We Cook Plants review – ‘A challenge you’re sure to relish’
Sarah Bentley (back row, centre) with the Made in Hackney team. Photograph: courtesy MIH
Care, compassion and hope are not values you typically associate with recipe books, but We Cook Plants is different.
Sarah Bentley and collaborators have squeezed 13 years of community cuisine into this handsome volume that is sure to convince you of the benefits of a plant-based diet.
In 2012, Bentley started the Made in Hackney (MIH) cookery school to inspire people to eat tasty foods from across the globe and at the same time to address health inequalities.
Despite its name, MIH has worked across London and further afield to introduce cooking with plants to the sceptical and those (like me) with limited culinary skills.
We Cook Plants presents nearly 300 pages of recipes, each introduced by its inventor, with helpful tips that even a novice can follow.
Yasmin’s squash, lentil and apricot stew. Photograph: courtesy MIH
Try, for example, Anna’s frying pan yogurt flatbreads, Yasmin’s squash, lentil and apricot one-pot stew or Emel’s baklava.
In addition to instructions for preparing specific dishes, this hefty tome also includes a guide to making plant-based eating appealing to those weaned on other foods, advice on how to grow plants easily, and handy tips on how to source various ingredients.
A celebratory dinner put on to mark the launch of the book brought together MIH chefs to talk about the dishes they had prepared.
Diners sampled beetroot and cabbage thoran salad, Afghan-style bean curry, sweetcorn cake with mango custard and a Caribbean drink called a ‘front end lifter’, which its creator Sharon explained was designed to promote male virility.
Though I cannot attest to its success in that domain, it certainly tasted good.
If you ever thought a plant-based diet was not for you, We Cook Plants is a challenge you are sure to relish, quite possibly to your surprise.
We Cook Plants by Sarah Bentley is published by Nourish. ISBN: 978-1-84899-445-4; RRP: £30.00.