Love and Hunger: Thoughts on the Gift of Food by Charlotte Wood

I had no idea that novelist Charlotte Wood had written a foodie memoir, already published for a decade and a half in her native Australia. I’m partial to this kind of non-fiction so snapped up Love and Hunger when it appeared on NetGalley. Using the combination of anecdote and recipes which makes this genre so pleasing, Wood’s book explores her approach to cooking and food backed up with some practical advice to those less experienced.

If my friends are to remember me for anything when I’m gone, I would like it to be for the gatherings around our table.

Wood’s title encapsulates her attitude to cooking which she grew to love after a lunch at her tutor’s house in her twenties. His wife introduced her to Elizabeth David’s cooking whose A Book of Mediterranean Food she bought shortly afterwards, hoping to replicate the glorious smells and tastes of that Sunday afternoon. For her food and love are inextricably bound, welcoming friends for meals they can begin to savour as soon as she opens her door to them, a celebration of friendship which begins in the selection and care with which ingredients are combined and served. It’s an expression of creativity which lacks the pressure of her day job with its nervous anticipation of damning reviews, although I suspect she doesn’t get too many of those. From childhood delights such as her father’s birthday Hedgehog Slice, lovingly made by a neighbour, to learning to enjoy oysters, Wood shares her foodie adventures and tips, always with the emphasis on sharing and conviviality.

In the same week my friend told me of her culinary ennui, I found myself in the throes of a syndrome at the opposite end of the spectrum – an episode of insomnia which saw me lying awake at 3 am, rigid with excitement about a bag of chicken bones in the fridge.

I nodded along to a good deal of Wood’s ideas – I’ve never hosted a dinner party either, always asked people to supper and tried to do as much in advance as possible – although I have balked at tripe. Maybe I should give it a try. Each of her chapters is followed by uncomplicated, clearly organised recipes, from How to Brine a Chicken to Pomegranate Honey, including that Hedgehog Slice. She writes beautifully – her description of lentils should convert even the most hardened resister. Wood’s love for friends and family runs through its anecdotal style together with humour and humanity: there’s a poignant chapter on how to cook for those enduring chemo. I’d expected to enjoy this one but not nearly as much as I did. It’s a perfect combination of memoir, life philosophy and practicality I’m not surprised Nigella Lawson praises it to the skies in her foreword.

Sceptre Books: London 9781399756143 288 pages Hardback (NetGalley)