British food : an extraordinary thousand years of history / Colin Spencer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spencer, Colin.

Series:

Arts and traditions of the table

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cooking--Great Britain--History.

Cooking.

Food habits--Great Britain--History.

Food habits.

Great Britain.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

400 pages

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, ©2002.

Summary:

"Colin Spencer's acount of Britain's culinary heritage explores what has influenced and changed eating in Britain - from the Black Death, the Enclosures, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of capitalism to present-day threats posed by globalization, including factory farming, corporate control of food supplies, and the pervasiveness of prepackaged and fast foods. He situates the beginning of the decline in British cuisine in the Victorian age, when various social, historical, and economic factors - an emphasis on appearances, a worship of French cuisine, the rise of Nonconformism, which saw any pleasure as a sin, the alienation from rural life found in burgeoning towns, the rise and affluence of the new bourgeoisie, and much else - created a fear that simple cooking was vulgar. Encouraged by the publication of a key cookbook of the period, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, the Victorians also harbored suspicions that raw foods were harmful." "However, twenty-first-century British cooking is experiencing a glorious resurgence, fueled by television gurus and innovative restaurants with firm roots in the British tradition. This new interest in and respect for good food is showing the whole world, as Spencer puts it, "that the old horror stories about British food are no longer true.""--Jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1: Prologue: The land

Chapter 2: Anglo-Saxon gastronomy

Chapter 3: Norman gourmets 1100-1300

Chapter 4: Anarchy and haute cuisine 1300-1500

Chapter 5: Tudor wealth and domesticity

Chapter 6: A divided century

Chapter 7: Other island appetites

Chapter 8: Glories of the country estate

Chapter 9: Industry and empire

Chapter 10: Victorian food

Chapter 11: Food for all

Chapter 12: The global village

Appendix I. Wild food plants of the British Isles

Appendix II. Traditional British cooking.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

HSP Historic Culinary Arts Collection.

ISBN:

0231131100

9780231131100

OCLC:

1020185823