TEST REPORT

TASTE TEST WORDS: PHOEBE STONE

THE COOKBOOK

Flavour: Eat What You Love by Ruby Tandoh (£20; Chatto & Windus)

TESTED BY Susan Low

Ruby Tandoh is one of the more thoughtful food writers to emerge from the small screen in recent years. She was a finalist on The Great British Bake Off in 2013 when she was just 20, and subsequently went on to write a weekly baking column in The Guardian, record a documentary for Radio 4 and pen two cookbooks (this is her second). Oh, and Radio Times readers voted her the most popular GBBO contestant ever.

Ruby’s approach to food and cooking is refreshingly down to earth. The ingredients called for in the recipes, she assures us, are easy to find in supermarkets and don’t cost a fortune. She has steered well clear of anything resembling a dieting/healthy eating/clean eating bandwagon in this book (and has taken a well publicised Twitter-stand against so-called ‘wellness evangelism’).

In the introduction she writes: “The problem with the ‘wellness’ obsession is that it’s as arbitrary as it is expensive: gluten is public enemy number 1 at the moment, but it could just as easily be olive oil, wine or carrots… The pursuit of health is fine if that’s what you’re interested in, but when health becomes all you think about, that’s not healthy.” Hurrah to that.