Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen

(Paperback)

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New in paperback: Small Fires is the thrillingly original book that is shaking up the food writing scene and challenging how we think about cooking and the kitchen Why do we cook Is it just to feed ourselves and others Or is there something more revolutionary going onIn Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking - that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books - as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control. This joyful, revelatory work of memory and meditation both complicates and electrifies life in the kitchen. It shows us the radical potential of the thing we do every day: the power of small fires burning everywhere. Readers love Small Fires

'I adored it. A beautiful discourse on food which made me genuinely excited to cook my next meal'


'Like nothing I've ever read before'


'Beautiful, thought provoking'


'Intriguing and surprising''An absolutely delightful read... will have you running to the kitchen'

Reviews

'[Rebuilds] something epic from morsels of funny memoir, acute social criticism and food writing the likes of which you'll never have read before. ... Rich in pleasure and revelation.' - Observer

'A manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual... a rewarding book that stayed with me - and, like all brilliant food writing, it made me think twice about what I choose to eat and who I eat it with... a brave, honest book' - Sunday Times

'A radical rethinking of just what goes on in the kitchen... Brave enough to hurt feelings, and delicious enough for no one to care' - New York Times

'In this slim, spicy, genre-defining work, Rebecca May Johnson spatchcocks the division between intellectual and domestic labor... Blending humor and academic citation, poetic lineation, and personal reverie, this inquiry into the nature of cooking is as delightfully messy as the process itself-some serious food for thought' -Oprah Daily


'An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking' - Nigella Lawson


'Witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas' - Olivia Laing


'In Small Fires, Johnson explores how the food we make and the ways we make it-and then the stories we tell about making it-shape who we are. . . . Mixing deeply personal anecdotes with more complex theory, Small Fires is at once relatable and mind-expanding' - Vogue US

'Possesses an intellectual fleet footedness and exuberance akin to the writing of Deborah Levy or Rebecca Solnit, as sentences skip between mischievous punning and impassioned agitation... the enthusiasm of the writing here is generous, embracing and emboldening' - i news

'Insightful, radical, beautiful' - Rachel Roddy



'A smart, creative and thoughtful book: it challenges us to think more about how and why we cook, and confounds our expectations of what food writing can be' - Ruby Tandoh


'A book that asks profound and serious questions while also being musical, erotic, and deeply pleasurable' - Katherine Angel


'Liberating... a new way to write about food' - Jonathan Nunn

Author Bio

REBECCA MAY JOHNSON has published essays, reviews and nonfiction with Granta, Times Literary Supplement and Daunt Books Publishing, among others, and is an editor at the trailblazing food publication Vittles. Small Fires is her first book.