Sainsbury's Book of Food

Friday, December 5th, 2008

I bought this book around 1990. It was published by Sainsbury's, one of our biggest supermarkets and the author is Frances Bissell, a cookery writer of some repute. It is probably the finest food book I have ever seen.

It is NOT a cookery book although there are cooking hints and useful guides to deboning meat and preparing shell fish and the like. It is simply a guide to food although in saying that I am understating its span and compass. In just 280 or so pages, which are well illustrated, it describes all manner of the food you can buy and what you can do with it. Coverage extends from vegetables through spices, meat, fish, rice, coffee and the list goes on and on. Oh sure I think I know a lot about fish but I didn't know there were so many noodles or cooking fats or whatever. She doesn't list every cheese on the planet - who could? - but the selection is pretty comprehensive. There are 7 pages on sausages alone.

This is a 'must have' book if you are serious about food. It's out of print so you are only going to buy it on the Internet and then you are going to have to pay a darn sight more than I did. No matter, you will find it is worth every penny. A quite magical book.