Photographer & Food Writer

The Lake District & Cumbria in Recipes and Photographs, and Yorkshire in Recipes and Photographs. Two books by Tess Baxter.

My two publications, featuring local and traditional recipes alongside local scenes and a wealth of local and food history.

These books combine my own photography of landscape and food and my research and writing. They consider the beauty of place, the people who made it, and how food habits came about. There is more information on my Dane Stone Publishing website. The Lake District book is now in its third edition after nearly 20 years in print. It is available from bookshops, and you can follow the link below to buy from here. The Yorkshire book was first published in 2011. It is no longer available as a print version, but is now back as an e-book edition – follow the link below.

The Lake District and Cumbria in Recipes and Photographs

The book concentrates on the Lake District, as early tourism led to a lot of new recipes. However, it covers the breadth of former county of Cumbria and the historic lake counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire north-of-the-sands, going back to Roman times.

Famous recipes include Sticky Toffee Pudding, Lakeland Gingerbread, Cumberland Rum Nicky, Tatie Pot, Borrowdale Teabread and Kendal Mint Cake.

The book contains 21 local and traditional recipes, 114 photographs of the landscape and food, and a map. It is B5 landscape format (240x168mm), and includes 32 pages in full colour.

Price: £4.50, postage free in the UK.

Yorkshire: In Recipes and Photographs

Follows the social history of Yorkshire along a journey told through food, recipes and photographs. It covers the rural areas of Yorkshire north of the M62, and includes 25 local and traditional recipes alongside 139 photographs of the landscape and recipes of Yorkshire. Various themes around the food and the history, are woven together using words and photographs.

This is the digital second edition, available as a digital download from Payhip. A print on paper version is no longer available.


Dane Stone Publishing logo

Full list of food publishing by Tess

Book author:
The Lake District and Cumbria in Recipes and Photographs
(Dane Stone Publishing, 3rd ed 2015; first published 2006). Available from Dane Stone Publishing, and bookshops.
Yorkshire: In Recipes and Photographs (Dane Stone Publishing, 2011). As from 2023, available as an e-book.

Book contributor:
Alimentazione, la sfida del nuovo millennio (contributor) (Gangemi Editore, 2015)
Living Words: An anthology of poetry (contributor) (Swarthmoor Hall Press, 2015)

Newsletter articles:
Community Cookbooks and the Culture of Recipe Sharing. Community Food and Health (Scotland), Issue 58, December 2011

Conference presentations:
Parkin, Moggy, Tharf and Thor: Evolving words, evolving foods. Presented at All in Good Taste – Regional Food in History and Archaeology, Regional Heritage Centre, Lancaster University, 21 October 2017

Conference organisation:
Food and Society: Third British Sociological Association Food Study Group International Conference, July 2012 (co-convenor)

6 Replies to “Photographer & Food Writer”

  1. I really love your postcards. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more recipes. Soft Lakeland Gingerbread sounds right up my street! Thank you.

  2. Hello Tess!
    I have a couple of your recipe postcards. I’ve just cooked the Weardale Leek Pudding and it was delicious and very easy. But the recipe card for Alston Tatie Cake mentions cream in the method but it’s not in the list of ingredients? How much cream should I add please?

    We hope to visit that area again next summer.

  3. Hi Rose. I had to look that up – one of the challenges with fitting recipes on postcards is the editing and re-editing to get it to fit the space. Usually I pick up on these errors, but clearly not in this case. Though I amended the recipe for the book earlier this year.
    It’s just one tablespoon – not a lot, just to moisten and to make it a little, well, creamier.

  4. Thanks very much Tess. I’ll give this a try soon, just busy with the Christmas stuff at the moment. I’ve just seen your Christmas cards with recipes so I’m going to order some. Hope you are enjoying your new kitchen. It looks fab!

  5. Thanks Rose! Just got your order through and will send them off today. Flooring went down in kitchen yesterday and I’ll do some more photos once the fridge is squeezed under the cupboards tomorrow.
    The storage heater fuse blew yesterday – there should be enough clearance, but it’s not a generous space where it is and it may be getting too hot. There’s always something!