Five Quarters

Rachel Roddy's Five Quarters won the Guild of Food Writers' First Book award and the Andre Simon Food Book award 2015.

'Five Quarters stands out as particularly considered and evocative...Impeccably researched and transportive, it's a proper read, rather than a quick flick.'

AA Gill, Sunday Times best cookbooks 2015

'Of course I thought Rome was glorious, but I didn't want to stay. A month, three at most, then I'd take a train back to Sicily to finish the clockwise journey I'd interrupted, before moving even further southwards...'

Instead, captivated by the exhilarating life of Testaccio, the wedge-shaped quarter of Rome that centres round the old slaughterhouse and the bustling food market, Rachel decided to rent a flat and live there. Thus began an Italian adventure that's turned into a brand new life. Five Quarters charts a year in Rachel's small kitchen, shopping, cooking, eating and writing, capturing a uniquely domestic picture of life in this vibrant, charismatic city.

Combining Rachel's love of Italian food and cooking with a strong nostalgia for home and memories of growing up in England, this is a cookbook to read in bed as well as to use in the kitchen.

Chapters:

Antipasti

Soup & Pasta

Meat & Fish

Vegetables

Dolci

Winner of Guild of Food Writers Awards: Best First Book 2016

“I felt that prickle of excitement that you get when you get your hands on a book that you know will be a friend in the kitchen for months and years to come.”

Matching Food and Wine
Like the best food writing Five Quarters is also a form of travel writing, as it provides a taste of history, memoir and literate display. It is a form of utopian thinking too, you could argue. This is how we might live, it implicitly says. Or at least look at the pictures of how we might live. Why do we love cookery books? Because the best ones are about so much more. Rachel Roddy - like Yotam [Ottolenghi] and Nigel [Slater] - is writing about a sense of place, about culinary culture and culture in general. In short, she is writing about life. The nice pictures are just a bonus. Herald
Roddy is a gifted storyteller, and a masterful hand with simple ingredients. She brings to life in mouthwatering detail her culinary love and daily discoveries from a life lived well, of Roman markets and full family tables. Guardian Cook

This is the most wonderful cookbook, especially - though not exclusively - if you like really reading cookbooks, possibly in bed. Rachel Roddy is a marvellous writer, and her ruminations about living in Rome - about markets, pasta-cooking water, being unfaithful to her usual butcher, Jane Grigson, the old Jewish ghetto, letting the meatballs rest, her daily life and so on, are total heaven (also, excellent restaurant recommendations). What I especially like is that she sounds like a real, complicated-in-a-good-way, intelligent and forthright person, not some ninny going 'Ooh, I love Italy, me' while poncing about on a Vespa. She is proper. You feel like a friend is leading you by the hand, going 'Look at this, make this, and if you make it like this it will taste even better'.

The recipes are great. The vast majority are simple, family-friendly things you or I could make for supper with minimum fuss, and everyone would pat their stomachs delightedly and go 'Man, that was unbelievably good'. Everything I've cooked has been delicious, unfussy, robust and somehow honest. More than once I've been surprised by the simplicity of the recipe and the complex deliciousness of the results. Very precise instructions, too. Plus, a beautiful-looking book, beautifully produced, which doesn't hurt.

India Knight
Just looking at the juicy apricots on the cover of this recipe and memory-filled love letter to Rome is enough to transport you to Italia - land of delicious, superior, mouth-watering cuisine... Five Quarters illuminates the colourful experience of a year in her Italian kitchen where she cooked, ate and wrote, with her notes contributing to the book's 120 both Italian and British-influenced recipes. Scottish Woman Magazine
This wonderful book, which came about as a result of an award-winning blog, charts a year of cooking in the tiny kitchen in her flat, shopping at local markets and writing about her culinary finds... an unputdownable book packed with the unpretentious home cooking, heady with the smells of Southern Italian markets. Crumb Magazine
Rachel Roddy's Five Quarters is by an English food blogger settled in Rome, who felt a natural affinity with the simplicity and resourcefulness of Roman cooking; this is a homage to the quarter in which she lives and the food of her neighbours. Evening Standard
The writing beautifully describes a quiet domestic life centred around her kitchen, while the photography by Roddy herself is reminiscent of Dutch interiors. Ham & High
Unpretentious, unusual and delicious. Country Life
Five Quarters stands out as particularly considered and evocative...Impeccably researched and transportive, it's a proper read, rather than a quick flick. -- AA Gill Sunday Times, picked as best cookbook 2015

Rachel Roddy is an award-winning food writer and weekly columnist in Guardian Feast. Rachel's first book Five Quarters won the Andre Simon Food Book Award in 2015, as well as the Guild of Food Writers' First Book Award. Her second book, Two Kitchens, was published in 2017 and her third An A to Z of Pasta in 2021.

She has written for the Financial Times, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Internazionale and the Passenger magazine.

She has lived in Testaccio in Rome since 2005 with her Sicilian partner and son.

racheleats.wordpress.com

Follow Rachel on Instagram @rachelaliceroddy

Follow Rachel on X @racheleats

Rachel Roddy's Five Quarters won the Guild of Food Writers' First Book award and the Andre Simon Food Book award 2015. 'Five Quarters stands out as particularly considered and evocative...Impeccably researched and transportive, it's a proper read, rather than a quick flick.' AA Gill, Sunday Times best cookbooks 2015'Of course I thought Rome was glorious, but I didn't want to stay. A month, three at most, then I'd take a train back to Sicily to finish the clockwise journey I'd interrupted, before moving even further southwards...'Instead, captivated by the exhilarating life of Testaccio, the wedge-shaped quarter of Rome that centres round the old slaughterhouse and the bustling food market, Rachel decided to rent a flat and live there. Thus began an Italian adventure that's turned into a brand new life. Five Quarters charts a year in Rachel's small kitchen, shopping, cooking, eating and writing, capturing a uniquely domestic picture of life in this vibrant, charismatic city. Combining Rachel's love of Italian food and cooking with a strong nostalgia for home and memories of growing up in England, this is a cookbook to read in bed as well as to use in the kitchen. Chapters: Antipasti Soup & Pasta Meat & Fish Vegetables Dolci

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