For all of history, minus the last thirty years, fat has been at the centre of human diets and cultures. McLagan sets out with equal parts passion, scholarship and appetite to win us back to a healthy relationship with animal fats. She achieves this through enlightening us with the many ways fat is indispensable to our health and by demonstrating, through a range of delicious recipes, how fat is fundamental to the flavour of our food.Observing that we may now know everything about olive oil, we may not know what to do with lard or bone marrow, McLagan offers extensive guidance on sourcing, rendering, flavouring, using and storing animal fats, whether bacon, schmaltz or suet. Stories, lore, quotations and tips round out this rich and unapologetic celebration of food at its very best.
The book is divided into sections by type of fat - Butter (worth it), Pork Fat (the king), Poultry Fat (versatile and good for you), Beef and Lamb Fats (overlooked but tasty) - and each chapter opens with a comprehensive description of the history, the types and the uses of each type of fat followed by a range of fabulous recipes.Chef, Jennifer McLagan, sets out to win us back to a healthy relationship with fat in this comprehensive guide to storing, preparing and cooking with fat. The wealth of information on the cultural, historical and scientific facts and the 35 food photos make this an interesting and enjoyable read.
There are more than 100 recipes ranging from including: Bacon Baklava, Butter-Poached Scallops, Homemade Butter, Duck Confit, Sauteed Foie Gras with Gingered Vanilla Quince, Prosciutto-Wrapped Halibut with Sage Butter, Steak and Kidney Pie, and Bacon Spice Cookies.
Reviews
'Eat fat! That's a message I can get behind. In fact, Jennifer McLagan's substantial and by no means unserious Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes makes the same argument Michael Pollan created a stir with earlier this year in his much talked-about In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto: that the craze for animal-fat substitutes has damaged our health. Fat, it turns out, is a lot like TV-nourishing as long as it's not your whole diet…None of which would matter if her recipes weren't brilliant. Most of them aren't for neophytes, but they reward the effort. The New York Times
`It is certainly a book worth reading. The recipes are fabulously greed-inducing and the writing, while it has a light touch, is firm and compelling' Nigella Lawson
"Fat isn't simply a cookbook: it's a celebration of the ingredient that makes everything we eat taste better." --Fine Cooking
Starred Review. "Persuasively arguing that the never-ending quest for "health" has gone too far, McLagan's elegant and informed look at this most maligned ingredient is appropriately unctuous. A crucial part of our diets, fat not only provides health benefits but pure pleasure: few ingredients can carry flavor the way fat does. Breaking the topic down into categories (butter, pork, poultry, beef-and-lamb), McLagan carefully chooses recipes that showcase the role of fat in imparting and carrying flavor. Versatile butter adds richness to pastry dough, a sweet nuttiness to Brown Butter Ice Cream, thickens classic sauces and can be used to gently poach scallops. A classic BLT gets a jolt of flavor from bacon-fat mayonnaise, and sliced Yukon Gold potatoes cooked in duck fat are practically ambrosial. While there's a fair number of indulgent dishes (3-inch bone-in ribeyes served with a red wine sauce and roasted bone marrow, a pork-fat laden twist on peanut brittle), McLagan emphasizes flavor and application over decadence. Digressions like those on the history of Crisco, fat as an art medium and a thoughtful look at foie gras are welcome and enlightening. Her mixture of science, cultural anthropology and culinary imagination are intoxicating, making this a crucial work on the topic." Publishers Weekly
"An unapologetic celebration of its title ingredient and a compelling argument that explains not only why fat is a fundamental flavor but also fundamental to our health." Salon.com
"If you contemplate our town's piggish crush on pig, or the compelling reign of steak on our plates, you'll think there couldn't be a better time for Jennifer McLagan's love letter to Fat."--Gael Greene, InsatiableCritic.com
Author Biography
Jennifer McLagan is a chef and a much sought - after food stylist and writer who has worked around the world, including Paris, London and Australia. Her first book Bones (2005) was widely acclaimed and won the James Beard award for single subject food writing. She is a regular contributor to Fine Cooking and Food & Drink. She currently lives in Toronto with her husband.
