Two excerpts from the foreword by Andrew Barton:
1:
The culinary writing of Thom Eagle found its way to me after I read a short blurb about his debut book. First, Catch - Study of a Spring Meal had either just or not yet been published. I was staying at my childhood home for a weekend, and coming across this blurb was in the latter half of the evening. The premise of this book, one without any clear recipes but a great deal about the sensory aspects, the intellectual exercises one goes through when cooking with intention, massively appealed to me. That same night – book ordered – I found my way to Thom’s blog, which had short pieces ranging from travelogue-style journal entries to recipes to restaurant reactions to contemplative pondering to…I just kept scrolling backward; he’d been writing it for some time. The grandfather clock downstairs struck midnight, and I kept reading.
2:
This book begins with the collection of place-letters appearing as they did during the era in which they were written, then drifts back in time to a selection of once-blog writing, selected and edited by me, then annotated by Thom in 2025. A writer’s journey in nine years of notes, with gaps nearly every page to pop a bookmark in and savor the echo. Just as Thom loves to preserve under salt or brine, these pieces now rest in this binding, developing. As you read, or begin to taste, really tune in – and then look around you.
Thom Eagle is the author of three previous books on food: First, catch: study of a spring meal, Summer’s Lease: how to cook without heat, and The Philosophy of Pickles. He can be found cooking at Bottega Caruso in Margate, England and doing pop ups, teaching workshops, and making nocino.
Canterbury (II)
No-one travels with all of themselves; I think you would go mad trying. You move, you meet people, you introduce yourself, but which bits do you introduce? Hello, I am a student, I am a cook, I am a writer, I make charcuterie, I like to draw, I am learning the viola, some people think I drink too much; hello, I am a chef, I am an author, I know your daughter, I play guitar not as often as I’d like but too loudly; hello, I am your guest. You choose a piece for each city or household you visit and hope the rest will come out eventually or (conversely) that it will never emerge. Everyone has at some stage had to cling to the belly of a sheep on their way out of the door – in a manner of speaking. In different households, anyway, you get to eat different things. For several years I would always receive a Snickers Easter egg from my grandma thanks to a chance remark made at a tender age; when I am in Canterbury I am always a child, and so I eat pasta and cheddar cheese, as is right.
London (II)
In a grey spring in London the bright splashes of cherry blossom and three-cornered leek only accentuate the greyness, even the daisies revolving in the grass around dandelion suns lack lustre, and what should have been a lengthy head-clearing walk becomes a shorter one and then a bus journey, to sit in a cafe and drink excellent but expensive coffee, but on the way back the grey clouds shift and churn and the warmth lifts the pinks and yellows in the trees and fences and makes you think of other, lonelier places; the white and deeply pale green of the three-cornered leek, the wild garlic of the city, smells of distant heat, caught here in the grey.
2025
Available at Now Serving: A Cookbook & Culinary Shop in Los Angeles
