Tasting the Past
3 total works
The many influences of the past on our diet make the concept of ‘British food’ very hard to define. The Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans each brought ingredients to the table, and the country was introduced to all manner of spices following the Crusades. The Georgians enjoyed a new level of excess and then, of course, the world wars forced us into the challenge of making meals from very little. The history of cooking in Britain is as tumultuous as the times its people have lived through. Tasting the Past: Recipes from George III to Victoria documents the rich history of our food, its fads and its fashions, combined with a practical cookbook of over eighty recipes from the reigns of George III and Queen Victoria. Jacqui Wood introduces the meals that made up the bread-and-butter of Victorian and Georgian cuisine, their seasonal specialities in the form of Christmas recipes, and the curious take on ‘Indian’ cooking that the imperial endeavours of the Victorians brought back home.
The many influences of the past on our diet today make the concept of ‘British food’ very hard to define. The Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans all brought ingredients to the table, and the country was introduced to all manner of spices after the Crusades. The Georgians enjoyed a new level of excess and then, of course, the world wars forced us into the challenge of making meals from very little. The history of cooking in Britain is as tumultuous as the times its people have lived through. Tasting the Past: Recipes from Antiquity documents the rich history of our food, its fads and its fashions to be combined with a practical cookbook of over 120 recipes from the eras of the Iron Age Celts and the Romans. Jacqui Wood guides us through the nutritious and pragmatic recipes of the Celts, who harvested the ingredients readily available around them; and the far more elaborate tastes of the Romans, who had an empire of imports to supplement and spice up their continentally curated diet.
The many influences of the past on our diet today make the concept of ‘British food’ very hard to define. The Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans all brought ingredients to the table, and the country was introduced to all manner of spices after the Crusades. The Georgians enjoyed a new level of excess and then, of course, the world wars forced us into the challenge of making meals from very little. The history of cooking in Britain is as tumultuous as the times its people have lived through. Tasting the Past: Recipes from the Second World War to the 1980s documents the rich history of our food, its fads and its fashions to be combined with a practical cookbook of over 120 recipes from the Second World War onwards. Jacqui Wood guides us through the nutritious and pragmatic recipes of wartime Britain, which juggled rationing and shortages to produce delicious food and keep morale high; through the era of convenience food and television chefs in the 1960s; and finally the yuppies and stacked food of the 1980s.