Mina Holland

Writer/Journalist

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Books

Agent: Ariella Feiner
Assistant: Amber Garvey

Books

Mina Holland is a writer, editor and storyteller. She splits her time between The Guardian, where she is an editor on the Saturday Feast team, and writing about matters of food, drink and lifestyle for all manner of publications and brands, from Saveur to Suitcase, and Noble Rot to TOAST. She is the author of two books about food – The Edible Atlas: Around The World in 39 Cuisines (Canongate, 2014, translated into 11 other languages and available in 20 countries) and Mamma: Reflections On The Food That Makes Us (Orion, 2017) - and lives in London.

 

MAMMA: Reflections on the Food That Makes Us (Orion)

A collection of oral histories with recipes exploring the influence of family on our relationship with food.

Food is key in our culture. Of late there has been a penchant for reinventing nostalgic home favourites in restaurants and cookbooks leading to a desire to know where our food and its traditions come from.

For most of us there is a desire to return to our childhood kitchen, the smells and tastes of the dishes evoke comfort and wonderful memories. Those childhood meal times form the foundation of our taste buds and how we now cook. MAMMA: REFLECTIONS ON THE FOOD THAT MAKES US is a collection of oral histories about the food we ate as a child, our mother's cooking and all that it signifies and encapsulates throughout our life.

A fascinating trip around the globe, the book features interviews with some of the world's best-loved cooks including Jamie Oliver, Yotam Ottolenghi, Claudia Roden, Alice Waters, Stanley Tucci and many more.

 

Praise for Mina Holland

'A fascinating project, telling some fantastic stories about a broad range of cuisines. Mina’s style is engaging and illuminating and the food cries to be cooked.' Yotam Ottolenghi

'The Edible Atlas is not only a delight to read but also peppered with delicious recipes, facts and flavours from around the world.' Rachel Khoo

'The Edible Atlas deserves a place on every serious cook’s bookshelf. Intelligent, informative, entertaining and very handsome. Mina Holland’s prose is as engaging as her recipes. She is an exciting and authoritative new voice in the world of cookery and food writing.' Russell Norman

 'Hay libros de cocina que te enseñan a cocinar; otros que te ayudan a entender la gastronomía. En este caso, El atlas comestible te alimenta el alma.' (There are cook books that teach you to cook, others that help you to understand gastronomy. In this case, The Edible Atlas feeds your soul) Ferran Adria

'Food has the evocative power to recall vivid memories of tastes and smells—and geography—declares food and travel writer Holland. From her travels, she offers 40 world cuisines, “the edible lovechild of both geography and history.” Holland notes the benchmark set by French cuisine, with so many towns and regions lending their names to excellent food and wine from Dijon to Camembert to Cognac. She takes into account how cuisines have evolved from invasions and immigrations, amalgamating the cuisines of various cultures as they collided, merged, and finally settled into something distinct. The book is divided according to world regions—Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Among the recipes are apple tart Normande from France, Catalan fish stew and zucchini cream from Spain, fattoush and chelow rice from the Middle East, rogan josh and coconut fish curry from India, gomen stew from Ethiopia, chicken couscous from Morocco, buttermilk cornbread from Louisiana, fruity one-chili mole from Mexico, and ceviche from Peru. Holland invites readers to treat this book as a passport to visit locales through the “most authentic insight” into culture offered by everyday dishes.' Vanessa Bush, BOOKLIST

 

Non-Fiction

Publication DetailsNotes
2014

Canongate

THE EDIBLE ATLAS is a book for intrepid cooks. Mina Holland explores what and why people eat as they do across the world, demystifying the flavours, ingredients, techniques and dishes at the heart of thirty-nine different cuisines. With fully adaptable recipes to suit beginners and confident cooks alike, learn to recreate dishes from different global cuisines – from a South Indian Coconut Fish Curry to a zingy Ceviche, from a yoghurty Jordanian Mansaf to a Danish Dream Cake, from an unbeatable Spanish Tortilla de Patatas to the ultimate Caribbean Jerk Chicken.

Weaving snippets of anecdote, history and literature in with recipes and words of wisdom from some of the world's most seasoned food experts - such as Yotam Ottolenghi, Jacob Kenedy, José Pizarro and Giorgio Locatelli – The Edible Atlas is as comfortable in the kitchen as it is at your bedside.