Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94873 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Synopsis
An everyday cookbook showing how easy it is to buy, cook and eat Fairtrade foods - for people who care where their food comes from. A mouth-watering cookbook of fantastic Fairtrade recipes, each featuring the most important ingredient of all: they are made with produce that is seeded, nurtured and provided by farmers and suppliers getting a better, fairer deal for their work. Cook up over 100 mouth-watering 'Light Bites' snacks, 'Fill Me Up' main courses, and 'Guilty Pleasures' sweet dishes using Fairtrade ingredients; from One Pot Chicken to Secret Soup, Simple Mango Sorbet to Marma Banana Crunchies. Recipes are a combination of prize-winners from a nationwide competition with the Fairtrade Foundation and a major consumer magazine and recipes from a host of top cooks, stars and celebrities; including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sophie Grigson, Joanne Harris, Steve Redgrave and Ruth Roger.

Customer Reviews

absolutely scrummy!
This book is excellent. I am fairly average at cooking and have enjoyed making a number of the recipes which are simplier than they first appear.
Because the recipes are mainly from "normal" people throughout the country (rather than chefs and cooking experts) they are not complicated and do not rely on odd ingredients that are difficult to come by.
The basis for the book is that we should be using (as far as possible) ingredients from the fairtrade scheme which is an excellent scheme providing growers/farmers light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not the best person to explain the fairtrade system obviously but basically the farmers are ensured a fair price for their produce ensuring that they (an their community) are not living in poverty. The book is a collection of recipes which include one or more fair trade product.
As the previous reviewer mentioned, the recipes lean heavily on bananas... that's not necesarily a bad thing and when you have tasted the Banana Choco Mocha cake you'll be so glad you bought the book!
The book has not only opened my eyes to new recipes but also the amount of fair trade products out there that you perhaps don't notice in the supermarket but will certainly start looking for!
I bought this book as a birthday present to myself and now I'm being forced to buy another since my sister (who's an excellent cook) "borrowed" mine!

A Fair-ly Good Cookbook
I should declare at the outset that I have a recipe in this cookbook, but assure you that this has not influenced my opinion of the book (honest!).
The Fairtrade Foundation, who have published this item through Dorling Kindersley, ran a national competition to find simple but tasty recipes using as many fairtrade ingredients as possible; I was one of the lucky winners selected for inclusion. This means that the recipes found here are accesible and not too 'chefy'. There are, however, contributions from the inevitable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Antony Worrall Thompson, as well as some from faitrade producers themselves and other supporters such as George Alagiah and Sir Steve Redgrave.

This is, as far as I'm aware, the first cookbook on the market soley to focus on fairtrade food. One hopes we are all, by now, aware of the importance of supporting farmers and workers who are paid fairly for their products - this cookbook provides plenty of inspiration of how to do so through day-to-day cooking. And whilst bananas, coffee and chocolate are the ingredients to have had the most publicity as fairtrade items, the book uses a huge variety of the products now available, from dried mango to mace (the book also includes a full list of this ever-increasing range).

I have rated the book as four stars primarily because there is a heavy bias towards sweet over savoury recipes (about 3:1) and there IS a chocolate and banana bias. But overall I recommend it to you as a beautifully produced, well-illustrated book full of 'do-able' recipes that will allow you to create delicious dishes with a clear conscience.