From fast food to slow food to quiet food

This is more than yet another recipe book. It celebrates food and asks us to experience the magic of preparing it. It introduces us to the possibility of making cooking and eating into an exquisite meditative occasion - an antidote to our fast food culture. Ultimately our enjoyment of things depends on the quality of the attention we give them. Cooking and eating are no exception.

Quiet Food is about food that has been paid reverent attention. The recipes in this book were developed over 25 years at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in South Africa. Here people of all religions come to experience peace and tranquillity. But the Centre is not only renowned for its natural beauty and the quality of its retreats it also runs a splendid vegetarian kitchen. In the early days, when requested, the retreat cooks copied out their recipes by hand onto serviettes. Eventually a simple photocopied recipe book was produced. Over the years this has undergone several incarnations and here at last is a beautiful, professional published edition.

The recipes feature exceptionally flavoursome, nutritionally balanced vegetarian food that has been honed to perfection by a multitude of cooks and housekeepers. But it is also simultaneously, food for the mind containing thought-provoking, often humorous 'Zenecdotes' that accompany the recipes.

The chapters contain delicious recipes for soups, salads, mains, sides, sweets, breads and basics, illustrated throughout with exquisite black and white photographs of people, places, plants and foods.

Reviews

'Quiet Food is a rare treat; a recipe book that feeds the mind, body and soul. Both a visual feast and a celebration of good food and the joys of cooking with loving mindfulness; it's a book to savour, slowly.' Sunday Tribune