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Hattie Ellis

Hattie Ellis

Food writer

https://hattieellis.com
I’m a food writer and author of eleven books on food and drink that focus on where food comes from and the people who grow, farm, collect and produce it. My books range from independent shops (Trading Places); English food and England (Eating England), the honeybee (Sweetness & Light), the chicken and the chicken industry (Planet Chicken) and fish around the coast of Britain (Best of British Fish). THE ONE POT COOK (Head of Zeus), my latest book, is an exploration and celebration of one pot cooking. This time-honoured tradition is the source of many of the best dishes in the world, from stews and curries to pies and puds. Cooking doesn’t need to be complicated to be delicious and the book has one pots for every occasion. SPOONFULS OF HONEY (Pavilion in the UK, Sterling in the US and Guido Tomasi in Italy) is one of my latest books and explores different kinds of honey and how to use them in savoury and sweet dishes and in drinks. It also covers the value of the honeybee to health and the garden, as well as in the kitchen. I’ve written for many newspapers and magazines including the Telegraph Magazine, the Times, FT Weekend, Independent on Sunday, Delicious, Kew Magazine, The Field, Scoff and also online for the BBC and others. I live in London and East Sussex.

Hattie's favorite cookbooks

Available on ckbk now
The Carved Angel Cookery Book

The Carved Angel Cookery Book

Joyce Molyneux

Not explicitly an English cookbook – influences and ingredients also come from elsewhere – this is nonetheless deeply and beautifully rooted in Molyneux’s cooking in her Devon restaurant. Every recipe has that little bit of finesse that makes a dish special without being cheffy.

How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food

How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food

Nigella Lawson

The cookbook that broke conventions by showing food to be part of life, and that you could write about how this happens rather than donning a straitjacket of recipe ‘rules’. There’s such a joy of eating in the book and such a strong sense of how eating is central to home.

Available on ckbk now
The Independent Cook: Strategies for Seasonal Cooking

The Independent Cook: Strategies for Seasonal Cooking

Jeremy Round

One of the first, best, most useful and most personal cookbooks to emphasise seasonal produce. Every page shows a curious home cook pursuing what he loves to eat as well as cook. Full of gems such as Cynical Party-Giving section (December), which is how to entertain lots of people easily and well. He also gives a guide to the cost of the recipes, a useful detail not often mentioned and there’s a comprehensive guide to what’s in season, including cheese.

No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home

Rowley Leigh

A chef’s book that is genuinely based on the home kitchen. As well as following the seasons, it also covers different occasions, from dinner for two (‘In Spring a Young Man’s Fancy’) to feeding a crowd (Footballers’ Lunch). The writing is witty and full of well-honed opinions, and I love the illustrations by Lucinda Rogers; illustration dates much less than photography.

Recipes to Know by Heart

Recipes to Know by Heart

Xanthe Clay

A brilliantly useful book that analyses the anatomy of a dish without losing its essence. The book strips different sorts of recipes – a savoury tart, a noodle soup, a chocolate mousse - back to basics so you can understand the fundamentals and then embellish and adapt as you want.

River Cottage Meat Book

River Cottage Meat Book

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Britain has outstanding livestock farmers and a strong and skilful tradition of meat production and cooking. This groundbreaking book goes into the detail of real meat without holding back. Brave, bold and tasty, this book was a gamechanger in how we see farm animals as well as meat.

Sophie’s Table

Sophie’s Table

Sophie Grigson

‘Cosmopolitan’, says the cover blurb about this selection from Grigson’s Evening Standard recipes. Nowadays we cook from all over the world, but when this came out in 1990, I had just moved to London (as it happens, down the road from where SG had lived) and was exploring the produce from London’s diverse shops. I’ve often found the Standard recipes useful and relevant - Fay Maschler’s Eating In could also have been in this personal selection of my most used cookbooks.

Taste: A New Way to Cook

Taste: A New Way to Cook

Sybil Kapoor

Sybil Kapoor is a great cook and her focus on five different tastes is strongly developed in this book and thoughtfully reflected in the photographs by David Loftus. A book that helps me think more about the balance and character of a dish.

Annie Bell's Vegetable Book

Annie Bell's Vegetable Book

Annie Bell

The book that first got me really interested in vegetable-based cooking, and I love it even more for not being explicitly vegetarian. As well as having recipes that I use time and time again, it’s a beautiful book, with a distinctive square shape and such strong design that it still looks and feels fresh even though it was published in 1997. Why hasn’t it been reprinted?