Chewing the Fat: Tasting Notes From a Greedy Life

by Jay Rayner

Why are gravy stains on your shirt at the dinner table to be admired?
Does bacon improve everything?
And is gin really the devil's work? In this collection of his columns, the award-winning writer and Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner answers these vital questions and many, many more. They are glorious dispatches, seasoned in equal measure with both enthusiasm and bile, from decades at the very frontline of eating.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Food and Drink, Gastronomy, Cooking, Humor, Essays

160 pages, Paperback

Published November 23, 2021

About the author

Jay Rayner is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster born in 1966.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of mostly-critical, often humorous columns from the Observer Food Monthly. None of them are praise for a wonderful meal at a fabulous, cutting-edge restaurant that you need a mortgage for (the reverse actually) and they give away a great deal about Jay Rayner's food habits and quite enormous appetite.

The man loves his food to the point of gluttony. He likes 3" thick steaks, will pinch left-over chicken skin from other people's plates (when they aren't looking), always cooks too much so his fridge is full of leftovers he doesn't talk about midnight creepings to the fridge, but I bet he does. Don't we all? Thin people possibly excluded.. He loves toast burned black with "cheap butter" melting on it, similarly onions cooked not the ideal golden recipes call for, but carbonised black in oil and with balsamic vinegar. And puts bacon on everything.

What the author detests most is something I also find ridiculous. and see it all the time on amateur cooking shows where the home cook eager to show their cheffy credentials indulges in it and the judges all love it. I don't though and I'm glad Jay Rayner and his mate don't either. It's garnishing-by-tweezer,

The tweezers were merely used to place edible blooms and micro herbs and tiny shards of this or that which I didn’t give a toss about.

In short they were used to garnish. Oh dear, the G word. That is the real problem. The use of tweezers is just a symptom of the garnish disease. Garnishing is the art of the superfluous. It is an expression of prissiness in food, an attempt to make the gloriously knuckle-dragging business of preparing good stuff to eat – put meat on fire, throw fish in frothing butter – look delicate and considered. For here is a universal truth. Nothing classed as a garnish that is sprinkled on to food just before serving is ever necessary

Recently I was asked by a friend if I would help mount a war against tweezer food. You know the sort of thing: ingredients so eye-wateringly delicate that they could not possibly be placed on the plate using anything so blunt as fingers. My friend certainly made a good argument. Anything in this known universe worth eating, he said, would always be of a size that would render tweezers redundant. If you can’t stuff it into your gob with your hands what’s the point?

It's not really the sort of book to buy for oneself for a good read, the columns aren't long enough to be satisfying reads, but it is a lovely gift book, both to give and to receive. Funny, well-written and if you are the sort that keeps books in the loo, the columns are just the right length. :-)

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not often a book actually makes me laugh, but this funny, relatable, and occasionally touching collection of food writer Jay Rayner's columns had me smiling and chuckling throughout, even if I do disagree that bacon makes everything better.

[Nick Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short book (about 120 pages), but still captures the wit and brilliance that is Jay Rayner.
Taken from his columns in the Observer Food Monthly these are not restaurant reviews but a view from someone who loves his food and his related obsessions and insecurities. Brought up in a (non-religious) Jewish family he was eating unusual food from an early age and perhaps this drove his open minded attitude and inquisitive nature towards food. He writes with wit, charm and genuine love towards his subject. Short chapters (reproducing the articles) make this an easy and delightful read.
Expensive for the number of pages, but still a joy.

[Joanne]

I love Jay Rayner's writing - although it does make me hungry and craving bacon sandwiches. Strange but true. And this collection of his columns for the Observer are no different. Tasty and easy to digest.

[Hollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was rather like a meal at a very posh restaurant. Terrifically enjoyable and devoured too quickly.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is slim volume but it had me laughing uncontrollably in places. It is a collection of Jay Rayner's columns from The Observer, all gathered together in one huge dollop. It's like the best bacon sandwich followed by an enormous cup of Yorkshire Tea!

There are many things that Rayner likes; he likes food, especially if it has anything to do with pig, he likes eating out, he likes cooking at home. There's also a wealth of things that he doesn't like and it is his wry and hilarious observations about these that I enjoy the most. I would like nothing more than to have a night out with this guy. We agree on (almost) everything and if had a quarter of his wit and sarcasm, I would be a happy woman!

The restaurants who just GET. IT. WRONG. Those establishment who think they are being oh so clever, and out there and a little bit edgy, but in fact, all they are doing are making themselves look like utter fools. Us customers do like a bit of magic, but the food has to taste good. It is the FOOD we are paying for, it's the FOOD that we've looked forward to all day. We don't want chips in a small wheelbarrow, or gravy poured from a lightbulb. We want crispy chips, with a soft middle - served on a plate and we want a jug of meaty gravy that we can pour over our meal. Thanks

I love Rayner's Christmas issues. I love the idea of him locking himself into the kitchen and doing it properly, with no 'helpful' relations trying to interfere. Let him get on with it, let us all get on with it. Please.

There is no better food critic than Rayner (I do love Grace Dent, but I'm afraid she has to sit in this guy's shadow). I love his books, they make me happy and they make me laugh and they make me feel better about my own rants about how food is sometimes offered up to us.

Highly recommended

[Andy P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pieces taken from his weekly column in the Observer. They would be good to read in that format, but a whole book of them, one after another, doesn't work for me. As Jay says, stick it in the loo (if you're the sort who reads in the loo, yuk!).

[Dylan Kakoulli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A glorious, gluttonous, amus(ing) bouche of a read.

And one in which I greedily gobbled up in a single sitting.

Ok ok -enough food related puns!

4 (Michelin) stars

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always liked Jay Rayner. I like most people that enjoy food as much as I do, to be fair. This book cements that, and I devoured this collection of his Observer columns as I was eating Christmas dinner leftovers, which hopefully he'd appreciate. A small book (could I get away with saying a trifle?), and one worth digesting.

[Tracy Hollen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As a man who has rarely met a calorie he couldn't hug, I should love a buffet: all that food, full out there on display." (page 67) ...... I just knew there was going to be a big BUT following that sentence and there was! This book by Jay Rayner is such good fun and perfect for a pick up put down have a chuckle kind of read. It's not long, only 134 pages with short, witty chapters. It's the sort of book that could be endless. People who write columns for magazines and newspapers have a knack of making simple, everyday things in our lives sound interesting and funny and their columns always leave me saying, why can't I write like that! As a food critic who loves to cook at home, the author has what I would call an obsession with bacon - "As far as I can see there is no savoury dish that can't be improved by the application of a little pig." (page 9) If you're looking for a delicious, tongue in cheek look at all things foodie in our lives, look no further. As Julia Child once said "People who love to eat are always the best people."

[Kai · Rating 2 out of 5]

(1.5★) Rayner is highly opinionated about food, which is justifiably warranted, given his job is to write opinion pieces on food. I like how pithy and short each chapter is (no more than 600 words, the average length of a news column), which means you can easily binge-read the entire book in about an hour. The writing is OK, nothing fantastic, but I found the last chapter, Farewell Hugh, dedicated to Hugh Paton, a man who emailed Rayner for a list of restaurants to dine at before he died of cancer, particularly poignant and touching.

My favourite quote, which comes from that chapter:

"We are all of us prone to dwell on the future: on that job or relationship which will finally gift us the happiness we so crave. But if you can afford it, a good meal, in a restaurant engineered to feed rather than impress, forces us into the now...It's easy to dismiss a meal out as just lunch. It's easy to see it as ephemeral. But sometimes, just sometimes, it can be very much more."

3 things I learned:
1. Food is so much more than food
2. Food is not just taste, but memory and emotion
3. Cheap, unpretentious food can be just as good (if not better) than pricey, fancy fine-dining

[David Campton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rayner freely suggests that this anthology of his Observer columns is essentially toilet-reading, and the length of the chapters bear that out. It isn't his reviews of restaurants (that I would probably never get the chance to visit) but rather his wry look at the whole issue of food and his relationship to it. It's humorous without being laugh out loud, so you don't need to worry about people wondering what you are "doing" in said room. I hadn't previously read his columns or any other book, but was won over by his "Out to Lunch" podcast, so was intrigued when I received this for my birthday. It's good, but I am not sure I would go back for seconds...

[Nancy Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in one day, on an otherwise dreadful and lengthy train journey to and then from Manchester. It had me laughing out loud in places, which was an achievement given that the transpennine express on the way there had no heating and I felt I’d been transported back to the 30s and should have brought a muffler….

A great read for any food lover. Short, easy to devour chapters, not at all taxing and yet memorable and touching in places. A good read indeed!

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little bite size (!!) columns of Jay Rayners from over the years. Easily digestible (…) and perfect to read in a single sitting (sigh).

There’s just too many puns. Anyway really witty, just lost a star as the writing would make me think of something else and I’d think about that and completely lose the paragraph I just read.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Jay Rayner's writing style. His creativity and humour are second to none, and as this book is on my favourite food topic, it is no wonder I enjoyed this book so much. I read his work in the hope I can pick up some of his style by osmosis, but mostly I just end up giggling, nodding and reading sections aloud to my partner.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

These columns work well as a collection. Rayner is right that this works as a toilet book. You can dip in and out, reading as many little columns as you like (or your body needs).

Very witty. Love the style of writing. I found myself thinking "oh so true". My mouth was watering for a lot of them, particularly those that featured pig - which was a lot.

Light-hearted, delicious fun of a book.

[Maddison Pilcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jay Rayner is as good a dining companion as one could hope for. Chock full of gorgeous descriptions of all sorts of culinary delights. Like listening to a much-loved Uncle wax lyrical about his favourite eats after a few glasses of wine over an energetic family lunch across a wide dining table on a long bank holiday weekend.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Brilliantly written with whip-smart wit, this book offers a snarky side-eye at the pomp and circumstance behind some of Britain's great restaurants but also, the greediness of Rayner's cooking and his love for all things porcine (small spoiler: I think pork/piggy meaty goodness is mentioned at least once in every chapter). I can imagine vividly the dishes described and almost taste the passion for food which is so apparent within this compilation.

Rayner sums up everything that is beautiful about cooking, culture and the reasons why we enjoy what we enjoy, alongside a very masterful command of the English language. The pages pop, snap and fizzle with personality. A must-have for any foodie or lover of food criticism.

[Myfanwy Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, light read that will resonate with those who enjoy food and cooking for others. It’s a collection of Rayner’s columns between 2010-2020 so it’s presented in short, digestible chapters. Definitely a book that will stay on your shelf for many years to come, and be revisited when you’re in the mood for a pithy anecdote

[Jennifer Broadhurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of Jay Rayner’s columns for Observer Food Monthly, so if you enjoy that you may well like this.
I really enjoyed this book. I do like a good food critic. It’s an easy and comforting read.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy Jays food writing.. and this book was no exception.. this one seemed more personal and this made it a better book. There is something that makes you smile when Jay talks about food as he has such a love for it and it is very infectious.. I hope he writes more books about food

#food #musings #writing #love #beatthebacklog

[Lyndsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this collection of columns from Jay Rayner. We agree on the “flavourless grease” that is unsalted butter, the nasty bitterness of negronis and that bacon makes everything tastes better. The book also ends with a wonderful short piece on enjoying food and life.

[Dipra Lahiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short essays, about 600 words or so, where Rayner writes mostly about his experiences and emotions surrounding food, eating, the company he keeps, pet gripes, favourites and so on. Like having a beloved family member over for dinner, who keeps everyone enthralled with his remarkable perspicuity.

[Vaiva Paulauskaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

His pen cuts as well as his knife

[Kieran Atter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really funny, enjoyable collection of Rayner’s columns. Don’t read on an empty stomach!

[Hobsie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s extremely witty and wicked.

[Andrew Guttridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining short read.

Hard to review as this is a collection of columns where some are hugely enjoyable to read, while some fall flat.

[Shobhika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty, light hearted and certainly leaves one in splits, throughout the many pages.

[CJ Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book #31 of 2024.

Honestly all food writing should be as bite-sized as this.

I will not be apologising for the pun.