Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen

Why do we cook? Is it just to feed ourselves and others? Or is there something more revolutionary going on?

In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking – that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books – as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control.


This joyful, revelatory work of memory and meditation both complicates and electrifies life in the kitchen. It shows us the radical potential of the thing we do every day: the power of small fires burning everywhere. Readers love Small Fires

‘I adored it. A beautiful discourse on food which made me genuinely excited to cook my next meal’


‘Like nothing I’ve ever read before’


‘Beautiful, thought provoking’


‘Intriguing and surprising”An absolutely delightful read… will have you running to the kitchen’

Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Imprint: ONE
Publication date: 01/09/2023