Future Cook: A Taste of Things to Come

by Colin Tudge

"By growing or buying good things and cooking them well you, and your neighbour, can effect the small but collectively crucial changes that could take the human race, and its fellow creatures, safely through the twenty-first century. People often ask me, when I proselytise in public places: 'but what can I do?' Cook, is the answer. Cook with knowledge. Cook and evangelize."

Future Cook is for everyone who is interested in food - cooks, environmentalists and those who just enjoy eating. Written by Colin Tudge, a scientist with a lifelong love of good cooking, the book explains how we can rethink our eating habits and at the same time make delicious dishes, full of flavour and interest.
In the past two decades, nutritional theory has come on apace: recommended protein intake has been radically reduced, attitudes to fats have become more subtle and intricate, and unrefined carbohydrates (or the fibre they contain) have achieved major significance. Our cuisine should be guided by these emerging nutritional principles and we should demand of our food that it neither debilitates us nor shortens our lives.
Future Cook shows that eating healthily need in no way conflict with eating well. A sensible diet lays a foundation which the occasional indulgence (a pleasure not to be scorned) cannot destroy. Colin Tudge's recipes are examples of the kind of dishes that are examples of the kind of dishes that are both good to eat and good for you.
Future Cook takes these new theories right into our kitchens and explains what the priorities should be when planning our meals. More than two hundred recipes, chosen from many cuisines, show that we can indulge in splendidly varied meals in spite of a changing world. Thirty-two pages of four-colour photographs illustrate the author's original and delightful recipes.
Future Cook is the first of a new generation of cookbooks.

Contains index and bibliography.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Colin Tudge was educated at Dulwich College, 1954-61; and read zoology at Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1962-65.

Since 1965 he has worked on journals such as World Medicine, New Scientist and Pan, the newspaper of the World Food Conference held in Rome, 1974.

Ever since then he has earned a living by spasmodic broadcasting and a lot of writing—mainly books these days, but with occasional articles. He has a special interest in natural history in general, evolution and genetics, food and agriculture, and spends a great deal of time on philosophy (especially moral philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the relationship between science and religion).

He has two daughters, one son, and four granddaughters, and lives in Oxford with his wife, Ruth (nee West).

Reviews

[Artemis Eclectica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book totally changed my whole attitude to food and the food industry. It
politicized my thinking and reinforced my adoption to vegetarianism (although he does mention meat, but subscribes to it's limited consumption). The recipes within are excellent and the photographs superb. It seems that every library that has ever stocked it has had their copy stolen - it is such a great book.

[Dan Freidus · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Future Cook" (that's the UK title of this book which was also published under the title "Future Food" in the U.S.) was one of Tudge's first books but still relevant. He makes a compelling argument that we need to change the relative ratio of types of food in our diet, e.g. using meat for flavor and minor nutritional contributions rather than to supply a large proportion of our calories and protein needs. Not a cookbook but a book that is likely to change how you cook.