Pork & Sons Review
Posted on January 11, 2009, by Conor O'Neill, under Cooking, Food, Reviews.
I was given this lovely book for Christmas 2007 and finally finished it last month. What initially appears to be a coffee-table resident turned out to be one of the best books on food I’ve ever read.
The title says it all. This is a book about pork. Every single bit of the pig gets a mention and use. The author, Stéphane Reynaud is the grandson of a village butcher from the Ardeche plateau in France. He runs a restaurant near Paris that specialises in Pork. I want to eat there!
The recipes themselves are fantastic but so too are the notes, anecdotes and pictures and people. This is a book centered on the relationship between a community and its food. The way it is sectioned up is unusual but it works. The “chapters” are as follows:
- Pig-killing time at Saint-Agreve
- Black Pudding Recipes
- For the love of Sausages
- Sausage Recipes
- Hamming it up
- Ham Recipes
- Pates and Terrines
- Jacquy’s terrine
- Granny Pig
- Barbecued Pig
- A piggy Party
- Wild Boar
It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a cookery book which stirred up such desire to cook but this did it. Whilst I know recession-talk is starting to wear people down, this book will hopefully be part of a return to cooking cheap tasty food with a bit of soul.
4 Replies to "Pork & Sons Review"
The Sexy Pedestrian on January 13, 2009
If there’s a bad book about pork I’ve yet to read it, I’ve put it on this month’s Vibes and Scribes shopping list, cheers!
Conor O'Neill on January 13, 2009
@Sweary We’ve gone off food in the past few months. Rarely trying anything new, not arsed to cook. Hope it’s just the season and I’ll get back to trying stuff in late Spring.
Interesting one on the veggiosity. I’ll never give up meat but I’m very tempted to go on a wholefoods cooking course coming up in Bandon which avoids meat and dairy. Just for a bit of variety.
@TheSexyPedestrian Gotta agree about books on pork. I think Denny could release a book which consists of nothing but pictures of rashers and it’d beat anything by Celia Ahern in the bestseller lists.
The Sexy Pedestrian on January 13, 2009
You only have to recall the pork/fried breakfast crisis to guarantee that!
Sweary on January 13, 2009
Like many lunatics out there, I have more of a passion for a good cook book than I have for actually getting up and cooking. Friends and family frequently laugh at me because of my habit of sitting at the table, eating toast whilst looking at pictures of complicated wine-based reductions. Tragically, I gave up meat in a final and completely warning-free manner just before Christmas, leaving me salivating over meaty recipies while morally unable to proceed with eating pigs, etc. I guess being happy with merely reading about taste paid off after all. Sigh.