Slow Rise

People keep rediscovering the joy of bread. In truth it never went away; it was just subverted by pappy cheaper bread ... Rob Penn celebrates what we can do to reverse this culinary serfdom

Tim Lang, author of Feeding Britain

A wide-ranging, gloriously obsessive odyssey ... a wonderful insight into the history, culture and sheer hard work taken to make this most fundamental of human foods

Jenny Linford, author of The Missing Ingredient

Rob Penn's enthusiasm for what he calls 'the most symbolically evocative foodstuff' is so infectious and persuasive ... a pleasingly evocative tale, told with the same rich descriptions and wistful asides that Penn bakes into all of his books

Geographical

Charming, important ... a journey of discovery

Boudicca Fox-Leonard, Telegraph

Fascinating, compelling . . . Robert Penn's engaging account encompasses every aspect of bread, from how it fuelled entire empires to which grains he could grow on his own allotment

David Ellis, Evening Standard

Compelling, vivid . . . the cyclist and former lawyer explores his enthusiasm for sourdough bread, and forgotten "landrace" wheats, as he supervises their planting, harvesting and the milling of the grain that would go into his loaf . . . Slow Rise will be welcomed by the new bread geeks

Dan Lepard, Spectator

A modern day Thoreau . . . Rob Penn has been hand scything wheat in the Nile Delta and growing his own heritage grains

Great British Food Magazine