'Meades makes everything sound so delicious that the non-cook will be moved to cook and the bad cook will cook better' David Hare, The Guardian.

The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is an anti-cookbook. Best known as a provocative novelist, journalist and film-maker, Jonathan Meades has also been called 'the best amateur chef in the world' by Marco Pierre White. His contention here is that anyone who claims to have invented a dish is delusional, dishonestly contributing to the myth of culinary originality.

Meades delivers a polemical but highly usable collection of 125 of his favourite recipes, each one an example of the fine art of culinary plagiarism. These are dishes and methods he has hijacked, adapted, improved upon and made his own. Without assuming any special knowledge or skill, the book is full of excellent advice. He tells us why the British never got the hang of garlic. That a purist would never dream of putting cheese in a Gratin Dauphinois. That cooking brains in brown butter cannot be improved upon. And why despite the advice of Martin Scorsese's mother he insists on frying his meatballs.

In a world dominated by health fads, food vloggers and over-priced kitchen gadgets, The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is timely reminder that, when it comes to food, it's almost always better to borrow than to invent.



Jonathan Meades' books include three works of fiction –  Filthy English, Pompey and The Fowler Family Business  – and several collections including  Museum Without Walls , which received thirteen nominations as a book of the year in 2012. 

 An Encyclopaedia of Myself  was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize and longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. His first and only cookbook,  The Plagiarist in the Kitchen , was published in 2017.  Pedro and Ricky Come Again  (2021) was the sequel to  Peter Knows What Dick Likes  (1988).

Meades has written and performed in more than sixty highly acclaimed television films on predominantly topographical subjects such as French nationalism, the Baltic and dictators' architecture. He also creates artknacks and treyfs. Treyf means impure, not kosher: it defines his approach to all writing, film and art. He lives in France.



'I adore Meades's book . . . I want more of his rule-breaking irreverence in my kitchen'



'The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is hilariously grumpy, muttering at us "Don't you bastards know anything?" You can read it purely for literary pleasure, but Jonathan Meades makes everything sound so delicious that the non-cook will be moved to cook and the bad cook will cook better'