Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
All you could possibly want to know about food and then some
25 Aug 2002
Derek Cooper is a well known British food writer. Snail Eggs and Samphire is a collection of his writings. This work has the problem common to anthologies of this sort; a long string of essays don't really form a single book. I also feel it is too long. Many of the essays overlap, and Cooper often makes the same point in several pieces. Although only about a decade old, the commentary often seems outdated. For instance, many "new trends" Cooper observes here, such as in natural foods, seem like ancient history by now. A final caveat --Cooper is writing primarily for a British Isles audience and much of the material is specific to that region. After all these complaints, believe it or not I can still find much to recommend in this book. One of the points that Cooper repeatedly makes is the preferability of natural foods over highly processed ones. This is probably worth hearing over and over again, as many people remain addicted to junk foods. And Cooper isn't talking about trendy health foods (not primarily anyway); there are many detailed narratives about fresh fish, cheese made the old-fashioned way,
free-range chickens, organic vs. commercial produce and so forth. Squeamish vegetarians should probably avoid this book, as there are some rather graphic descriptions of fish and animal organs. Cooper introduces us to many fellow food enthusiasts along the way (don't expect me to remember any names); other writers, owners of fine restaurants, organic wine growers in California, and countless others. Although most of the writings are concerned with his native England (and its Celtic neighbors Ireland, Scotland and Wales), Cooper also takes us to Russia, America, Israel and Italy in his search for great cuisine. At times he comes across like a crusader, but it's hard to question the rightness of his cause. Since this book came out, the commercialization of food (along with everything else for that matter) has only increased. Despite the growing natural foods movement, fast foods, convenience foods and just plain boring and tasteless homogenized foods are still the norm. Food enthusiasts will love this book and be more tolerant than I was of its redundancies. Others should still listen for their own education, or seek the same information in a more concise format. As this is an audio book, I should also mention that the reader is excellent. He successfully brings to life the many diverse personalities Cooper interviews, perfectly capturing accents from French to Cockney to American.
free-range chickens, organic vs. commercial produce and so forth. Squeamish vegetarians should probably avoid this book, as there are some rather graphic descriptions of fish and animal organs. Cooper introduces us to many fellow food enthusiasts along the way (don't expect me to remember any names); other writers, owners of fine restaurants, organic wine growers in California, and countless others. Although most of the writings are concerned with his native England (and its Celtic neighbors Ireland, Scotland and Wales), Cooper also takes us to Russia, America, Israel and Italy in his search for great cuisine. At times he comes across like a crusader, but it's hard to question the rightness of his cause. Since this book came out, the commercialization of food (along with everything else for that matter) has only increased. Despite the growing natural foods movement, fast foods, convenience foods and just plain boring and tasteless homogenized foods are still the norm. Food enthusiasts will love this book and be more tolerant than I was of its redundancies. Others should still listen for their own education, or seek the same information in a more concise format. As this is an audio book, I should also mention that the reader is excellent. He successfully brings to life the many diverse personalities Cooper interviews, perfectly capturing accents from French to Cockney to American.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
