Still life

by Elisabeth Luard

There's plenty more to domestic life than simply stirring up a stew. If the kitchen is the heart of the home, it is in the kitchen that we know exactly who we are - and what makes us different from other people. This book explores that difference. Using material drawn from diaries, notebooks and sketchesbooks, which Elisabeth Luard has kept over the years, she takes the reader into the kitchens of the peasant housewives of Eastern Europe, give us a flavour of life above the Arctic Circle, create the aromas of the souks of Istanbul, Jerusalem and Marrakech, and explore the wild with the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand and Australia. Along the way she looks for answers to universal questions. What exactly is it that makes us know who we are and where we come from? Why do we refer to our neighbours by the foods they eat? Why do we welcome strangers by inviting them to break bread with us - and mistrust them a little if they refuse? How can a Bosnian housewife tell her neighbour is a Croatian by the scent of her stew? This title is a companion volume to, and follows the format of "Family Life".

Genres: Food

382 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2013

About the author

Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food-writer, journalist and broadcaster who often illustrates her own work. Her most recent cookbook, A Cook's Year in a Welsh Kitchen with photography by Clare Richardson, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010. Previous books include European Peasant Cookery (US The Old World Kitchen), Festival Food and Tapas, all of which are in print with Grub Street. Others include Classic Spanish and Soups (Octopus), The Latin American Kitchen, The Food of Spain and Portugal and Food Adventures: Introducing your Child to Flavours around the World (Kyle Cathie) - written with daughter-in-law Frances Boswell, and Truffles (Frances Lincoln). She is currently Trustee Director of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, contributes a monthly column to Richard Ingrams The Oldie Magazine, and is a member of the team at online culinary magazine Zester Daily. She has published 2 novels, one of which, Emerald, won the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award. Her work as a journalist appears regularly in The Daily Mail, The Scotsman, Country Living, Cambria Magazine, The Jewish Chronicle and the TLS.

Reviews

[Catie]

Recommendation from @carogrison - 5/17/2017

[Msdot · Rating 3 out of 5]

"So what did i learn from my travels? As much as anything, to hear but not to judge; to see but not to draw conclusion; to speak but only of those things I believe true in my heart, and always to remember that I may be wrong. And I am happy to be wrong. I am well aware there is no such thing as the right road, no such thing as absolute truth."

[Fiona Stocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book for the serious foodie. Elizabeth Luard has the credentials, the passion and the nose for a good story, a good dish and food as it is eaten by those who've been making it the same time honoured way for generations. This book is a tour of Europe's tavernas, inns, hotels and back street restaurants and accidental cafes in private homes, an adventure in real food. I enjoyed it but found it hard going as I'm a sucker for fiction and a good plot and some characters. I dipped, much as one would one's fingers into a bowl of nuts and chocolate, with the same results - it was tasty, but after a while I knew I'd had enough.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and found myself reading it in every free moment I had! I loved reading about Elisabeth's travels firstly with her husband and then with the camera crew which at times made me laugh and at other times made me feel sad. A well written book.