WE are a pathetic lot. We don't know how to shop for food; we don't know how to cook; and worst of all, we don't even know how to eat. That is the message in Digby Anderson's vigorous, exhilarating, informative and wildly amusing book.

It is the most violent cookbook I've ever read. I think he must have been abused by a courgette as a child for he says contemptuously: "Courgettes - everyone has them. And pretty horrid they are too".

He believes we should start each day with a proper breakfast - none of that muesli muck: "Kidneys, sausages which should be largely fresh pork with some fat and genuine intestine skins; fresh field mushrooms, bread or potatoes fried in pork or bacon fat and freshly mixed mustard". And that's to accompany the eggs and bacon, of course.

Cor. . . City girls have nothing more in the morning than a cup of Starbucks and a low fat yoghurt. They'd scream if you showed them a sausage.

Anderson points out that families don't eat together any longer and millions don't even possess a dining table. Instead they eat separately, on the run or on the sofa in front of the telly - so a lot of food escapes into the gaps between cushions.

Generally the English ". . . have a love of the tasteless, the bland and the insipid, and a concomitant dislike or even fear of strong tastes".

He complains that two of his guests want their coffee diluted with milk, which spoils it. "Another wants decaff - that is coffee without the coffee".

We are so squeamish when it comes to what we will eat: trotters and testicles find no place on the modern table. But Anderson luxuriates in ". . . the deep pleasure at that moment when your hand has felt its way up a fat duck's bottom, finally clasps the stomach, loosens it and pulls it away. Or when it cracks a rabbit's jaw to test that the animal is young enough to fry". He loves the sight of blood: "If they rented deckchairs in the Boqueria market in Barcelona, I'd willingly pay to sit and gaze at blood puddings for half an hour".

In a superb peroration, he scorns the contradictions of the health freaks and the politically correct Third Worldists: "There are other ideologues and nutters, anti-alcohol crusaders, environmentalists, supplement enthusiasts and the get-thin industry. England increasingly resounds to the shouts of this assortment: eat lots of fruit; no, don't eat fruit if it comes across the globe and causes pollution; yes, do eat it if it comes across the globe from poor countries; no, don't eat foreign fruit, support English fruit and vegetables; eat organic meat; don't eat any meat; eat lots of fish for your eoils; don't eat too much fish because of the dioxins; don't eat fish in short supply; don't eat any fish full stop - sprats have feelings just like you and me" There are recipes in here too. I've just been out, as recommended, and bought two pound of shin beef (three quid), some black olives (90 pence) and a bottle of bottom shelf supermarket red plonk (£2.99).

I'm going to cook the shin and the olives in the whole bottle of wine slowly for five hours and prepare to taste culinary heaven.

This is a marvellous book. Good enough to eat.