Review by Ernie Sutton
FOOD: Vegetarian Home Cooking by Mary McCartney
Published by Chatto & Windus London
ISBN 978-0-701-18625-8
Paul and Linda’s daughter Mary is a renowned photographer in her own right, but here we have a new cook book, hot on the heels of the Meat Free Monday cookbook.
Mary, by her own admission, is first and foremost a photographer, and this book combines her skills as a photographer and cook all in one.
There are family photographs from the early 1970’s in Scotland where Mary developed her passion for food.
As a cookbook this offers uncomplicated recipes which turn out very tasty for both vegetarians and meat eaters.
What I like about this book is that it has some great recipes and includes cooking notes and conversion tables for oven temperatures into relevant gas marks, weight from ounces to grams and liquid measures from Fluid ounces to Millilitres, something many cook books don’t offer. Having grown up with these older measures and not “gone metric yet” as they say, this is a welcome addition.
The book has a wonderful introduction from Mary explaining how the book came about and the influence of her mum in her early years. Mary loves to cook. The book is broken down into 6 areas of food- Breakfast and Brunch, Snacks and Sandwiches, Soups Salads and Starters, Mains, Basics and Sides, Desserts and Baking. There is something here for everyone.
The book shows recipes that are simple to make and many have photographs, taken by Mary, of what the finished article should look like.
For the meat eaters there are alternative recipes for food such as BBQ Sauce and Sage and Onion Roast. In fact the entire book has some fantastic food ideas, and having tried some I can vouch for that.
My favourite section is the soup section, all of which I can easily eat. There will, of course, be recipes people don’t like- that is only natural, but the vast majority here are very, very enjoyable and Mary has followed in her mother’s footsteps to produce a wonderful cook book.
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