Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me: A chef's stories and recipes from the land [Paperback]

This is a wondeful cookbook which provides recipes for some unusual ingredients, and all are lovely (and some, like woodland produce, are in fact free!) You'll feast on such unusual dishes as nettle risotto, tart with wild garlic leaves and feta cheese, watercress soup, parsnip, fennel and quinoa pilaf, and a spelt farotto. So unusual but so delicious. I have been a veggie for nearly 15 years and have accumulated quite a large selection of cookbooks in that time but none of them have introduced me to so many unknown yet positively divine foods as Denis Cotter has. And don't worry, if you have a wholefood store and a woodland near you, there's no reason why you should not be able to make all the foods in this book.

I find the recipes in here far simpler than Paradiso Seasons and they require shorter cooking and assembling time, but are just as exquisite, elegant and delicious. This is a book as great for the sofa as it is for the kitchen - Denis Cotter's engrossing comments on wild food and his recipes are worth a read even if you hate cooking! The illustrations are beautiful and tempting. But most of the appeal has to be in those ingredients that I have never used before; the novelty of using wild garlic, spelt and nettle are the main attraction of this beautiful book for me. If you like trying new and original flavours, and are desperately bored of pasta with tomato sauce, this books will provide you with countless wonderful and inspired ideas for something new and unusual. But always, always delicious.

Denis Cotter's restaurant Cafe Paradiso in Cork, Ireland, has rightly been celebrated for well over a decade now. It may not serve meat or fish, but it's certainly not a "vegetarian" restaurant in the narrow sense of the term. It's simply a fantastic restaurant serving fantastic food, and this was recognised when it was awarded the Best Restaurant in Ireland Award in 2006.

Cotter's 2 previous books have very much focused on the dishes served at his restaurant and were very well received. This new book is a more ambitious book altogeter, concentrating on his relationships with his vegetable growers, seasonal wild food, foraging, Irish vegetables traditional and new, and so much more beside. There are magnificent photos of the Irish countryside and some great new recipes, which are beautifully pictured throughout. Cotter's writing is wonderful and this is a book which can certainly bear comparison with any exalted predecessor that you might care to name, like Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book. Wild Garlic itself is a beautiful object, with high-quality heavy paper. It's designed to last because this book will certainly last and will still be read in 20 or 30 years time. A new classic food book has arrived! Highly recommended!

which draws the eye for a different reason.....
......and this one is a real gem, complete with pale green ribbon bookmark to keep your page!

I was first drawn to the smell of wild garlic, in the beautiful village of Castle Combe, in Wiltshire...to me - not a particularly attractive odour, in the usual sense of the word - but powerful enough to warrant some investigation!
And what a sight .....in the dark, damp woodland..... a beautiful carpet of green and white......the latter being a flower so delicate-looking, it is hard to identify it with such a pungent aroma!
`Wild Garlic, Gooseberries... and Me' is similar in that this nonchalant-looking book is destined to be picked up off the bookshelf....to see what secret lies between the hardy dark green covers, embellished..... simply..... with nature.... and is extremely apt for its subtitle:-
`A chef's stories and recipes from the land'.

From the back cover:-
`Here then, from cabbage to watercress, via asparagus and chard amongst others, is a personal take on the most truly vital ingredients of my kitchen.'

Award winning chef, Denis Cotter leads us through muddy fields, along windswept shorelines and over startlingly green farmland, amusing and informing with his witty, evocative tales, and delicious recipes. From the unique flavour of seakale to the aristocratic wonder of artichokes, Denis shares his passion for all his favourite foods and includes mouth-watering dishes for each.'

From the Introduction:-
...Food is life. We all know that intuitively but often forget it or lose touch with the importance of food in our lives beyond the basic need for sustenance....The vegetables I have chosen to write about are not listed in alphabetical order nor arranged in a pattern that reflects the seasons of the year. Instead they are grouped according to shared characteristics.......'

320 high quality pages split over 4 main chapters:-

It's a green thing
Wild pickings
A passionate pursuit
Growing in the dark

with an introduction and a detailed index.

Interspersed with beautiful photography of foods, some of the dishes and scenery.

Each chapter begins with narrative, including in-depth notes on the featured `ingredients'. Towards the back of the chapter are the recipes, easily identified by the change from a white page background to pale green or cream.

Each recipe is well laid out with an relevant opening note, the title
the list of ingredients, on the right hand side, along with the number of servings, and the clear method.

A small taste of the recipes within:-

Watercress Hummus
Roasted Asparagus with Blood Orange Aioli
Red Russian Kale with Orange and Nutmeg
Spinach, Aubergine and Chickpea Curry
Chard, Lentil and Roast Plum Tomato Gratin
Wild Mushroom, Barley and Celeriac Soup
Amethyst Deceivers with Scrambled Eggs
Field Mushroom and Potato Gratin
Rosehip Syrup
Elderflower Fritters
Sloe Gin
Damson Fool
Wild Garlic and Walnut Pesto
Nettle Risotto
Samphire Tempura with Coriander Yoghurt
Puffball, Aubergine and Leek Casserole
Zhoug
Gooseberry Fool with Elderflower Syrup
Braised Carrots with Spices and Cider
Oca with Spinach, Coconut and Cashews
Sweet Turnip and Leek Curry
Root Vegetable Crisps
Roast Parsnip Mash

From `Wild Pickings'
'Rummaging in the past to enrich the future:-

For a townie with a naturally nervous disposition in the countryside, this year has been a revelation, a journey into an area of food I had been ignoring. And one into my own past and place too, in the way that foraging is about so much more than getting supplies for dinner. For anyone who has memories of searching for wild food in their childhood, returning to it can put you back into scenes from another time and connect you to the people in them, including yourself.
Foraging is rarely a solitary activity. At its best it is a day or a few hours out in the countryside in good company.........with someone who is comfortable with you and with the simple pleasure of the walk without needing to chatter.
In a time when we are sufficiently well off to buy any food we want from the eager supermarkets who are more than happy to sell it to us, searching for food in the wild is up there with growing our own as the best way to put that unquantifiable value back into what we eat.......
However, the dwindling amounts of hedgerow and woodland, and the increasingly intensive farming of land, means that there is less and less opportunity to indulge in the traditions of foraging.
Farmers, too, are not always happy to see strangers traipsing around their property. So we can't all go barging out into the countryside in the hope of finding a few berries and mushrooms for tea.
With some careful planning and research, and equally careful diplomacy, it is heartening to know that there is still a lot of edible food out there that costs nothing but time.....'