How to Eat

Relax and relish Nigella Lawson`s delicious prose in her first, revelatory cookery book, published as a reading edition in Vintage Classics for the first time to celebrate twenty years of How to Eat.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JEANETTE WINTERSON

`How to eat, how to cook, how to write: I want two copies of this book, one to reference in the kitchen and one to read in bed` - Yotam Ottolenghi

When Nigella Lawson`s first book, How to Eat, was published in 1998, two things were immediately clear: that this fresh and fiercely intelligent voice would revolutionise cookery writing, and that How to Eat was an instant classic of the genre. Here was a versatile culinary bible, through which a generation discovered how to feel at home in the kitchen and found the confidence to experiment and adapt recipes to their own needs.

This was the book to reach for when hastily organising a last-minute supper with friends, when planning a luxurious weekend lunch or contemplating a store-cupboard meal for one, or when trying to tempt a fussy toddler. This was a book about home cooking for busy lives. The chief revelation was the writing.

Rather than a set of intimidating instructions, Nigella`s recipes provide inspiration. She has a gift for finding the right word to spark the reader`s imagination, evoking the taste of the ingredients, the simple, sensual pleasures of the practical process, the deep reward of the finished dish. Passionate, trenchant, convivial and wise, Nigella`s prose demands to be savoured, and ensures that the joy and value of How to Eat will endure for decades to come.

(This Vintage Classics reading edition of How To Eat is faithful to the original and has no pictures of the recipes. Photos below are from a celebratory How To Eat cooking session.)