MASTERTON: The latest cook book from retired farmer Colin Evans has failed to ignite the interest of the New Zealand book buying public. Evans' third cook book "Cooking with Lard" was released this week with much fanfare, but very little in the way of sales, despite Father's Day approaching.

Lard on Toast, just one of Evan's recipes.

The launch event was held at Masterton café Hot Mama's. Evans was only too pleased to provide some of the recipes from the book, including Barry's Bacon and Tripe on Toast, Onion and Liver Mash and local favourite Col's Fried Kidney Burgers. 

Cooking with Lard features over 100 top recipes and is broken into three parts; an introductory chapter on the history of lard, a section on cooking kidney, liver and tripe, along with chapters on lard storage.

Given the failure of the book, publisher Cooke's Books is now uncertain on the release of Evans' planned future titles: "Cooking with Lard - Italian Style", "A Taste of Mediterranean Lard", and "Thai Cooking with Lard".

Plans for a TV series have also been put on hold.