Adult Book of the Month
Forgotten
Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen
Published by Kyle Cathie in 2009
Although supplying over 700 recipes, The Forgotten Skills of Cooking is much more than a cookbook. Covering vegetable growing, bee keeping, pig curing, chicken keeping, foraging, home brewing and smoking your own food, this will survive as a reference book long after the other ‘of the moment’ cookery books are relegated to the back of the bookshelf. Forgotten processes such as smoking mackerel, curing bacon and making yogurt and butter are explained in simple terms. The recipes show you how to use your homemade produce to its best, and include ideas for using forgotten cut of meat, baking bread and cakes and even eating food from the wild.
Darina Allen wrote this 600 page tome in response to
what she saw as “an alarming loss of skills” amongst those
taking courses at the Ballymaloe Cookery School and a craving amongst
the younger generation to reconnect with these forgotten skills. She feels
that there is a gap in the knowledge of skills that would have been passed
down from generation to generation. This information skipped a generation
as thrifty housekeeping became unfashionable and we handed over the power
over our food to the multinationals. In the book Allen attempts to show
people how to take back this control by encouraging self-sufficiency and
promoting local produce.
This book has something for everyone whether you’re ready to kill
and pluck your own chickens and make your own butter and yogurt, or just
want to grow a few herbs in a window box.
'There's not much this gourmet grande dame doesn't know' --Nigel Slater, The Observer
Darina Allen was born in Port Laoise. She is the founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School. The Forgotten Skills of Cooking was awarded the 2009 Andre Simon Food Book Award.
By the same author:
Darina Allen’s Simply Delicious Recipes
Simply Delicious
Simply Delicious Christmas
Simply Delicious Fish
Simply Delicious in France and Italy
A Year at Ballymaloe Cookery School
