André Simon 2016 Food and Drink Book Awards

Coverage compiled between December 2016-January 2017 by tpr media consultants

Pre-awards Coverage

1 The A-Z of Eating by Felicity Cloake (Fig Tree)

2 Flavour: Eat What You Love by Ruby Tandoh (Chatto & Windus)

3 Fresh India by Meera Sodha (Fig Tree)

4 Gather by Gill Meller (Quadrille)

5 Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury)

6 Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds by Yemisi Aribisala (Cassava

7 The Oxford Companion to Cheese edited by Catherine Donnelly (OUP)

8 Pride and Pudding by Regula Ysewijn (Murdoch Books)

The drink category shortlist: 1 American Rhône by Patrick J Comiskey (UCP) 2 The Apple Orchard by Pete Brown (Particular Books) 3 Chianti Classico by Bill Nesto and Frances Di Savino (UCP) 4 The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace by Tristan Stephenson (Ryland Peters & Small) 5 Volcanic Wines by John Szabo MS (Jacqui Small)

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'Food books form a bigger part of our lives than ever before'

'Food books form a bigger part of our lives than ever before' Published January 25, 2017 by Bee Wilson

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People have predicted the death of cooking almost as many times as they have predicted the death of reading. Yet food books form a bigger part of our lives than ever before, as I discovered as an assessor for this year’s Andre Simon Book awards for food and drink writing.

These are books of everyday enchantment, which seem to promise us an escape into different ways of living. Maybe we feel the need of those comforts now more than ever in this world of division and Trump.

The Andre Simon Trustees and I sifted through more than 140 books before arriving at our shortlist of eight. As yet another stacked cardboard box full of cookbooks arrived at the house, I kept thinking, how many recipes does a person need?

One of the trends that we noticed as we whittled down the entries was that food has itself become a battleground. We were taken aback by the number of books devoted to clean eating of one kind or other, whether it called itself that or not. Perhaps we shouldn't have been so surprised. In 2015, Deliciously Ella by Ella Woodward (now Ella Mills) became the fastest selling debut cookbook of all time, since when the UK bestseller lists for cookery have been dominated by ‘wellness’. We leafed through many books that preached denial and fad, or that promised beauty and inner ‘glow’, if only we could give up such basic and lovely items as bread or pasta.

A more encouraging tendency, however, was the remarkable number of high quality food books published in 2016 that were about widening rather than restricting the British palate.

Our shortlist recognised writers who are playing with adventurous ingredients in fresh and interesting ways, such as Felicity Cloake and Gill Meller, whose debut cookbook, Gather, a volume of seasonal recipes with a slightly Nordic devotion to foraging, includes a chapter devoted to squirrel recipes. I can’t pretend to have tried any of these but I can’t recommend Meller’s recipe for fish soup highly enough. He is one to watch.

There’s also a new adventurousness about the cooking of the past. Our shortlist included Pride and Pudding, a marvellously eccentric celebration of historic British puddings by Belgian photographer Regula Ysewijn, which resurrects such oddities as sack posset and quaking pudding. Another scholarly gem was The Oxford Companion to Food, an astonishingly comprehensive reference book that covers everything from the history of Cheddar to the old myth about the moon being made of green cheese.

One of the biggest trends this year was global cuisine. UK cooks have always been more eclectic than cooks from Italy or France, but this year, there were books from more varied regions than ever, such as the marvellous Longthroat Memoirs by Yemisi Aribisala, a series of brilliant and witty essays celebrating Nigerian cuisine which won the John Avery prize. Nigerian food has been been ‘misunderstood, atrociously photographed, not yet given its due’.

Our shortlist also included Fresh India by Meera Sodha, a wonderfully rich and varied collection of vegetarian Indian food by the author of Made in India. The overall Andre Simon prize was deservedly won by Fuchsia Dunlop for Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China, which celebrates the food of the Jiangnan region of China. This is a book that combines soulful travel writing and scholarship with gorgeous recipes, from golden scrambled eggs with shrimp to silken tofu in a broth that thickens ‘like some extraordinary

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subterranean flower’.

Perhaps the most encouraging trend of all was the glimmer of a backlash against the vogue for clean eating books. We awarded the Special Commendation prize to Flavour by Ruby Tandoh. On one level, this is just a deeply accessible collection of comfort food recipes, from panna cotta to courgette fritters. But it is bound together by an unashamed celebration of flavour, against the ‘obsession with wellness in food culture right now’. Tandoh’s joyous call to arms – contained in her subtitle – is simply to ‘eat what you love’. It’s a sign of how anxious our relationship with eating has become that this should now sound like something subversive.

Bee Wilson is the author of This is Not a Diet Book and First Bite (both Fourth Estate) and was an assessor for this year’s Andre Simon Book awards for food and drink writing.

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DWWA judge profile: Richard Mayson 0

Decanter Staff January 16, 2017

Richard Mayson is Regional Chair for Port and Madeira at the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA)

DWWA regional chair: Richard Mayson

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DWWA 2015 Regional Chair

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DWWA 2017 Regional Chair

Richard Mayson Richard Mayson began his career working for The Wine Society, winning the Vintner’s Company Scholarship in 1987 during his time there. Now specialising in the wines of Iberia, especially fortified wines, he owns a vineyard and produces wine in the Alto Alentejo, Portugal.

Understanding Tawny Port He is the author of four books, including The Wines and Vineyards of Portugal (winner of the André Simon Award 2003) and Port and the Douro. Mayson writes regularly for Decanter and The World of

Fine Wine, contributes to the Oxford Companion to Wine and lectures for Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London.

Top 10 Tawny Ports In 1999, he was made a Cavaleiro of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto in recognition of his services to the Port wine trade, and he was an associate editor of Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas. He is currently series Editor for the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library and runs his own website for fortified wine enthusiasts, www.richardmayson.com. Mayson was first a DWWA judge in 2004.

Follow Richard on Twitter at @richardmayson

TLS ONLINE JANUARY 23 2017

André Simon

A wholly unselfish art GEORGE BERRIDGE

A TLS review of The Star Chamber Dinner Accounts, for which André Simon wrote the foreward, appointed him “the established leader of those interested in the good things in life”. The phrase might

seem backhanded – but the reviewer’s words are honest praise. Simon was a gourmet, not a gourmand – an Epicurean in the purest sense, finding his pleasure, ultimately, in knowledge and companionship: “Cookery is a wholly unselfish art . . . . All good cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for”. On what would have been his 100th birthday, a group of friends toasted him with a 1945 Château Latour he had saved for the occasion.

Throughout his life, Simon strove to spread these ideals. He was, as Hugh Johnson describes him, “an irrepressible scribbler”, writing more than 100 books and editing many more. On occasion, he featured on that great forum for wit and wisdom, the TLS letters page. In 1933, he recounted drinking an inherited 140-year-old Madeira originally intended for Napoleon on St Helena. The English Consul who had originally sent it to the exiled Emperor “found it impossible to get payment” and so it was returned. “The wine was still beautiful.”

Elsewhere, Simon can be found espousing the virtues of the early pressure cooker and challenging the critic Enid Starkie on Baudelaire’s experience of Constantia wine in 1841: “I do not think that the wine tasted on that occasion could have made such a deep impression as to be responsible for ‘Je préfère au constance . . .’” (from “Sed non satiata”).

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A great deal of Simon’s industrious output can be found in the depths of the Guildhall Library, alongside the collections of Elizabeth David, Arabella Boxer and Christopher Driver. Simon’s is a dizzying catalogue, arriving at the library in 1988, and comprising over 3,000 books. On a visit last week, I found not just the expected tributes to Bacchus, but also Zen Macrobiotic Cooking, first editions of Ambrose Heath, and guides to a swathe of then-emerging cuisines. The collection also houses the previous winners of the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards, first held in 1978 (and won by Alan Davidson’s North Atlantic Seafood).

Although the style of the winning books has changed over time, from comprehensive histories of mostly Continental food (Marcella Hazan’s masterpiece The Classic Italian Cookbook, 1980; The French Cheese Book by Patrick Rance, 1989; The Complete Book of Spices, Jill Norman, 1990), to more practical guides on how and why to cook in recent years (The Forgotten Skills of Cooking, Darina Allen, 2009; Short and Sweet, Dan Lepard, 2011; Master It, Rory O’Connell, 2013), they all follow Simon’s philosophy: food writing can be elaborate or plain, can describe the homely or the exotic, but it must always serve the end goal of celebrating and spreading pleasure. This year’s shortlist (the winner is to be announced at the Goring tomorrow night) is a wonderful mix. I’m devouring Yemisi Aribisala’s evocative Longthroat Memoirs on the bus and coming back home to the perfect simplicity of Gill Meller’s Gather and Meera Sodha’s Fresh India (a welcome addition since my copy of Made in India has been used to the point of near-collapse). I’m particularly fond of Ruby Tandoh’s Flavour, because its subtitle is a succinct antidote to the tedious postChristmas health-kick selection: Eat what you love. Cooking from these books is an enjoyable act. In 1951, a TLS reviewer quoted Simon as saying, “a good cookery-book without correspondingly good dinners is, as faith without works, a wasted gift”.

The list is, mercifully, free from even a trace of clean eating. Not for want of trying, it must be said. Bee Wilson, this year’s food book judge and last year’s Special Commendation winner for First Bite, described how: “In the past, when I’ve been sent a lot of food books to judge, I’ve passed on any that I don’t keep to my daughter’s school, but this time I genuinely didn’t want to pass some of the books on to an audience of teenage girls”.

Clean eating – or “all of this and none of that” – has a lengthy history, however. In the final addenda to his 1863 pamphlet On Corpulence (1863), William Banting, having lost an impressive 46 lbs on what might be considered the proto-Atkins (no “starch and

saccharine matter”), relaxed the diet “to preserve that happy standard”: “If I choose to spend a day or two with Dives, so to speak, I must not forget to devote the next to Lazarus”. He died “happy and healthy” in 1878, a year after Simon was born. As my own addendum, that “happy standard” may have been aided by the seven daily glasses of “good claret” that Banting was allowed by his physician.

In his book Food (1949), Simon warns of those “who are proud to tell us that they do not live to eat, but eat to live are beyond all help”. It is pleasing to see, then, that this year’s shortlist contains, Wilson says, “gusto, and attachment to the joys of flavour, in all its variety”. A set which informs and instructs, encourages and entertains: food-writing as it should be. The entrants remind us that what we eat, as Simon wrote, “has in its gift some of the joy that makes life worth living”.

George Berridge works at the TLS The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. The awards website can be found here.

Looking for some new cooking inspiration or want to learn more about a niche food subject? The justannounced shortlist for the prestigious annual André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards will surely whet your appetite for new creative adventures in the kitchen. The panel was guided by the help and advice of this year’s independent assessors, food writer and historian Bee Wilson and award-winning food and wine writer Fiona Beckett.

The shortlist showcasing the best of contemporary food and drink writing was selected from a recordbreaking 200 submissions, and features established food and drink figures, including Felicity Cloake and Fuchsia Dunlop, alongside first-time author chef Gill Meller – the only man on this year’s femaledominated food book shortlist.

The diverse publications range from Gather – a collection of seasonal recipes inspired by the landscape – to Pride and Pudding, a culinary history of the British pudding. In the spotlight this year there are cuisines from India (Fresh India), China (Land of Fish and Rice) and Nigeria (Longthroat Memoirs), alongside wine from California (American Rhône) and Tuscany (Chianti Classico). Not only has there been a broader range of cuisines celebrated in this year’s submissions, but also an increase in the countries from which the books were submitted, spanning from the United States to Indonesia.

Both Ruby Tandoh’s Flavour: Eat What You Love and Felicity Cloake’s A-Z of Eating take a modern approach to flavour, while reference book The Oxford Companion to Cheese covers everything from Vacherin Mont d’Or to military rations.

This year’s drink submissions include books which explore a single ingredient, such as Pete Brown’s focus on apples in The Apple Orchard and Tristan Stephenson’s look into at the history and development of gin in The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace. John Szabo’s Volcanic Wines is believed to be the first book to use a soil type as the overarching theme in a wine book.

Nicholas Lander, Chair, André Simon Memorial Fund comments: “The food and drink book industry has sold £60 million worth of books in the UK so far this year and 2016 is likely to be the biggest to date in UK food and drink history, counteracting completely the predictions that the internet would see the demise of this genre. While other areas of publishing are shrinking, food and drink book sales are going from strength to strength this was also reflected in the highly impressive production values. This

is a year in which I am particularly proud to have been Chairman. These are great books that reveal the passion of so many of our writers.”

The shortlisted books for the 2016 prize in the food category are: The A-Z of Eating by Felicity Cloake (Fig Tree) Flavour: Eat What You Love by Ruby Tandoh (Chatto & Windus) Fresh India by Meera Sodha (Fig Tree) Gather by Gill Meller (Quadrille) Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury) Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds by Yemisi Aribisala (Cassava Republic) The Oxford Companion to Cheese edited by Catherine Donnelly (OUP) Pride and Pudding by Regula Ysewijn (Murdoch Books) The shortlisted books for the 2015 prize in the drink category are: American Rhône by Patrick J Comiskey (UCP) The Apple Orchard by Pete Brown (Particular Books) Chianti Classico by Bill Nesto and Frances Di Savino (UCP) The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace by Tristan Stephenson (Ryland Peters & Small) Volcanic Wines by John Szabo MS (Jacqui Small) If I had to choose one to read right now? Hmm...I'm likely to go with something that enlightens me about a culture in a country I've never visited - traditions around food tell you just about everything you need to know about a place and its people - and from this list we can we can take a trip to India, China or Nigeria. I'd like to bring some of their local flavour back to my own kitchen.

Today's DesignSkool lesson: We learned that food and drink writing, in the tangible form of the published book, is an object so desirable that we're still willing to pay for it. As popular as the free and instantly accessible foodie blogs and columns are today - and there are some fantastic ones out there - there still exists a loyalty to the space-occupying, hundred+ pages long, photo rich, printed form. People who really love food and appreciate cooking and concocting as an art form that comes with endless creative challenges and rewards, value having something we can display in our homes and hold in our hands, that really delves into the subject, teaches us something new and takes us to some other wonderful place through the writers's unique narrative. This is a great thing as it means these brilliant writers have a supported platform that allows them to bring us new inspirations every year.

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ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS: ‘CHIANTI CLASSICO’ 16th January, 2017 by db_staff

The following extract is taken from ‘Chianti Classico: The Search for Tuscany’s Noblest Wine‘ by Bill Nesto MW and Frances di Savino. Published by UC Press it is one of the drinks books shortlisted in this year’s André Simon Awards.

“Our interest in Giulio Gambelli arose from our search for true Chianti. It was the late 1990s, and I was looking for something more than the fashion­driven flavors of the Chianti Classicos that I was tasting…. Who was Gambelli?

“He was known as a maestro assaggiatore, another name for a palatista, a master wine taster, someone who could taste a wine blind and know its condition, its varietal makeup, and its origin. I learned that chemists calibrated their machines according to his palate…. I met Gambelli in the fall of 1994. He was in the cellar of Lilliano. He wore a fedora hat and a long coat. He did not speak English, and at the time, I could not understand or speak Italian. So we talked with our eyes, facial expressions, and gestures.

“Once he started taking me from barrel to barrel, I quickly understood that he knew the wines as if they were his children. The barrels had holes for sampling wine that were sealed with wax. He pushed a feather into the wax, pulled it out, put a glass at the puncture point, let wine drain into it, and then sealed the hole with the warmth of his finger. I had never seen this done before and never saw it again.

Giulio Gambelli at Tenuta di Bibbiano, Castellina in Chianti, in 2000. Photograph by Bill Nesto.

“Over the years, I accompanied Gambelli to visit several of his clients. I learned that he was hard of hearing. When I returned to Lilliano about a decade after my first visit, I wanted to show him that I had begun to learn Italian. He told me through Stefano Porcinai, who accompanied us that day, that he had just returned from a funeral of one of his relatives, someone very close. I meant to say “Mi dispiace“ (I am sorry), but instead “Mi piace” (I like it) came out. He smiled and thanked me. If he did not hear the words of men, he seemed to understand the speech of their hearts. He understood wine in a similar way.”

The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind.

Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley­Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Last year’s drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustachich for ‘Thirsty Dragon’. The awards website can be found here.

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NEWS MAGAZINE JOBS AWARDS SUBSCRIPTIONS REPORTS WINE

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ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS: ‘THE APPLE ORCHARD’ 18th January, 2017 by db_staff

The following extract is taken from ‘The Apple Orchard: The Story of Our Most English Fruit‘ by Pete Brown. Published by Particular Books it is one of the books shortlisted in this year’s André Simon Awards.

Now, in the middle of a fully organic orchard, eating one tiny mouthful, I have to accept that I have developed a serious allergy to apples.

I ate apples perfectly happily while growing up. I never pushed a bag of crisps out of the way to get to one, but they were fine – juicy and satisfying, but quite monotone: the crowd­pleasing Golden Delicious that always made me wonder if toffee­apple­makers had got the relative proportions of toffee and apple the wrong way round; or the fat, watery culinary fruit that went into apple pies which, for me, were just an excuse to eat custard, because the school dinner ladies looked at you funny if you asked for a bowl of that on its own.

Now the apple has tricked me. After all these years of indifference, it has made me want it, desire it. A whole array of exotic riches, treasure growing on trees, promising a breadth of flavour sensations I could previously never have dreamed of. I gave in, and now I can never submit again: this new object of desire has been taken away from me even as it hangs in front of me.

For me, the apple really is the forbidden fruit.

The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind. Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley­Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Last year’s drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustachich for ‘Thirsty Dragon’. The awards website can be found here.

André Simon Awards: ‘American Rhône’

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ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS: ‘AMERICAN RHÔNE’ 23rd January, 2017 by db_staff

The following extract is taken from ‘American Rhône: How Maverick Winemakers Changed the Way Americans Drink‘ by Patrick Comiskey. Published by UC Press it is one of the books shortlisted in this year’s André Simon Awards.

Several of the early Rhône-variety wine producers report on the powerful draw of Chez Panisse, Kermit Lynch’s retail shop, and the whole of Berkeley’s food and wine scene. John Buechsenstein, Randall Grahm, Bob Lindquist (and his non-Rhône oriented colleague Jim Clendenen), Steve Edmunds, Adam Tolmach, and Bill Easton, all spent formative years living in or visiting Berkeley, making regular visits to Waters’s restaurant and Lynch’s wine shop, collecting mixed cases of southern French wines, dreaming of making their own wines one day.

As the Rhône movement started to take shape, Chez Panisse and Chez Panisse Café were eager and generous supporters of its early efforts. Panisse was one of the first restaurants to sell the wines of Joseph Phelps, including its Syrah, and was an

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André Simon Awards: ‘American Rhône’

early supporter of the wines of Qupé. In fact Steve Edmunds, by now a friend of Kermit Lynch, had his first taste of an American Rhône wine, Qupé’s Central Coast Syrah, at Chez Panisse—it was this

very wine that proved to him that Rhône varieties were worth a taking a chance on in California—he founded his winery the following year.

Lynch meanwhile, became a sideline cheerleader for domestic versions of the varieties and blends he’d introduced into the American market. Bob Lindquist recalls an early encounter with Lynch and his friend and drinking buddy, the winemaker Joseph Swan, who was waiting for Lynch to close up shop so they could go to dinner at Chez Panisse. Lindquist remembers Lynch practically cornering him, fervently holding forth on the virtues of these as yet untested Rhône varieties. Lynch regularly set up meetings with his producers and these fledgling winemakers during the formative years, either in France on their home turf or when his producers made sales visits to the states.

As for Mourvèdre, it got its star turn at table at Chez Panisse as well. Old Mourvèdre vineyards were revived in Oakley, on the San Joaquin river delta east of San Francisco, on the strength of demand from new producers, which saved them from being ripped out. Waters noted this in her foreword to Olney’s 1994 cookbook, chronicle,

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André Simon Awards: ‘American Rhône’

and memoir, Lulu’s Provencal Table: “Because of his enthusiastic promotion of Bandol and the influence of its flavors, a new generation of talented wine makers in California has planted many new vineyards of Mourvèdre (the grape that is the essence of Bandol) and are also happily harvesting fruit from recently rediscovered venerably plantings of Mataro (the state’s legal name for Mourvèdre). I think this is as exciting a change in direction for California wine making as the shift to Cabernet and Chardonnay was a generation ago, and not only because these wines go so well with the kind of simple, garlicky food I love to cook at Chez Panisse.”

In 1987, Kermit Lynch arranged a meeting between newly bonded Rhône-variety producer (and Berkeley resident) Steve Edmunds, of Edmunds St. John Winery, and Francois Peyraud, son of Lucien and Lulu and winemaker at Domaine Tempier. Edmunds had made some older-vine Mourvèdre from Brandlin Ranch that he was really happy with and wanted Peyraud to try. Peyraud tasted a number of wines before the Mourvèdre and Edmunds remembers him politely tasting his wines but not betraying much excitement—until he was poured the Mourvèdre.

“When he got to the Mourvèdre,” says Edmunds, “he stuck his nose in the glass, and he absolutely just stopped and stood there, for about two minutes. And then very slowly he lowered the glass and his head came up and his eyes rolled back and he took this deep breath and he said, “La terre parle.”2 One could hardly imagine a more heartfelt or meaningful validation for an American producer. And it meant that the Rhône movement, guided by broader influences that reached across oceans to France and traced back decades, was on an unstoppable path.

The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind. Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Last year’s drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustachich for ‘Thirsty Dragon’. The awards website can be found here.

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André Simon Awards: ‘The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace’

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ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS: ‘THE CURIOUS BARTENDER’S GIN PALACE’ 20th January, 2017 by db_staff

The following extract is taken from ‘The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace‘ by Tristan Stephenson.

Published by Ryland Peters & Small it is one of the books shortlisted in this year’s André Simon

Awards.

Even before I was old enough to drink gin, I was thinking about it. My earliest memory of gin is my mother drinking a gin and tonic when I was nine, and, as it

looked like a glass of lemonade, I thought it only right that I should be allowed one too. Even today I am known to react badly when refused a gin and tonic so my parents pacified me with a glass of tonic water.

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André Simon Awards: ‘The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace’

From the first sip I fell in love with its tongue-curling bitterness and that night I sneaked down to the kitchen and greedily swigged straight from a bottle. It would be a few more years before I could mix it with gin of course, but there was never any question that this heavenly mix of the sweet, bitter, boozy and botanical would become a big feature in my adult life.

Of course I never would have guessed that it would become this much of a feature. The most significant step was becoming a bartender, but when I got better at that I found myself delivering seminars on gin and judging gin competitions. Later, I appeared in advertising for a major gin brand, and opened two London cocktail bars – both heavily inspired by gin.

After that I co-founded a (small) gin brand, and now I’ve written a gin book, having visited over 60 gin distilleries and sampled nearly 500 expressions. You could say I’m ‘ginfatuated’.

And for good reason too. In gin we have a spirit that is so specific in its flavouring, so chilling in its reputation, yet so far-reaching in its contribution to cocktails and mixed drinks.

From its origins as a medieval medicinal curative to becoming one of the world’s first recreational spirits, gin, and its Dutch precursor, genever, soon became the go-to tipple for the British masses in the early 18th century. To say that party got out of hand would be playing it down somewhat. Juniper-scented gut-rot flowed through the streets of London, leading the poor and vulnerable into harm’s way. But out of the ashes, something unexpected happened, and in the space of 100 years, gin journeyed from the backstreet bar rooms of London’s inner-city slums to the cocktail lists of the most exclusive hotels in the world. Indeed, gin was the cocktail spirit, engulfing whiskey and brandy in a cloud of juniper-scented smoke by the beginning of the 20th century. Hundreds of dry gin cocktails were masterminded between 1900–1930.

Not least of all, the Martini.

Who could have guessed that in the 50 years that followed gin’s fortunes would change once again, fading away in to mediocrity becoming neither celebrated nor feared, but just unremarkable. The 1980s saw some of gin’s most woeful times, where the cocktails of the golden era had been forgotten only to be replaced by vodka and a new era of cocktail culture where the concealment of a spirit’s character through liberal use of sugar and fruit was the primary goal.

Only gin’s loyalest disciples kept the gin dream alive. Refusing to part company with their gin and tonics, keeping the fire burning and the ice stirring from bar room to home liquor cabinet.

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André Simon Awards: ‘The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace’

Gin, as it stands today, occupies a curious position within the hearts and minds of drinkers. On the one hand there is ‘mother’s ruin’, the degenerative scourge of 18th century English men and women, which has resonated through the centuries. On the other hand, though, gin has become a highly prized pinup of the craft revolution. Eschewing gin today is like sticking a finger up to local, artisan, independent businesses.

But the range of styles has also helped to a garner new admirers too. Assume the barstool position in any bar with a decent gin range and it won’t be long until you hear that familiar sentence, ‘I didn’t used to like gin, but I like this one’, signifying a new breed of gin drinker whose preconceptions have been squashed like a wedge of fresh lime.

Pronounced flavour, credible provenance, botanical terroir and innovative packaging are just some of considerations that drive modern gin drinkers to buy one brand over another. This isn’t just a renaissance of gin that we are experiencing right now – it’s gin’s golden time. Gin has never been this good and it might never be this good again, so enjoy it while you can.

The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind. Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Last year’s drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustachich for ‘Thirsty Dragon’. The awards website can be found here.

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/01/andre-simon-awards-the-curious-bartenders-gin-palace/[01/03/2017 16:54:52]

André Simon Awards: ‘Volcanic Wines’

NEWS WINE

SPIRITS

BEER

FINE WINE

MAGAZINE

JOBS

CHAMPAGNE

AWARDS WHISKY

VODKA

DINING

ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS: ‘VOLCANIC WINES’ 24th January, 2017 by Rupert Millar

The following extract is taken from ‘Volcanic Wines – Salt, Grit and Power‘ by John Szabo MS. Published by Jacqui Small Publishing it is one of the books shortlisted in this year’s André

Simon Awards. The awards ceremony is being held tonight at The Goring Hotel.

Terceira Island, Azores When I arrive on the island I’m met by Paulo Mendonça, the president of the

cooperative winery of Biscoitos, the island’s largest and only really export-equipped winery, and the winemaker Nuno Costa. During the short drive to the village, I see no vines. Mendonça, noticing my disappointment, admits that grapegrowing is not a priority on Terceira. ‘But just wait,’ he says. And when we reach Biscoitos, I catch a first glimpse of some of the strangest vineyards I’ve ever seen.

It’s only a small area, but one of the most singular vineyard landscapes on the planet. On the gently rolling hills

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/01/andre-simon-awards-volcanic-wines/[01/03/2017 17:04:29]

André Simon Awards: ‘Volcanic Wines’

beneath the village is the most amazingly geometric, chessboard-like pattern of squared-off, dry stonewalls fashioned out of lumpy basalt rocks, each surrounding a few wild-looking, bushy vines. ‘These are the curraletas,’ Mendonça announces, without disguising his pride.

Literally ‘little corrals’ these enclosures protect the vines from the buffeting winds and salty sea spray of the Atlantic, with the added advantage of absorbing and radiating heat back to the vines, a necessary ripening aid in this rather cool maritime climate. ‘The size of the curraletas is determined by the quality of the ground,’ Mendonça continues.

‘The poorer the ground, the smaller the curraleta.’

The land around Biscoitos is desperately poor. Indeed, there’s virtually no soil, just crushed rock. How do vines survive, I wonder. It’s like growing a plant in a jar of pebbles. Even when it rains, there’s nothing to hold the water.

The answer lies beneath, in the deep root system of the vines and in the volcanic geology of the island. Successive lava flows created laminate-like strata of rock between which water runs. The hills above Biscoitos are covered with sponge-like sphagnum moss that absorbs up to ten times its weight in water, which is then released slowly into the ground, trickling down and then flowing between the sheets of lava, eventually reaching the vineyards where deeply rooted vines have plunged their roots in desperate search of moisture. It’s like natural underground irrigation.

The André Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind. Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Last year’s drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustachich for ‘Thirsty Dragon’. The awards website can be found here.

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/01/andre-simon-awards-volcanic-wines/[01/03/2017 17:04:29]

d'Finks business

NEWS

MAGAZINE JOBS

AWARDS

WINES FROM SPAIN

ANNUAL TASTING

Sl/BSCRIPTIONS

REPORTS

9th March 2017 Tobacco Dock

ANDRE SIMON AWARDS 'THE APPLE ORCHARD' l81hJanu.ary,20t7 bydb_su.ff

The fol!011ing ei.tract is taken from 'T11e .'!pple Orchard: T11e Story of Our M.ost English Fruif by Pete Br01v1l. Publishedby Particular Books it is one of the books shortlisted in this year's Andre Simon Awards.

Now, in the middle of a fullij organic orchard, eating one tiny mouthful, I have to accept that I have deve'.loped a serious allergy to apples.

I ate apples perfectly happily while growing up. I never pushed a bag of crisps out of the way to get to one, but they were fine - juicy and satisfying, but quite

monotone: the crowd-pleasing Golden Delicious that always made me wonder if

toffee-apple-makers had got the relative proportions of tolfee and apple the

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THE

APPLE ORCHARD Th� Story of Our Mo.st Englbh Fruil

P�TE JlROWN

wrong way round; or the fat, watery culinary fruit that went into apple pies wh ich,

p.y

for me, were just an excuse to eat custard, because the school dinner ladies

looke-<f at you funny if you aske-<f for a bowl of that on its own.

Now the apple has trick·ed me. After all these years of indifference, it has made me want it, desire it. A whole array of exotic riches, treasure growing on trees,

promising a breadth of flavour sensations I could previous�/ never have dreamed

of. I gave in, and now I can never submit again: this new object of desire has

been taken away from me even as it hangs in front of me.

For me, the apple realty is the forbidden fruit.

The Andie Simon Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements

of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kir>d. Previous

winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume {the ve,y first

winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Feam/ey-1M>ittingsta/J, Nigel Slatet anrf Rici< Stein.

Last year's drinks book winner was Suzanne Mustechicn for 'Thirsty Dragoo'. The awa!ds websjte can be found here.

Yemisi Aribisala’s ‘Longthroat Memoirs’ A Book About Soups, Sex And Nigerian Taste Buds •

by BANKE CAINE, 28 OCTOBER Yemisi Aribisala’s essay collection on Nigerian food and culinary culture is set to be released on the 31st of October 2016. We can objectively and authoritatively say that you have never experienced anything like this in the 100+ years of modern African writing.

Here’s why: Longthroat Memoirs presents a sumptuous menu of essays about Nigerian food, lovingly presented by the nation’s top epicurean writer. As well as a mouth-watering appraisal of the cultural politics and erotics of Nigerian cuisine, it is also a series of love letters to the Nigerian palate. From innovations in soup, fish as aphrodisiac and the powerful seductions of the yam, Longthroat Memoirs examines the complexities, the peculiarities, the meticulousness, and the tactility of Nigerian food.

Nigeria has a strong culture of oral storytelling, of myth creation, of imaginative traversing of worlds.

Longthroat Memoirs collates some of those stories into an irresistible soup-pot, expressed in the flawless love language of appetite and nourishment. A sensuous testament on why, when and how Nigerians eat the food they love to eat; this book is a welcome addition to the global dining table of ideas.

We’ve been fans of Aribisala’s work for a while now. Remember last year, when we shared Aribisala’s beautiful essay on pepper? Take it from us when we say that, with this book, Aribisala is essentially going to change the way we think and talk about food within the African context.

Even more remarkable is the cover image designed by UK-based artist Lynn Hatzius. She’s designed covers for Cassava Republic in the past. But with this cover, she’s completely out done herself. The palette is vivid and eyecatching. All that burst of colors is happiness-inducing, not to mention the collage of flowers, butterflies, and pomegranate wrapped around Aribibasala’s beautiful face.

Hatzius tells brittle paper that she very much wanted to capture the emotional force behind the cultures, identities, and memories we create around food.

“My intention behind this cover,” she writes, “was to show how food culture is an engrained part of us. It grows over years and is passed on through generations forming an integral part of a person’s identity. Food doesn’t simply still our hunger, it reaches deeper, it touches the soul and awakens memories and emotions that warm our hearts. Taste can be very individual, but in all cultures it brings people together, to dine, to talk, to share. I wanted the cover image to convey the joy of this and to invite the reader into Yemisi Aribisala’s own celebration of food.”

2016’s Acclaimed and Popular Books by African Writers – This is Africa

By Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire on December 27, 2016 — As the year comes to a close, TIA’s contributor Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire lists the most highly commended books by African writers, published in 2016.

Long before 2016 knocked on our doors, we received news of million dollar deals for Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreams and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. These announcements perhaps created expectations too high for the debut novels to satisfy. While we have seen popular titles by African writers published by the dominant Western publishers in the recent past, million dollar advances were a first. 2016 however, like 2015 before it, continued to prove that the publication of multiple highly acclaimed books by African writers in the same year is now normal business.

It may be too early to tell, but so far, Behold the Dreamers and Homegoing are yet to match the hype that preceded their publication. Published on March 15 and June 7, 2016 in the United States respectively, the two books are yet to win important literary prizes. To be fair, they are making several Best of 2016 books lists, as expected. I personally enjoyed Behold the Dreamers so much that I consider it my best title, of all the books published in 2016 that I have read. I will be rooting for it to win as many literary prizes as possible and wish it for everyone’s reading in the New Year. It has already been longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award.

Gyasi’s Homegoing broaches the historical stain of slavery excavating centuries’ old memories of the continental involvement in the enterprise. For a debut novel, the theme is ambitious but some critics think that the twenty six year old Ghanaian American writer rises to the occasion. It is listed on almost every end of year book list, including the New York Times Notable Books and Oprah’s 10 Favourite Books, among others. It is also the NPR Debut Novel of the Year, and Gyasi is one of the 5 under 35 authors, nominated by the award winning American author and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Away from the dominance of African literature by Western publishers, 2016 was arguably the year for independent African publishers. Although published in October 2015, Panashe Chigumadzi’s Sweet Medicine (Blackbird Books) majorly circulated outside South Africa in 2016. The story of an insecure rural-bred ‘small house’ to a prominent politician has so far won the K. Sello Duiker Memorial literary award and been shortlisted for the Nielson Booksellers’ choice award among others. The novel has also catapulted its author, onto several lists of influence.

Staying with new African publishers, the Ugandan writer, journalist and editor Nyana Kakoma upgraded her blog, Sooo Many Stories into a publishing house with Peter Kagayi’s poetry collection, The Headline That Morning and other poems. The print version of the collection came with an audio CD, given Kagayi’s repute in Kampala and Nairobi as a performance poet. While the book easily emerges as the biggest literary news story in the country, with the website ArtMatters.Info describing Kagayi as Uganda’s leading poet, it has not circulated as much beyond the borders of the East African republic.

2016 however, like 2015 before it, continued to prove that the publication of multiple highly acclaimed books by African writers in the same year is now normal business.

Outside Uganda, Juliane Okot Bitek’s 100 Days has enjoyed better circulation. Bitek wrote the poems in commemoration of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, in a collaborative project with the Kenyan artist Wangeci Mutu. Mutu posted photographs for 100 days, and Bitek wrote a poem for each day. 100

Days’ trans-nationalism goes beyond the nationalities of its inspirations. The collection is published by the Canada-based The University of Alberta Press. Bitek, of Ugandan origin and based in Canada, is daughter to the pioneer poet famed for the song school of poetry. 100 Days has been celebrated, going by the reviews and listings.

Staying with Ugandan writers living in the diaspora, South Africa’s Modjaji Books published Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kaggwa’s memoir, Flame and Song. Raised in the 1960s and 70s era, Kabali-Kagwa indulges in a careful nostalgia as she revisits the days when the foundation for post-colonial Uganda was forming. Her tone is unflinching when it comes to describing the horror of growing up during Idi Amin’s regime before her family left for exile in Ethiopia and Kenya. Although she does not point fingers, when it comes to the contemporary state of disrepair of national facilities, like Mulago hospital, the guilty will nevertheless need to excuse their consciences as they encounter the personal tragedies that the author’s family face. It is making waves on some end of year lists.

The memoir front has shown up in 2016 with a vengeance. A third title in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s series of autobiographies, Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening, was published on October 4, 2016. The book chronicles Ngugi’s days as a university student. It captures the personal history of the end of colonial rule in East Africa. He writes that he ‘entered Makerere University College in July 1959, [as a] subject of a British Crown colony, and left in March 1964, [a] citizen of an independent African state.’ While Kabali-Kaggwa experiences the 1960s Uganda as a child, Ngugi does, as a dreamy budding playwright, novelist and journalist.

In the same bracket of established novelists who published memoirs this year is the Nigerian-American writer, Okey Ndibe. With two novels on his bibliography (Arrows of Rain and Foreign Gods Inc.), Ndibe’s Never Look an American in the Eye: A memoir of Flying Turtles, Colonial Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American came out on October 11, 2016. The book wears Ndibe’s signature humour all over its pages as he takes us through his observation of the United States as an immigrant.

Helon Habila’s Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria was published on December 5, 2016. Habila is another established Nigerian novelist of three titles (Measuring Time, Waiting for an Angel, and Oil on Water), who turned to nonfiction this year. Chibok Girls is a journalistic account of the fault lines of the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria, taking the reader beyond the meaningless statistics of news headlines.

The 2016 Nigerian creative nonfiction scene wasn’t only for the established novelists to occupy. Yemisi Aribisala on October 10, 2016 added her own Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds to the stock of the year. Aribisala is a renowned literary and food critic and her collection of essays was highly anticipated.

It has already been named one of the Channels Book Club top 20 Nigerian books of the year and is shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards.

Cassava Republic Press’ 2016 nonfiction releases go beyond food writing. They started with the boundary shaping anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction. Featuring award-

winning contributors from all over the continent, among them Bongani Kona, Beatrice Lamwaka and Elnathan John. The Ellah Wakatama Allfrey edited book cements creative nonfiction’s claim on 2016.

This year also marked Cassava Republic Press’ launch into the United Kingdom, after a decade of publishing African writers from its Abuja base. On its impressive launch titles list was the novella, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika. The author’s sophomore book explores the sexuality, among other things, of a cosmopolitan immigrant in her seventies. The book is a favourite for various best of the year lists and has also been shortlisted for the Goldsmith prize.

Via Cassava Republic Press’ crime imprint, Cassava Crime, Leye Adenle’s Easy Motion Tourist, was published in the first half of the year. The detective novel pays homage to Lagos and has been praised for its tight plot. It would be joined later by Hawa Jande Golakai’s The Lazarus Effect, originally published in South Africa by Kwela Books, and Toni Kan’s TheCarnivorous City, both of which came out in the second half of the year.

Staying with London-based publishers, Penguin Books released Yewande Omotoso’s sophomore novel, The Woman Next Door in May, 2016. It was received by decent acclaim. The novel follows a friendship and ‘hate-ship’ between two old women, in a post-apartheid South Africa. The novel’s two main characters are black and white, following up on Yewande’s interest in the simultaneity of blackness and whiteness in South Africa, a theme that formed the core of her acclaimed debut novel, Bom Boy. Also, from the London-based Faber & Faber, Petina Gappah’s short story collection, Rotten Row came into the world. It follows her 2015 novel, The Book of Memory, and engages more deeply with the questions of law and justice. The interconnected stories deal with human beings who find themselves in contact with the criminal justice system and ask fundamental questions as to what justice, even means.

While some titles on the list are authored by writers in their twenties, we also have titles by writers in their seventies. The negative inter-generational competition among African writers can take a rest, finally Across the Atlantic, in the United States, a small independent press unveiled to English-speaking audiences, gems from Francophone Africa. Roland Rugero’s Baho! appeared in English translation, courtesy of Phoneme Media. The novella, set in rural Burundi is touted as the country’s first novel to be translated into English. Like Gappah’s Rotten Row, it deals with the delicate issue of justice, questioning the logic and illogic of mob justice, with a dumb-mute main character on the run, from a mob baying for his blood, due to a misunderstanding of his gestures. The novella is a powerful exposure of the injustice that the differently abled suffer.

Phoneme Media didn’t stop at Baho! As the year came to a close, they released Richard Ali Mutu’s Mr. Fix-It. Ali Mutu, who lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the more known contemporary writers from French-speaking Africa having made it to the Africa39 list, which was heavily dominated

by English-speaking writers. Mr. Fix-It was first published in Lingala as Ebamba, Kinshasa Makambo, and has now been translated into English. It is a testament to the wonders of translation and should give more faith to those who heed Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s clarion call for support to writers who work in African indigenous languages.

2016 has undoubtedly widened our view of contemporary African literary production, at various levels, from the form to the language of African literature. The list of outstanding books of the year presented here includes fiction, long form journalism, memoir, and poetry. We have a few titles that have been published in translation, including one that was originally published in an African

indigenous language. Equally important is the fact that continent-based publishers are increasing their production and have offered a share of titles to our list. Where the products of the Western publishing industrial complex stand, the African published titles stand beside them.

While some titles on the list are authored by writers in their twenties, we also have titles by writers in their seventies. The negative inter-generational competition among African writers can take a rest, finally. As much as we have literary fiction titles, we also have genre fiction titles representing. The war between genre and literary fiction can also disappear. Where we have narratives based on the continent, we also have immigrant ones. The parochial anti-immigrant train hopefully got stuck on its way. We have as many diaspora based writers as home based ones. The divide among African writers according to where they are based should not find its bearings again. We have as many male writers as female ones. May the patriarchy and its male supremacy gospels continue to fall. We hope that our reading in 2017 will become more linguistically diverse. It is time to stop talking about a bright future, because we already have lights for the present in African literature.

Pit stops and pea shoots A blog about food, gardening, travel, my life as a freelance TV producer/interviewer working in Formula One...and a little bit of everything in between.

Saturday, 7 January 2017

Cooking the books

After 2 weeks of assembling assorted Christmas leftovers and creating increasingly 'interesting' combinations and calling them meals (turkey and stilton toastie anyone?) it's time to get cooking again. But what to cook? We may be past the Winter Solstice and the evenings may be getting imperceptibly lighter, but Spring is still light years away along with any kind of harvest from the allotment. Winter food is hearty and comforting - a green salad is not going to sustain you on a brisk walk at the weekend but it can be hard to get excited about root vegetables for weeks on end. As much as I don't make New Year resolutions, I do get a surge of enthusiasm at the beginning of the year for expanding my recipe repertoire, and vow to be a bit more adventurous in the kitchen instead of always rotating the same handful of meals week in, week out. And that's when the cookbooks come out.

I am a sucker for a cookbook. I have so many I could open my own shop. In my kitchen there is an open shelved unit proudly displaying my favourite and most used tomes, but don't be fooled for there are many, many (many) more in my house - some on another shelf under the kitchen island; others on a big bookshelf in the lounge; a stack of them on the kitchen table and even a few by my bedside. I read cookbooks in bed the way other (normal) people read fiction, savouring the beautiful and evocative food photography and devouring the words, almost as though the recipes have left the page and I can actually taste them. I've even been known to read them in the bath, which requires a certain level of upper body strength owing to the weight of most of them.

Certain cookery writers books lend themselves more readily to this level of attention than others - anything by Nigel Slater I can read for the prose alone - Tender Volume 1 reads like a love letter to vegetables and is the cookbook I turn to when presented with an unusual specimen in my weekly vegetable box. Some books are more 'no nonsense' for getting the job of creating a meal done with the minimum of fuss, like Rachael Allen.

There are books that are such a bloody good idea, you wonder why nobody has written it

before - 'A Bird In The Hand' by Diana Henry falls into this category - an entire book of chicken recipes for every mood and occasion. You'll never look at your standard Sunday roast bird in the same way again. Then there are the groundbreakers - the books that will surely become classics in the fullness of time, but which make you view ingredients in a completely different way. In 'Petal, Leaf, Seed', Lia Leendertz inspires you to do just this.

As a passionate grower of edibles on her allotment in Bristol, she explores ways to use every part of the plant as the book title suggests. Her beautiful Petal Cake alone has made me want to turn over one of my raised beds to edible flower production, and don't get me started on the homemade sugars, sherbets and sprinkles...

Similarly Mark Diacono's 'A Year At Otter Farm' features recipes for throughout the year inspired by the many unusual crops he grows on his smallholding (and now cookery school) Otter Farm in Devon. You'll be ordering Oca tubers and a szechuan pepper plant before you know it, so delicious and unusual sounding are the things you can make with them. It's rather pertinent that I mention both Mark Diacono and Diana Henry, as in a couple of weeks I'm practicing what I preached in my last post about being braver - I'm attending a one day 'Food Writing Course' at Otter Farm, with none other than Diana Henry. I'm both excited and terrified in equal measure. I'm looking forward to learning what it is that elevates something I enjoy doing for its own sake, into words that people are perhaps inspired to cook by. The fact that I both enjoy reading and cooking from both Mark and Diana's books, makes me realise what a fantastic opportunity to learn from them this course will be, but it will also be an exposing experience, sharing words with other aspiring food writers and being critiqued....and that brings with it a certain terror. Watch this space...

As wonderful as all of those cookbooks mentioned are, and there are many more not mentioned that have caught my eye in the last 12 months, I have a new crush. 'Gather' by Gill Meller is a book so exquisite, it will remind you why you enjoy cooking in the first place. Astonishingly given that he has been part of the River Cottage team for 11 years, developing and overseeing recipes for the myriad of books published under the River Cottage umbrella, as well as regularly teaching at the cookery school based at Park Farm, 'Gather' is Gill's first independent cookbook. And it's a cracker. It has already been shortlisted for the 2016 Andre Simon Food And Drink Awards despite only being published towards the end of the year. Divided into sections - 'farm', 'seashore', 'garden', 'orchard', 'field', 'woodland', 'moor' and 'harbour' - it's a call to arms for those concerned with food provenance, and urges you to seek out ingredients off the beaten track, but not completely obscure. To create dishes using the landscape and seasons as your larder, and to 'gather' those you love together to share in the eating. Ok, as he himself admits, 'few of us can go around picking berries and tracking deer', but if just once a week you eschew the supermarket and seek out seasonal produce from your local farm shop, butcher or 'pick your own' farm, you will instantly have a greater respect for your ingredients. Just picking some blackberries from the hedge you pass on the school run, or leaving some money in an honesty box at the end of the drive for the windfall apples piled high in a plastic recycling box, will connect you more to your food.

Whilst I may not see myself cooking the 'Crispy Squirrel with Cauliflower and Capers' anytime soon (although if that pair to be found in my garden most days don't stop digging up my bloody tulip bulbs, that day may come quicker than anticipated) I can see me turning to this book when in need of a more mindful approach to cooking, for many years to come.

To pick just one recipe from this book is an almost impossible task, but as it's the

weekend and I always like to have cake in the house, it's got to be the divine 'Honey Cake with Coriander Seed, Spelt and Orange'. Apparently 'the cake tastes best if you leave it for a day or two before eating'. Fat chance of that.

Honey Cake with Coriander Seed, Spelt and Orange - from 'Gather' by Gill Meller Makes 1x18cm (7in) cake Ingredients: 275g butter 250g golden caster sugar 4 tablespoons runny honey grated zest of 1 orange 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and crushed 4 large eggs 150g spelt flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 150g ground almonds For the honey coriander syrup: 4 tablespoons runny honey 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and crushed juice of 1 orange Method: Heat the oven to 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar, honey, orange zest and coriander seeds and beat thoroughly until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour with each and beating thoroughly before adding the next egg and spoon of flour.

Combine the remaining flour with the baking powder and sift into the beaten butter, sugar and egg. Using a large metal spoon, carefully fold the flour and baking powder into

the mixture, until combined. Stir in the almonds, and mix until evenly combined.

Grease an 18cm (7in) springform cake tin, then line it with baking parchment. Spoon the mixture into the tin, spreading the cake batter evenly with the back of the spoon. Stand the tin on a baking sheet (the batter may leak a little during cooking) and bake the cake in the oven for about 50 minutes, until the sponge is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool slightly while you make the syrup.

Combine all the syrup ingredients in a pan, whisk together and place over a mediumâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; high heat, without stirring, for 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 minutes, until reduced. Without removing the cake from the tin, gently prick the surface with a toothpick, and drizzle over the syrup so that it soaks into the hot sponge. Leave the cake in the tin for a further 30 minutes or so, before removing from the tin and placing on to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cake tastes best if you leave it for a day or two before eating, and it will store well for at least a week in an airtight tin.

Must. Not. Eat Yet.Argh....!

I'm afraid to say that my January willpower being what it is, the slice pictured above didn't even last until I finished writing this...sorry Gill.

By Susan Low The best thing about 2016 is that it’s finally over. It’s a year we’d all like to forget, as we stick our heads in the sand and our fingers in our ears, and pretend everything’s fine, just fine.

Yet the year did have some bright spots. Giant pandas were taken off the endangered list and world hunger reached its lowest point in 25 years.

It was also a remarkably good year for food and drink book publishing as a glance at the 2016 shortlist for the André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards makes clear.

The highly regarded André Simon Awards date back to 1978 and they put great value on original research (mere ‘re-arrangement of existing material’, as it’s delicately stated in the criteria, won’t cut the ice). Books must also aim to educate, and be a pleasure to read. These are “the awards that writers really want to win,” as Fiona Beckett, who assessed this year’s drinks books put it.

Quick scrutiny of the 2016 shortlist seems nothing short of life-affirming against the unnerving political backdrop. Book titles signify a respect for diversity, companionship and informed research (there’s no space for ‘alternative facts’ in these works).

Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Fish and Rice, winner of the Food Book category, is a lyrical work about the food of Jiangnan and Shanghai, while Yemisi Aribisala’s Longthroat Memoirs’ subtitle, Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds’ hints at spicy goings-on.

Meera Sodha’s Fresh India delights in the cross-fertilisation of ideas in the contemporary British-Asian kitchen and Regula Ysewijn relishes food history and dishes it up beautifully in Pride and Pudding, a paean to British puds.

In the Drinks books category, Pete Brown’s beautiful The Apple Orchard shows that it’s always possible to see old things in an exciting new light, as does Drinks Book category winner Volcanic Wines by Master Sommelier John Szabo.

Yes, we may be cast adrift on a sea of uncertainty but at least we can read well, eat well and drink well. And that beats building walls in my book…

    



ASSESSORS Bee Wilson, food books Fiona Beckett, drinks books WINNERS (for books published in 2016) Food Book: Land of Fish and Rice, Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury) Drink Book: Volcanic Wine, John Szabo (Jacqui Small) Special Commendation: Flavour: Eat What You Love, Ruby Tandoh (Chatto & Windus) John Avery Award: Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds, Yemisi Aribisala (Cassava Republic)

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Ruby Tandohâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s piece, Forget wellness, get gruesome, was on the homepage of iNews

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Top 5 Delicious and Easy Winter Warmer Recipes

Brrr... It's so cold outside! What better way to spend a winter evening than cooking delicious seasonal food. So here's a tip: Here at Community Channel, we absolutely adored chef Gill Mellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wonderful cookbook Gather, that was shortlisted for the 2016 Andre Simon Food & Drink Book Awards.

Mellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of cooking is finding ingredients that can be found locally in the woods, the garden, the seashore, the field and many more places in nature, including (ahem) squirrels (!). Gather has many recipes to offer for the four seasons, and we have compiled our top 5 yummiest and easy recipes to try this winter.

Stuffed Squash With Fennel & Barley 

2 small onion squash (about 800g/ 1 lb. 12oz each)



2 fennel bulbs



2tablespoons extra- virgin olive oil



1 handful of fennel tops, if available



125g (4 ½ oz.) pearl barley



100g (3 ½ oz.) Cheddar cheese, grated



25g (1 oz.) butter



1 garlic clove, peeled and grated



Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 180℃/350℉/ gas mark 4. Place the squash in a large roasting tray.

Further, place fennel around the tray. Drizzle olive oil all over the squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the tray inside the oven and for about 45-60 minutes.

While the squash and fennel cooks, place the barley in a medium sized pan and cover it with water for 25-30 minutes until the barley is soft. Drain and place the barley in a large bowl. When the fennel and squash are cooked add the roasted fennel to barley and mix it together with cheese, butter, grated garlic and salt and pepper. Then spoon everything into the two roasted squash and cook it in the oven for another 8-10 minutes. Then serve right away.

Roast Squirrel with Squash, Sage & Hazelnuts 

2 thick slices of butternut squash (about 250g/9 oz.)



1 oven-ready squirrel (about 250g/ 9 oz., jointed on the bone), or 4 pheasant or 2 chicken thighs on the bone, or 1 small rabbit (jointed)



1 garlic bulb, halved around its circumference



1 handful of sage leaves



2 bay leaves



2 tablespoons whole hazelnuts



2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil



Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 190℃/375℉/ gas mark 5. Place the squash in a medium roasting pan and put the squirrel pieces around the squash. Nestle in the 2 halves of the

garlic bulb, and then add the sage leaves and bay leaves, and scatter over the hazelnuts. Drizzle olive oil and season the roast with salt and pepper.

Cook the roast for 45-60 minutes and turn the squirrel once while it cooks. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 4-5 minutes. Then serve.

Grilled Scallops with Green Peppercorns & Garlic 

6 scallops, white meat removed from the shells



1 knob of butter



2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced



2 teaspoons green peppercorns



2 thyme sprigs



2-3 tablespoons double cream



Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Grill the scallops 2-3 minutes and flip them over. Add the cream and mix the scallops around and cook for 2 more minutes or until the scallops are fully cooked and the sauce is bubbling.

Slow- roast Mutton Shoulder with Garden Herbs 

1 mutton shoulder, bone in (about 3-4kg/ 6 ½ -9 lb.)



2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil



1 bunch of mixed herbs, such as rosemary, sage tarragon, thyme, bay leaves, marjoram, fennel tops



2 garlic bulbs, halved around their circumference



1 glass of cider



1 heaped tablespoon plain flour



300ml (10 ½ fl oz.) vegetable, chicken or lamb stock



2 teaspoons fruit jelly, such as redcurrant or crab apple



Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat oven to 200℃/ 400℉/ gas mark 6 and put the mutton in the over and rub olive oil over it and season with salt and pepper. Cook for for 35-40 minutes until the meat has taken on some color. Remove the tray from the oven and add the whole herbs, the halved garlic bulbs and the cider.

Turn the heat down to 120℃/ 235℉/ gas mark 1 and put the mutton back into the over. Let the mutton cook for 6 hours, until the meat is tender or fully cooked. Then remove the tray, and let the meat stand for 20-25 minutes. Then put the mutton on platter To make the gravy, use a spoon to skim off the excess fat from the roasting juices and pick out the whole herbs so you can make simple gravy. Set the tray over a low heat and then add plain flour and mix it in with the juices. Add the stock and fruit jelly and cook it until it thickens. Once the gravy is done, put it into a clean pan and put it back on the stove and let it simmer before serving the mutton.

Crème Caramel with Vanilla & Anise 

200g (7oz) golden caster sugar



250ml (9fl oz.) whole milk



250ml (9fl oz.) double cream, plus extra for serving



1 vanilla pod



2 star anise



2 large eggs, plus 3 yolks

To make the caramel, place a large pan over low heat and add 150g (5 ½ oz.) of sugar and let it melt. Don’t stir the sugar too much. As soon as the sugar looks golden, remove it from the heat. Then pour the caramel into a heat-proof pan and let it set.

Heat the oven to 150℃/ 300℉/ gas mark 2. Place the milk and cream into a large pan to make the custard. Then put the pan over medium heat and when the mix starts to simmer then take the pan off the heat and let the mix steep for 10 minutes.

Crack the eggs into a large bowl and add the yolks and the rest of the sugar. Poor the milk mixture into the egg and sugar bowl and use a fork to beat the mixture. Strain the mixture through a sieve into a jug and pour it over the caramel.

Place dish into a tray and pour boiling water into the tray until it reaches halfway up all the sides of the dish. And place in the oven and bake it for 45 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it cool before placing it in the refrigerator. Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before you serve it.

Tempted? Get cooking now!

This year The Andre Simon Food & Drink Book Awards was held on Tuesday, January 24th. The André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind. Previous winners have included: Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein. Chef Gill Mellar’s book, Gather, was shortlisted for the 2016 Andre Simon Food & Drink Book Awards. Visit www.andresimon.co.uk for further details.

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See winners of the André Simon wine and food book awards Chris Mercer 

January 26, 2017Judges

named Volcanic Wines as the best drinks book published in 2016 during a ceremony in London that was a pointed riposte to the current trend for clean-eating fads. See other winners below. image: http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2015/01/Etnaciara-vigo-romeo-di-castello-vineyard-and-lava-630x417.jpg

Romeo di castello vineyard, with Mount Etna volcano looming.

TAGS: Highlights Volcanic Wines by John Szabo MS scooped the drinks book prize, announced Decanter contributor Fiona Beckett at the André Simon 2016 book awards ceremony held in London’s Goring hotel.

On the food side, Fuschia Dunlop’s ‘Land of Fish and Rice‘ won the 2016 prize for food writing. It is based on traditional cooking and ingredients used in China’s Lower Yangtze region.

André Simon, who died in 1970, was a French born, UK-dwelling wine merchant and food and wine writer described by Hugh Johnson OBE as having led the English wine trade ‘for almost half of the 20th century’.

As a result, the awards are highly regarded in the wine and food world.

Volcanic Wines beat a strong short-list, including Patrick Comiskey’s American Rhône.

The judges ‘praised Szabo’s balance of science, history and personal detail in an ambitious project exploring geology, volcanism, viticulture and soil sciences together with maps and wine labels’.

This week’s award ceremony also provided a riposte to clean-eating fads. Food assessor Bee Wilson said that judges had been inundated with books on clean-eating themes, but wanted to get away from such a faddish culture.

Young cook and columnist Ruby Tandoh, of Great British Bake Off fame, got a special commendation for her book Flavour: Eat What You Love.

Judges praised Tandoh for ‘putting the focus back on taste and enjoyment, rather than presentation, health or fashion’.

Winner of the John Avery award went to a Nigerian food writer named Yemisi Aribisala for her ‘Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds‘.

Judges praised its new insight into Nigerian food and culture.

Other finalists in the drinks category were Pete Brown’s The Apple Orchard, Bill Nesto and Frances Si Savino’ Chianti Classico and Tristan Stephenson’s The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace.

Read more at http://www.decanter.com/learn/wine-books-latest-reviews/andresimon-wine-food-book-awards-353731/#cHyRBb8RWEF3Qgiw.99

The judges compared Dunlop to a modern-day Elizabeth David, mapping new culinary terrain for British audiences in the same way that David popularised Mediterranean cuisine. They also praised the depth of Dunlop’s study – brought to life with compelling storytelling, stunning photography and recipes that are authentic, inviting and easy for readers to follow.

Food writer and historian Bee Wilson, this year’s assessor for the food books, commented: “Land of Fish and Rice is a simply superb book by the greatest Western food writer about Chinese cuisine. But what really makes this book special is the feeling that we are being introduced to the cooking of a region by someone who truly knows and loves it.”

The timing of this recognition not only comes appropriately in the run up to the Chinese New Year celebrations on Saturday 28 January – but it also marks an increasing interest in Chinese food and drink trends.

Young cook and columnist Ruby Tandoh – who impressed BBC viewers with her creative approach to ingredients and flavour in the 2013 series of The Great British Bake Off at the age of 20 – was also recognised with a Special Commendation for her second book Flavour: Eat What You Love (Chatto & Windus).

The judges commended Tandoh for her fresh approach to food and putting the focus back on taste and enjoyment – rather than presentation, health or fashion.

Meanwhile, Canadian author and wine critic John Szabo MS won this year’s prize in the drink category for Volcanic Wines (Jacqui Small) – which uses volcanic soil as the overarching theme and link between a wide range of grapes and wine regions.

The judges praised Szabo’s balance of science, history and personal detail in an ambitious project exploring geology, volcanism, viticulture and soil sciences together with maps and wine labels.

Fiona Beckett, this year’s assessor for the drink books, commented: “I really have to congratulate John Szabo for coming up with such an original take on the wine world. This is the first book I’ve come across to focus on a specific terroir – and it’s totally absorbing.”

Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds (Cassava Republic) by Nigerian food writer Yemisi Aribisala was also recognised with the prestigious John Avery Award in acknowledgment of its mouth- watering and multifaceted treasure trove of intriguing stories.

The judges were excited by Aribisala’s uniquely fascinating view of West Africa, revealed through examination of the relationships between food, sex and Nigerian culture.

To find out more, click here.

Felicity Cloake, food journalist and author

The cookbook that has most influenced your cooking Nigel Slater’s Real Food came into our house in my mid -teens and frankly blew my mind – I’ve always loved reading cookery books but for someone brought up on Delia and the Dairy Book of Cookery from the milkman, the passion and humour with which he talked about food and cooking was as much of a revelation as his bold flavours.

The food of love… What would you cook to impress a potential date Nothing too complicated – I don’t want to be worrying about food when I should be busy being fascinating. I always think getting a bit messy is a good sign on dates, so I might go for the moules marinere ecossaises from the A-Z of Eating, which replaces the more usual white wine with malt whisky, plus a salad and some really good bread. Followed by my lethal rhubarb gin granita. Not that I’d be trying to get them drunk, obviously.

Your top five dinner guests, dead or alive Jane Grigson: one of our most underrated, and almost ridiculously erudite food writers.

That said, I’d be pretty nervous cooking for her

The comedian Adam Buxton, because he makes me laugh (though I reckon he’d be nice enough not to make jokes about whatever inevitably went wrong i n the kitchen with Jane in the other room). The travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor – how could a man who walked from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul as the shadow of the second world war was falling across Europe be anything but absolutely riveting? Keith Floyd. He’d surely be good fun, and also very helpful at keeping everyone’s glasses topped up . My dog Wilf. His small talk may not be up to much but he’s excellent at hoovering up crumbs and leftovers .

Fast food – your top snack tip Try putting marmalade and English mustard in your next bacon sandwich. Trust me, it will change your life.

Most memorable meal in film/literature/painting The wonderfully awkward meals shared by Charles Ryder and his father in Brideshead Revisited. Dreary food (‘white, tasteless soup, overfried fillets of sole with a pink sauce…’) and an atmosphere you could cut with a fish knife, made all the more hilarious ly awful by the honeyed atmosphere of buttered crumpets and plover’s eggs that precede them.

Your worst kitchen disaster Accidentally leaving out the sugar in a mince pie recipe published in a national newspaper – I only realised when someone tweeted me sa ying how interesting they sounded and how much they were looking forward to trying them. Thank God I was able to set them straight in time.

What do you eat when you get home from the pub [or similar] Toast. Always toast, in embarrassing quantities. If the re’s no bread in the house, crackers.

As long as I can cram lots of salted butter on top, it’s fair game. (Confronting the greasy crumbs in the morning is always a joy.)

What would you like your final meal to be?

A big plate of hot garlicky baby squid, followed by rare onglet steak with deep golden triplecooked chips and creamed spinach with lots of nutmeg, and then my mum’s raspberry trifle.

Not the lightest, more sophisticated or even coherent menu but it would make me very happy.

What is your secret talent [in or out of the kitchen]?

Trust me, you want me on your pub quiz team.

What did you eat for breakfast today?

Trying to use stuff up this month, so the last of some rye flakes I bought for the homemade granola I take out cycling with me in better weat her, cooked into a porridge with the whey from making fresh cheese last week, topped with sheep yoghurt, chopped apple and cardamom, which is probably my favourite spice. This definitely isn’t typical though – I quite often just have toast, butter and Marm ite. As I said, I love toast.

Most over-rated/ under-rated food/seasoning/gadget Most overrated – vanilla. Or, at least, overused: it’s become the default to flavour cakes and custards and other sweet spices, like my beloved nutmeg, barely get a look in. T he same goes, in a savoury context, for black pepper. Great, but it doesn’t need to go into everything.

Underrated… measuring spoons. Cheap, durable and absolutely vital for accurate spicing and baking.

Your inheritance recipes – the one you inherited [and from whom] and the one you’d like to pass on to your children My mum makes this wonderful tomatoey, garlicky courgette bake with crispy cheese breadcrumbs which I’ve loved for about 30 years. I’d like to pass something simpler on though; if you can make a decent omelette, you’re never more than two minutes away from a good, satisfying, and thrifty meal.

Felicity Cloake’s The A-Z of Eating is shortlisted for the 2016 André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards visit www.andresimon.co.uk for further details The André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards were founded in 1978 to recognise the achievements of food and drink writers. It is the longest running award of its kind.

Previous winners have included Elizabeth David and Rosemary Hume (the very first winners), Michel Roux, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Rick Stein

BEST FOOD & WINE BOOKS REVEALED AT ANDRÉ SIMON AWARDS

There is something quite hypnotic about hearing a passionate food writer talk about food, and even more so when they are talking about other people talking and writing about food. The same goes with a oenophile praising the scriptures of a fellow wino, taking them to new winelands through pages of perfectly put together words and pictures. Bee Wilson and Fiona Beckett presented this year’s André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards last week at the Goring Hotel in London to a rapturous audience of some of the food and drink’s world’s biggest stars.

Food writer and expert on Chinese cuisine Fuchsia Dunlop and rising Bake Off talent Ruby Tandoh were among the winners at the André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards last night, Tuesday 24 January, at the Goring Hotel in London. The prestigious awards showcase the best of contemporary food and drink writing.

The winners of the 2016 2016 André Simon Awards are: Food: Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury) Fuchsia Dunlop’s publication Land of Fish and Rice (Bloomsbury) – which looks at the cooking techniques and ingredients of China’s Lower Yangtze region – was awarded the 2016 prize for food writing. Appropriately, the timing of this recognition was in the run up to the Chinese New Year celebrations on Saturday 28 January.

Special Commendation: Flavour: Eat What You Love by Ruby Tandoh (Chatto & Windus)

Young cook and columnist Ruby Tandoh – who impressed BBC viewers with her creative approach to ingredients and flavour in the 2013 series of The Great British Bake Off at the age of 20 – was given a Special Commendation for her second book Flavour: Eat What You Love (Chatto & Windus).

Drink: Volcanic Wines by John Szabo MS (Jacqui Small) Meanwhile, Canadian author and wine critic John Szabo MS won this year’s prize in the drink category for Volcanic Wines (Jacqui Small), which uses volcanic soil as the overarching theme and link between a wide range of grapes and wine regions.

The John Avery Award: Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds by Yemisi Aribisala (Cassava Republic) Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds (Cassava Republic) by Nigerian food writer Yemisi Aribisala was also recognised with the prestigious John Avery Award in acknowledgment of its mouth-watering and multifaceted treasure trove of intriguing stories.

Founded in 1978, the André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards are the only awards in the UK to exclusively recognise the achievements of food and drink writers and are the longest continuous running awards of their kind.

For more information visit www.andresimon.co.uk

Compiled by tpr media consultants www.tpr-media.com