The spatter of sauce in a pan, a cook’s subtle deviation from a recipe, the careful labour of cooking for loved ones: these are not often the subjects of critical enquiry. Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought.
In her innovative memoir Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. In exploring the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings and the intimacies of shared meals, Johnson awakens us to the richness of cooking as a means of experiencing the self and the world.
‘An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it’ Nigella Lawson
‘One of the most original food books I’ve ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas.’ Olivia Laing
‘Destined to become essential reading for anyone interested in writing about food . . . Bold, beautiful, daring . . . It is a book that changed me’ Rachel Roddy
