In the original dust jacket. Grey cloth binding with gilt white title on the spine.

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For conditions, please view our photographs. A nice clean rare copy from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG. Jack founded the Midsummer House, Cambridge’s paramount restaurant. This dining experience is hidden amongst the grassy pastures and grazing cattle of Midsummer Common and perched on the banks of the River Cam. The Midsummer House experience is imaginatively curated to delight and amaze, so our surprise set menu changes regularly and is our playground to showcase our reverence for purity of flavour and natural seasonal ingredients.

A rich and unapologetic celebration of this luscious food.

For all of history, minus the last thirty years, fat has been at the center of human diets and cultures. When scientists theorized a link between saturated fat and heart disease, industry, media, and government joined forces to label fat a greasy killer, best avoided. But according to Jennifer McLagan, not only is our fat phobia overwrought, it also hasn’t benefited us in any way. Instead it has driven us into the arms of trans fats and refined carbohydrates, and fostered punitive, dreary attitudes toward food–that wellspring of life and pleasure. In Fat, McLagan sets out with equal parts passion, scholarship, and appetite to win us back to a healthy relationship with animal fats. She starts by defusing fat’s bad rap, both reminding us of what we already know–that fat is fundamental to the flavor of our food–and enlightening us with the many ways fat (yes, even animal fat) is indispensable to our health. Mostly, though, Fat is about pleasures–the satisfactions of handling good ingredients skillfully, learning the cultural associations of these primal foodstuffs, recollecting and creating personal memories of beloved dishes, and gratifying the palate and the soul with fat’s irreplaceable savor. Fat lavishes the reader with more than 100 recipes from simple to intricate, classic to contemporary, including:

• Butter-Poached Scallops
• Homemade Butter
• Carnitas
• Duck Confit
• Prosciutto-Wrapped Halibut with Sage Butter
• Steak and Kidney Pie
• Salted Butter Tart

Observing that though we 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, flavoring, using, and storing animal fats, whether butter or bacon, schmaltz or suet. Stories, lore, quotations, and tips touching on fat’s place in the kitchen and in the larger culture round out this rich and unapologetic celebration of food at its very best.

Reviews:

• I admit that I was a bit sceptical about the book but I decided to buy it nonetheless. I think that the author accurately captures the problem of our present-day lives and our diets. After reading this book I realized that it’s true. My whole life everyone and everything told me that fat is bad and that IT’S BAD. After 30 years of indoctrination I have problems looking directly at a cube of lard, not mentioning that seeing fat on a meat gives me the chills.Of course I realize that is a tragedy itself and more I think about it, more I realize how extremely powerful was/is the lobby of vegetable fat and that it practically purged out animal fat from our lives.I remember that when I was a kid my whole family used animal fat every day. Butter, lard, you name it. Now I’m trying to break my aversion to fat and start using animal fat in my cooking. And the book? You can tell that the author loves food and cooking. The recipes are really good and I can’t wait to try them all. Maybe the quantities are not really clear but I believe after a bit of practice anyone will get it right. I proudly can say that I made my first ever (deliberately) churned butter and it was great.

• This is a great, great book. Makes you realise it’s better to eat/cook with lard etc than it is with a lot of other things. Educational and informative with great recipes in it too. I highly recommend it.

• A wonderful book with a wealth of information about all things related to fat. I have recently started looking into the use and benefits of leaf lard and found an article by Jamie Oliver recommending this book.

JENNIFER McLAGAN is a chef and sought-after food stylist and writer who has worked in London and Paris as well as her native Australia. Her first book, Bones (2005), was widely acclaimed, winning the James Beard award for single subject food writing. She is a regular contributor to Fine Cooking and Food & Drink. She has lived in Toronto for more than twenty-seven years with her sculptor husband, Haralds Gaikis, with whom she escapes to Paris as often as possible. On both sides of the Atlantic, Jennifer maintains friendly relations with her butchers, who put aside their best fat and bones for her.