Mamma: Reflections on the Food that Makes Us

Description

A collection of oral histories with recipes exploring the influence of family on our relationship with food. Food is key in our culture. Of late there has been a penchant for reinventing nostalgic home favourites in restaurants and cookbooks leading to a desire to know where our food and its traditions come from. For most of us there is a desire to return to our childhood kitchen, the smells and tastes of the dishes evoke comfort and wonderful memories. Those childhood meal times form the foundation of our taste buds and how we now cook. MAMMA: REFLECTIONS ON THE FOOD THAT MAKES US is a collection of oral histories about the food we ate as a child, our mother's cooking and all that it signifies and encapsulates throughout our life. A fascinating trip around the globe, the book features interviews with some of the world's best-loved cooks including Jamie Oliver, Yotam Ottolenghi, Claudia Roden, Alice Waters, Stanley Tucci and many more. MAMMA: REFLECTIONS ON THE FOOD THAT MAKES US is about bringing food back to basics, about going home.

Mina Holland is Editor of Guardian Cook. She was formerly Contributing Editor of Observer Food Monthly. Her first book, The Edible Atlas, was published by Canongate in March 2014 and, to date, is being translated into eleven other languages and will be available in 20 countries. She lives and works in London.

Whether the memories are good or bad, our relationship with food begins at home, watching pots stirred, spices sprinkled and spoonfuls tasted. Mina Holland nails the current nostalgia trend in her latest book, Mamma, where she talks to such food visionaries as Anna Del Conte and Yotam Ottolenghi about how recipes are histories of who we are. Prepare to be engrossed. * DELICIOUS * A fascinating book full of interesting food stories and recipes for delicious dishes. -- Anna Del Conte You'll be charmed, enlightened and inspired by this beautiful and insightful telling of where we are today with food that celebrates home cooking. -- Claudia Roden Mamma is a book you will want to take up to bed and savour; like with great American food writing it is more literature than recipe book, and yet what recipes it has. A deeply delicious read. -- Thomasina Miers Another informative, sensitive, delicious book by Mina Holland. Simply lovely. -- Yotam Ottolenghi Mina's writing is informed, humorous and touching. A beautifully structured, intelligent and vital book for anyone interested in why and what we eat. A gem. -- Stanley Tucci Eloquently and warmly written, Mamma is a book at once deeply personal and fascinatingly anthropological. Mina is a joy to read: intelligent, thoughtful and playfully humorous, she engages you with food in a way that is both ravenous-making and cerebral. While exploring the importance of food and cooking to identity and wider culture, it's also a book that makes a compelling case for the deliciousness, imperfection and humanity of home cooking - a moving and refreshing read in a world of aspirational, often exclusionary food and lifestyle porn. -- Rosie Birkett In this inspiring hotpot of essays, memoir, interviews and - last but not least - great recipes, the editor of the Guardian's Cook magazine explores the relationship between the food of our childhood and our adult tastes, the interplay of tradition and innovation. Her themed chapters cover topics like Nature, Women and Eating Meat, which she discusses with the likes of chefs Jamie Oliver and Yotam Ottolenghi, psychotherapist Susie Orbach and actor Stanley Tucci. There are accompanying recipes for Eggs, Pulses, Vegetables, and so on. A childhood vegetarian, pulses are still 'the beating heart' of Holland's cooking. An engaging book that blends thought-provoking writing and brilliant recipes. * THE LADY * Oh this is going to be so brilliant - cannot wait!! -- Felicity Spector