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A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright (view source)
Revision as of 10:48, 18 August 2020
, 10:48, 18 August 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=A History of English Food
|sort=|History of English Food
|author=Clarissa Dickson Wright
|reviewer=John Van der Kiste
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=9781905211852
|pages=500
|publisher=Random House
|date=October 2011
|video=XW_02_Ortzw
|summary=A superbly-researched and well-illustrated history of English food and drink from the 12th century to the present day, combining research and personal experience, from one of the most contemporary popular cookery writers and presenters.
|cover=1905211856
|aznuk=1905211856
|aznus=1905211856
}}
What particularly enlivens the last chapters of this book is the fact that the author or her parents were there, and can add some personal reminiscences to round off this superbly-researched labour of love. Her family can just recall how Britain’s dependence on imported food can be traced back to the end of the 19th century, as became severely apparent during the First World War. She remembers that food shortages and rationing paradoxically worsened after the Second World War, with coupons for sugar and sweets in force until the Queen’s coronation in 1953. Also part of her adolescent years were the coffee bars, which were everywhere in the 1950s but almost a thing of the past by the 1990s, when she visited one of the last surviving ones in Swansea, still with linoleum-covered tables and coffee which had still not improved from the early days.
She does not shrink from pointing out that not everything has improved with the modern age. During wartime, rabbit was an obvious choice for the pot, and the deliberate importation of the myxomatosis virus from Australia a decade later was devastating, with the result that a useful meat largely vanished from the national diet. Many would agree with her that the big supermarkets have much to answer for in the loss of variety and traditional foods, and that with pot noodles and ready meals we have ceased to be a nation of cooks and are now a nation of food preparers. Above all, she castigates governmental mishandling of the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 and the fact that a DEFRA stand at a Yorkshire show that year had nothing to say about British farmers or food production, on the grounds that ''you can import it cheaper''. Nevertheless , she concludes that English food is a moveable feast, constantly evolving, and that it is possible to eat better and more interestingly than at more or less any other time of our history.
This is a wonderful book. The author's research has been first-rate, her experience lends colour to a work which might otherwise could have become efficient but impersonal, and she writes with good humour as well as occasional anger when merited. It ends with a selection of historical recipes, ad the five sections of colour plates, containing everything from old kitchens and laden dining tables to market stalls and corner shops, complement the text to perfection. It is a feast in every sense.
Our thanks to Random House for sending Bookbag a review copy.
To whet your appetite further, may we also recommend [[English Food by Jane Grigson]]; and [[Canteen: Great British Food by Cass Titcombe, Patrick Clayton-Malone and Dominic Lake]]. You might also appreciate [[Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham]].
{{amazontext|amazon=1905211856}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=83717571905211856}}
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[[Category:Cookery]]