Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35463 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'an outstanding addition to the food-writing canon'

Observer
'In learning to cook like an `adrenaline addict', Buford begins to
write like one, endowing Heat with an energy at once reassuring and
necessary for anyone wielding `a giant tomahawk'.'

Guardian
'Endlessly entertaining read'

Customer Reviews

Editor, edit thyself
This is a charming 200 page book. After that it becomes tedious and meandering and in the end a real slog to finish. Buford's obsession for the "jus just" is funny and entertaining for about 2/3 of the story. After that it becomes mired in uninteresting anecdotes and trivia (historically when did the egg get added to the recipe for pasta is intriguing for half a page, not ten)that overcooks by many hours the final product. He is the kind of writer who thinks everything that interests him will interest you, but he is wrong. Perhaps a better writer could have pulled that off, but Buford is an editor who is writing a book about his love for cooking and in the end that distinction shows. What begins as a love letter from an obsessive becomes in the end the ramblings of a self indulgent food flaneur.

Engrossing Mix of Biography, Memoir and Culinary History
I was astonished when I saw the other reviews of this book. I think that Heat will appeal to anyone who is genuinely interested in cooking and, more particularly, in the history of cooking. Bill Buford starts by providing fascinating insights into the mechanics of a modern restaurant kitchen, interspersed with biographic sections on Mario Batali and Marco Pierre White. He goes on to describe his attempts at pasta making and butchery. Heat is both a memoir outlining Buford's developing obsession with cooking and a biography of Batali and White, and also a partial history of Italian cooking. All three strands are told with a journalistic and entertaining style. I honestly enjoyed the lengthy investigation into the egg's introduction into pasta-making. I believe that everyone with an interest in Italian food and restaurant cooking will enjoy this book.

Esoteric? Possibly. Worth the effort? Definitely
Discouraged by the negative comments I found here I managed to locate a copy of Heat in a local library and borrowed that. Whilst I enjoyed the sections dealing with Batalli and Babbo, I thought the book came into its own when Buford made his way to Italy to round off his culinary education. His writing (and passion) reminded me of Jeffrey Steingarten.
I thoroughly enjoyed it