Ugly Food

Book excerpt: Why don't we eat more octopus? What about gurnard and other ugly fish? Cheeks and feet are cheap and delicious, but people prefer fillet or chops. What about rabbits and squirrels? Where do all the giblets go? And what's wrong with ugly vegetables? This book is about ingredients that are neglected, overlooked, forgotten. They are all tasty, sustainable and cheap, and easy to cook when you know how. Ugly Food aims to change the way people think about them, and the way they think about eating them. The food industry, like the fashion industry, seems driven by the pursuit of impossible perfection: pre-packaged meats with nary a head or foot or set of giblets in sight; rows of blemish-free fruit and vegetables in supermarkets tasting of not-very- much; and a steady stream of cookbooks containing photo-shopped, super-saturated photos of beautiful dishes bathed in sunlight. In contrast, Horsey and Wharton take an unpretentious, practical approach. They reveal the tips and tricks you need to prepare these undervalued foods with ease. And, alongside recipes, they provide social histories of ingredients that are positively brimming over with fascinating facts, fictions, and, of course, flavors. Recipes include: Ox-Cheek Salad à la Hongroise Lao Chicken Feet Salad Maldivian Curried Octopus Spiced Squirrel Popcorn Deep-fried Rabbit Ears Sheep's Brain on Toast Char Siu Pigs' Cheeks