The Consolation of Food: Stories about life and death, seasoned with recipes.

by Valentine Warner

This is a story book with food in it. Organised chronologically from childhood to adulthood, Valentine Warner presents a collection of personal stories about life and death, catering disasters, TV shenanigans and travel adventures.

Featuring 75 recipes that are dear to his heart, this is a cookbook for the modern world that recognizes the affirmative powers of time spent foraging or fishing for ingredients, and of cooking; to soothe the soul, to lift spirits and to celebrate the pure life-changing and life-affirming joy of good food.

A book to dip in and out of, or to enjoy in a single sitting, The Consolation of Food is an affirmation of the joy and pleasure that the presence of food has played throughout Valentine’s life; comfort food in the truest sense of the word.

Genres: Food

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 22, 2019

About the author

Valentine Warner grew up on a farm in Dorset, learning to fish, shoot and cook from a young age. He studied an art foundation course in Bath before heading to London to train as a portrait painter at the Byam Shaw School of Art. Valentine enjoyed a "reasonably successful" career as a painter, but, at 23, couldn't resist the call of the kitchen and decided to focus his time on cooking instead of painting. His first job was at the Halycon restaurant in London; for the next five years he brushed up on his cookery skills, working under chefs including Alastair Little and Rose Carrarini.

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful pithy stories of the adorable Valentine and his life and love of food . Very quick and lovely listen of Audible , read by Mr Warner himself . A lot of his philosophy of slow food and foraging and gorgeous foodie description . My only small beef is that he wasn’t edited a bit better as he repeats a few background bits like describing his granny twice . Small foible in an overall fun read .

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, I'm only 5 pages into this book. But I can already tell it is going to be a classic on my shelves.
Equal parts emotionally moving and useful, I cannot imagine a more perfect book. I just wish I took this on holiday instead of the Girl on the Train (eurgh).

[Geoff Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work is highly unlikely to achieve the renown of Boethius's 'On the Consolation of Philosophy'. Read that work or dip into it through descriptions and interpretations and you will get a flavour of what Valentine Warner offers up to us here.
He also appears to have the same knife maker as Rick Stein