“Tells the history of one English street through its food … a great idea for a book and there ain’t another like it in the bookshops.”
—Max Davidson, former restaurant critic, Daily Telegraph
The Cowley Road Cookbook
Culinary Tales and Recipes from Oxford's Most Eclectic Street
Cowley Road, Oxford, is a wonderfully chaotic, cultural and culinary crossroads. Geographically adjacent to the university’s dreaming spires, ethnographically it might as well be on another planet. From its holy medieval origins to its attraction some 800 years later as another place of pilgrimage for the first wave of post-war overseas emigrants, Martin Stott weaves a fascinating story of a street with its own unique ‘sense of place’. Today this is evident in its myriad and multicultural food shops, restaurants, cafés, take-aways and other eateries as well as allotments, community gardens, street markets, and annual carnival. This is also a history of hospitality — for outcasts / lepers, pilgrims, travellers, scholars, refugees and migrants.
Cowley Road’s varied gastronomy is prepped, cooked and served up with a selection of over 65 historic and contemporary recipes to give a real taste for this culinary ‘terroir’. From a 13th-century pottage dish to modern day celeriac and potato mash with Oxford sausages, and Rick’s ackee and salt-fish, The Cowley Road Cookbook will appeal to anyone who wishes to try a taste of Oxford’s richly diverse food culture.