Woman cooking Botswana Fat Cakes - a favourite food of Precious Ramotswe

Precious Ramotswe, leading character of  Alexander McCall Smith‘s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is “writing” a cookbook to share her favourite recipes for Botswanan dishes.

The cookbook is actually the brainchild of charity worker and former BBC journalist, Stuart Brown.  While working  for a charity in Africa, Brown collected authentic Botswanan recipes and with McCall Smith’s blessing,  the cookbook project came to life.  “I am delighted to be working with Stuart on this book, which will raise funds for worthwhile causes in Botswana,” says McCall Smith who will write a forward and reflections from Ramotswe for the book.

Precious Ramotswe’s  generous figure is a recurring theme throughout the series and in Blue Shoes and Happiness, the seventh book, she tries dieting before deciding that satisfying her appetite is more important. As for the cookbook, Brown says that concessions have been made to healthy eating but much of the food is of the calorific type enjoyed by the heroine. “As fans of the series know, Mma Ramotswe is quite a fan of doughnuts, or fat cakes as they are called in Botswana. They feature heavily in her recipe book, as well as fruit cake. The book is a celebration of what she calls the ‘traditional African build’, as she is very much against the tyranny of the thin shape which dominates the fashion world.”

Watch for the book in November the  scheduled date for publication by Polygon.