Right, first things first: I love this book so much I wrote the foreword for it! And I have been beside myself with impatience waiting to tell you about it here. It’s not actually new: Love and Hunger came out in 2012 in Charlotte Wood’s native Australia, but only today — better late than never — is it published in the UK. I want to press it into everyone’s hands and, indeed, have already given so many friends a copy, as I got an early stash. I know it’s annoying for writers to be compared to other writers, but if I were to give a shorthand to explain what kind of a book it is, the best I could do is say think Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking. But to explain further, I resort to quoting my own words: “Nothing as clunky or as overbearing as a manifesto or as self-important as a philosophy, ‘Love and Hunger’ is more a collection of observations, confessions, memories and, of course, recipes that illuminate — by dint of Wood’s elegant intelligence and down-to-earth sensibility — the very nature of cooking.”
Charlotte Wood is an exquisite writer, as anyone who has read her novels (the most well-known of which is the flawless, Booker-nominated Stone Yard Devotional) knows, and even those who can’t boil water would find pleasure in these pages, but for the home cook, Love and Hunger is a special joy. If I may quote myself again: “I find it impossible to read [Wood’s] recipes without feeling a burst of fresh energy for the kitchen. And I want Wood there with me, offering comfort, calm, common sense and her sharp wit, in words that make this book essential nourishment for the reader every bit as much as for the cook.”
I now feel I should have tried to arrange an excerpt from it for you today, but I didn’t. But what I have got is one of her recipes. I’ve chosen this one not just because it’s lovely, but also because her introduction to it never fails to make me laugh. It’s her cosy gratin, Pommes Boulangère, and I’ve added my own photograph from its last outing in my kitchen, so don’t blame her for it!
Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood, published by Sceptre 2026.
