside.... It is a time when you might, if you weren&rsquo;t so hot, wonder what it means to cook at all. Is there cooking without fire...?We understand that when we say something is cooked, we mean it has been heated; but we also understand that a cook does much more than just cooking. The chopping, the beating, the marinating, the dressing... What cooks do is best defined not by the word &ldquo;cooking&rdquo;, but by the idea of metamorphosis. Cooks transform ingredients.Through recipes and meanderings, award-winning food writer Thom Eagle explores what it means to create dishes without a reliance on fire and flame, and offers a unique and tantalising glimpse inside the mind of a chef.

Thom Eagle

Books by Thom Eagle

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