Rotorua meat cookbook world's best

A CUT ABOVE: Gerhard and Henrietta Egger's cookbook has been named the best meat cookbook in the world at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. PHOTO/BEN FRASER

A Rotorua couple's carnivorous collection of recipes has been named the best meat cookbook in the world at a ceremony in China.

Gerhard and Henrietta Egger received the gong for A Cut Above: Cooking with AngusPure at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards ceremony in Yantai on Tuesday night. It follows the book's triumph in the New Zealand section of the awards this February.

The couple, who wrote, photographed, designed and published the cookbook, were understandably thrilled by the announcement. "We are ecstatic, this book has been a labour of love."

Designed to show the wide versatility of a single product - beef - the recipes in A Cut Above are interspersed with the stories and history of some of New Zealand's leading Angus breeders. The Eggers had previously expressed the hope that the book could give readers a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes when producing a product such as Angus Pure.

Founded by liqueur baron Edouard Cointreau in 1995, the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards have become a major event on the international foodie calendar.

More than 206 countries participated in the awards this year, with food writers from around the world attending the ceremony in Yantai.

The Eggers said they were proud to represent their country on the international stage.

"It is great to be able to showcase what New Zealand has to offer and the quality of the product that we are able to produce".

The couple are no strangers to success at the Gourmand awards: their last book, Volcanic Kitchens: Come And Join Us, won Best Photography Cookbook for New Zealand in 2013.

That book celebrated the cooking traditions of Rotorua and wider Volcanic Plateau; with their latest effort, the Eggers have cast their net wider - perhaps channelling the mindset of Monty Python's John Cleese.

"If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?"