The Story of Our Most English Fruit

The Apple Orchard

'An absorbing love letter to the English apple tree...lyrical and joyful' - TLS 
 
'A delightful book' - Sunday Times 
 
Shortlisted for the André Simon Food and Drink Book Award 2016 
A Radio 4 Book of the Week 
 
'Wonderful, revelatory ... very moving' - Sheila Dillon, BBC Radio 4 
 
'His ability to laugh at himself, openness to wonder and willingness to go wherever the search takes him make Brown an engaging writer and The Apple Orchard an entertaining journey' - Mail on Sunday 
 
Taking us through the seasons in England's apple-growing heartlands, this magical book uncovers the stories and folklore of our most familiar fruit. 
 
'An orchard is not a field. It's not a forest or a copse. It couldn't occur naturally; it's definitely cultivated. But an orchard doesn't override the natural order: it enhances it, dresses it up. It demonstrates that man and nature together can - just occasionally - create something more beautiful and (literally) more fruitful than either could alone. The vivid brightness of the laden trees, studded with jewels, stirs some deep race memory and makes the heart leap. Here is bounty, and excitement.'

An absorbing love letter to the English apple tree...lyrical and joyful

His ability to laugh at himself, openness to wonder and willingness to go wherever the search takes him make Brown an engaging writer and The Apple Orchard an entertaining journey

Pete Brown is simultaneously allergic to and obsessed by apples. 
 
He has written several books on food and drink, including Man Walks into a Pub, Three Sheets to the Wind, and Hops and Glory. His discriminating palate has led him to be a judge in the Great Taste Awards and the Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards, and a frequent contributor to Radio 4's Food Programme.

An orchard is not a field.  It's not a forest or a copse.  It couldn't occur naturally; it's definitely cultivated.  But an orchard doesn't override the natural order: it enhances it, dresses it up. It demonstrates that man and nature together can - just occasionally - create something more beautiful and (literally) more fruitful than either could alone. The vivid brightness of the laden trees, studded with jewels, stirs some deep race memory and makes the heart leap.  Here is bounty, and excitement.

Pete Brown

The book examines a series of traditional British meals with Hornby's geeky obsessiveness and Orwell's incisive class observation ... His prose is engaging, his storytelling effortless ... Brown writes beautifully and fondly of every dish in a way that will have you desperate to taste it again at the end of each chapter.  This historical information he weaves around the food is plentiful, accurate and worn lightly, and his observations are fresh and provocative.

Part Nigel Slater, part Bill Bryson, and wholly delicious...Funny, informative and written with passion, Pie Fidelity is a love poem to all that's great in British cooking.

A heart-felt book that makes an important point without false pride or sentimentality. When it comes to food, we're better than we think.

Genuinely revealing...Brown evokes the emotionalism of eating

As much as his book is a reflection of his experiences, reading it inevitably leads the reader to examine their own past, and how food defines who we are, or used to be

Brown is a natural raconteur... this memoir mixed with a "defence of British food" sees him at his funniest and most insightful. Highly recommended

[Praise for The Apple Orchard] An absorbing love letter to the English apple tree...lyrical and joyful

[Praise for The Apple Orchard] Wonderful, revelatory ... very moving

[Praise for The Apple Orchard] Delightful... impassioned, patriotic, richly informed

In Defence of British Food

In Britain, we have always had an awkward relationship with food.  We've been told for so long that we are terrible cooks and yet according to a recent YouGov survey, our traditional food and drink are more important than the monarchy and at least as significant as our landscape and national monuments in defining a collective notion of who we are. Taking nine archetypically British dishes - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - and examining them in their perfect context, Pete Brown reveals just how fundamental food is to our sense of identity, perhaps even our sense of pride, and the ways in which we understand our place in the world.

Pete Brown

Praise for Pie Fidelity

The book examines a series of traditional British meals with Hornby's geeky obsessiveness and Orwell's incisive class observation ... His prose is engaging, his storytelling effortless ... Brown writes beautifully a ...

Part Nigel Slater, part Bill Bryson, and wholly delicious...Funny, informative and written with passion, Pie Fidelity is a love poem to all that's great in British cooking.

A heart-felt book that makes an important point without false pride or sentimentality. When it comes to food, we're better than we think.

The book examines a series of traditional British meals with Hornby's geeky obsessiveness and Orwell's incisive class observation ... His prose is engaging, his storytelling effortless ... Brown writes beautifully a ...

Part Nigel Slater, part Bill Bryson, and wholly delicious...Funny, informative and written with passion, Pie Fidelity is a love poem to all that's great in British cooking.

A heart-felt book that makes an important point without false pride or sentimentality. When it comes to food, we're better than we think.

The book examines a series of traditional British meals with Hornby's geeky obsessiveness and Orwell's incisive class observation ... His prose is engaging, his storytelling effortless ... Brown writes beautifully a ...

Part Nigel Slater, part Bill Bryson, and wholly delicious...Funny, informative and written with passion, Pie Fidelity is a love poem to all that's great in British cooking.

A heart-felt book that makes an important point without false pride or sentimentality. When it comes to food, we're better than we think.

Books by Pete Brown

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