Picky: From fussy child to professional gourmet

Jimi Famurewa

'A culinary journey like no other - sharp, funny, and full of heart.' - JAMIE OLIVER

'A rich and nourishing story of food and identity.' - ANGELA HUI

'Exquisite, evocative writing from the heart, soul and very witty pen of Jimi Famurewa.' - ANDI OLIVER

'Wonderful . . . This is a moving, charming but also wonderfully astute exploration of food today, across continents, and from the home table to the school canteen and the high-end restaurant. It's also a beautiful reminder that our appetites, like us, can transform beyond what we ever thought possible.' - RUBY TANDOH

'A feast of a book packed to the brim with honesty, bravery, nostalgia and humour . . . Truly affecting and brilliantly written.' - CAROLINE EDEN

'Shows us that food is never just food - it's memory, identity, and home. Jimi's journey from picky eater to food critic is a powerful reminder that what we eat can reconnect us to who we are, where we've come from, and who we're becoming.' - ASMA KHAN

'Vivid, funny and deliciously frank, I tore through this like an after-school bag of Monster Munch.' - FELICITY CLOAKE

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Food is never just food. It is freighted with our upbringings, our heritage and our sense of self.

Jimi Famurewa spends his days hunting out the very best food London has to offer and writing about it. But as a child, he hid gobbets of mash in his pocket at school, refused all vegetables and looked forward to Happy Meals in the back of a steamed-up car after late night football practice. He spent weekends in crowded flats at parties, watching his family preserve their Nigerian roots through jollof and fried plantain, as well as grow new shoots through American delights like Aunt Jemima's pancake syrup, furtively hidden in suitcases.

But what happens when he grows up, stretching beyond the joyful chaos of his mother's kitchen and into the uncharted territory, unfamiliar flavours and overlapping identities of the adult world?

With glorious dollops of nostalgia, Picky is as much a hymn to the gleam of the golden arches and the soft shine of worn formica as it is to opulent marble and tweezered micro herbs.