Book description
For too long Britain has failed to celebrate its culinary heritage. But
from the introduction of borage to the British Isles by the Romans to
the nation's love-hate relationship with Marmite, Britain has always
played host to an astonishing range of gustatory traditions.
This delightful compendium of Britain's traditional regional foods
combines fascinating local history about the origins of some of our most
distinctive and curious foodstuffs with a celebration of the ways in
which the most humble cut of meat can embody culinary traditions
stretching back through the ages.
Far from the bland and stodgy board usually associated with British
cuisine, 'The Taste of Britain' reveals a culinary portrait of
remarkable wealth and character - from Fat Rascals to Fidget Pie,
Cornish pasties to Chelsea buns, and Bedfordshire Clangers to Bath
Chaps. Entries have been carefully selected on the grounds that they
have been produced in one place for more than three generations, and
many for much longer: more than merely a history of food, this is a
tribute to a Britain that predates the supermarket era and evokes
traditions that date back hundreds of years. Sussex cattle, for example,
are mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086, while Shakespeare described
an early forerunner of the Cockney favourite, jellied eels, in 'King Lear'.
In range, warmth and enthusiasm, 'The Taste of Britain' is a book for
absolutely everyone from the 'foodie' connoisseur interested in the
origins of the Careless Gooseberry to the culinary neophyte for whom
each entry provides a delightful potted history of taste, industry and
tradition. 'HarperCollins has given it a major redesign in hardback
and very attractive new look, turning it into a covetable item…(and) it
settles arguments and solves pub quiz questions.' Time Out
'“The Taste of Britain” is a fantastic compendium of all that is great
about regional British food, and it is stunning to look at the range of
produce we can draw from this country, from our pears to our hams to our
ginger beers. [It] tells you everything you wanted to know, from the
difference between a Norfolk knob and a Dorset knob, to the history of
Tizer and the average weight and dimension of the haggis…a book that
makes you proud to be British.' Gordon Ramsay, The Times on Saturday
'“The Taste of Britain” conjures up an image of a vibrant, productive
kitchen, the eaves hanging with strings of onions, tomatoes ripening in
the windows, bread in the oven, chutneys on the dresser…It shows also
that avoiding supermarkets is not some grey penance that we choose to
impose on ourselves in order to save the world but, on the contrary, an
embracing of pleasure, variety and quality. And for all the attempts of
television chefs to encourage locally based cooking, TV by its very
nature as a medium encourages sitting down and staring rather than
cooking - so really TVs should be thrown out of the window, and the
money saved should be spent on books like this.' New Statesman Laura
Mason was raised on a farm in Upper Wharfedale, Yorkshire. A highly
respected food historian, her books include 'Sugar-Plums and Sherbet:
The Prehistory of Sweets', 'Food and the Rites of Passage' and
'Farmhouse Cookery'. She is also a British co-ordinator of the Slow Food movement.
Freelance food writer Catherine Brown grew up in a Glasgow tenement and
her first catering job was in a Clydeside docker's canteen. She worked
as a professional chef before becoming a food writer and critic. She
writes for The Herald and has won 3 Glenfiddich Food Writing Awards, and
in 2001 was named the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year.
