BOOK REVIEW by BARRY JONES

"NO BONES JONES FESTIVAL COOKBOOK", by HUGH AND JILL JONES, published in paperback, 176 pages, by Y Lolfa, priced £12.99.

FROM Glastonbury to the National Urdd Eisteddfod, WOMAD to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival, the Clun Green Man Festival to Friends of Montgomery School fundraisers, you'll have found the No Bones Jones stand serving up delicious veggie and vegan dishes

To mark 25 years, the Montgomery-based mobile caterers serve up their own cookbook of recipes from around the world as well as telling their own story, in the "No Bones Jones Festival Cookbook".

Having grown up in Mid Wales, Hugh Jones trained as an engineer and was working for Rolls Royce when the urge to travel gripped him and he boarded the Magic Bus in Amsterdam bound for far away exotic destinations.

Hugh liked it so much he became an overland bus driver himself carrying tourists between Kathmandu and southern India, falling in love along the way their dishes and cuisines to add to those of such places as Greece, Turkey and the Mediterranean.

He had been a vegetarian for most of the time he had been travelling finding vegetarian food readily available and falling in love with the honesty, simplicity and sheer deliciousness of the wholesome food he was eating

Back home in mid Wales in 1985 he decided to use his cooking talents and wealth of recipes gathered to combine with Jill';s knowledge of cooking and the wholefood cafe she was running at the time, developing into a restaurant and the hitting the festival circuit.

Returning home, he met Jill who was running the Country Kitchen restaurant as Montgomery and they married and set up No Bones Jones which has become a fixture on the festival scene famous for its hearty, wholesome veggie meals, acieving the coveted Glastonbury Green Trade Gold Medal in 2011.

Hugh recalls travels and supplies recipes, journeying to Greece, and on to Israel cooking falafel for 200 on a kibbutz when not forming the Bomb Shelter Blues Band which prompts a trip back to London to pursue being a rock star but instead getting the job as an international overland bus driver after a few calls back working for Potter's on lorry maintenance in Welshpool and to get a bus driver's licence in Oswestry.

His bus trips to Turkey included the one where an outbreak of food poisoning after a roast chicken feast first led to Hugh finding a vegetarian diet incredibly appealing; and to India where he discovers disappointingly there is no such things as a Madras curry in Madras, but an incredible curry in Mysore provides another spark that will lead to No Bones Jones.

At last he arrives in wonderful Kathmandu where a hotel chef teaches him how to balance flavours and produce a superb authentic curry in 15 minutes.

On the way he finds a truckstop shack where a woman cooks and serves up just one simple tasty Nepalese dish which Hugh loves as "the absolute antithesis of the modern world's inhuman corporate agribusiness."

Returning home at last Hugh marries his former girlfriend Jill who is running the Castle Kitchen in Montgomery, and then go on to have a restaurant in Newtown, and start a family but a call from a butcher friend introduces him to world of mobile catering at shows and events while working at the National Urdd Youth Eisteddfod shows him that there is a demand for more than burgers and chips.

The recipes cover Salads, and Sides including the No Bones Jones Vegetable Samosas; Sauces, such as No Bones Jones Pesto.

Mains range from a Puerto Rican Red Bean Stew, and a Thai Curry with Butter Beans, to Broccoli and Welsh Cheddar Souffle, as well as a Smoked Paprika and Roasted Cumin Moussaka; while Desserts include Granny Jones' Sticky Toffee Bread and Butter Pudding, Jill's Banana Gateau from New Zealand, and Summer Porridge from Switzerland, and Jill's own Apple Cake.

The book is lovingly illustrated with colour pictures from Hugh and Jill Jones’ own collection, including those reproduced here today by permission,

PIC 1: THE No Bones Jones crew celebrating their coveted Glastonbury Green Trader Gold Award.

PIC 2: IT'S A Family Affair: Hugh and Jill with their four sons Harvey, Harrison, Frazer and Oliver, at work.

PIC 3: JILL and Hugh Jones, "the brains and the brawn behind No Bones Jones!"

PIC 4: JILL outside the old Castle Kitchen at Montgomery.

PIC 5: "The No Bones Jones Festival Cookbook" cover.