Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen

By Rebecca May Johnson

Book Overview

"An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking." -- Nigella Lawson

"One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious." -- Olivia Laing

A bracingly original, revelatory debut that explores cooking and the kitchen as sources of pleasure, constraint and revolution, by a rising star in food writing

This joyful, revelatory work of memory and meditation both complicates and electrifies life in the kitchen.

Why do we cook? Is it just to feed ourselves and others? Or is there something more revolutionary going on?

In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking -- that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books -- as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control.

Small Fires shows us the radical potential of the thing we do every day: the power of small fires burning everywhere.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1911590480
• ISBN13: 9781911590484
• Release Date: June 2023
• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Half Spark, Half Smoke

A collection of essays that are either hit or miss. Disclaimer: I have yet to make the recipe from the book. But I am looking forward to trying it out. This book changed my perspective on the relationships between a recipe, its cook, the dish, and audience as more dynamic than I thought. The relationship is living, breathing, and can change each iteration. Much like an oral retelling of a story changing ever so slightly every time it is told. When Rebecca May Johnson focuses on a single pasta & tomato-sauce recipe and remakes it countless times, I'm hooked. The way how she describes it as something not set in stone but continually changing through each iteration made me view recipes in a new light. These sections are enlightening, personal, and insightful. Yet, when Johnson goes into the PhD research-mode and goes too deep into seminar-speak, my eyes start to glaze over. These sections almost made me place this book in the DNF pile. But I'm glad that I pulled through. The later sections were much more enjoyable than the first half.