Honey; a review
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. It is also a term of endearment and has featured in lyrics and literature dating back as far as Sophocles Oedipus Rex.
Which brings up bang up to date with - Honey – Recipes from a Beekeeper’s Kitchen by Amy Newsome and published by Quadrille.
This book is a love letter from a beekeeper, gardener and home cook to good food, good honey and the bees that make it”
We were kindly sent a pre-publication signed copy of this from the publishers, Quadrille. But that has in no way influenced this review. This is, quite frankly an utterly delightful, informative and joy filled book, that we would happily have paid for.
We all love something sweet, admit it, and if we are going to indulge our cravings, then we should be sure that sweetness is as good as it gets. “Our collective sweet tooth for honey pre-ates our love of sugar by thousands of years” and Amy carefully describes the allure, the variety and the unique and alluring flavours of honey in the section on Cooking with Honey. From there she expands the subject with an amazing collection of information about terroir, whilst acknowledging the possible pretentiousness of the word, and explains why, if possible you should eschew supermarket honey. Wherever possible, please buy local honey – you’d be amazed where honey is available, from the depths of the countryside to London rooftops. Get your cheap sweetness from sugar, not cheap honey. The varietal descriptions, with suggested uses, are every bit as tantalising as the wine pairings on fancy restaurant menu.
And then there are the statistics, which quite frankly, are mind boggling. For one beehive to have enough carbs to feed the colony and produce enough honey for beekeepers to harvest, it will require 6,800,000 x 40mg bee honey tummies’ worth of nectar a year!!! So for them to be able to collect that amount of nectar, there needs to be a plentiful supply. Amy has included advice and guidance for grand garden designs to even the smallest of spaces to attract and nurture our buzzy buddies.
With all the facts and figures presented, Amy as beekeeper and gardener hand over to Amy the cook and presents us with the most mouthwatering selection of both sweet and savoury recipes to get the most out of your honey. The roasted black sesame ricotta ice-cream is calling to as insistently as the Four Tops’ Sugar Pie Honeybunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3bksUSPB4c is reverberating in our inner ear! And if all of that has got you buzzing, chill out with a honeyed cocktail and raise a toast to the industrious bees.
