Until the middle of the nineteenth century, English cuisine was known throughout Europe as extraordinarily stylish, tasteful, and contemporary, designed to satisfy sophisticated palates. So, as Colin Spencer asks, why did British food "decline so direly that it became a world-wide joke, and how is it now climbing back into eminence?" This delectable volume traces the rich variety of foods that are inescapably British -- and the thousand years of history behind them. Colin Spencer's masterful and witty account 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. The Victorians also harbored suspicions that raw foods were harmful, encouraged by the publication of a key cookbook of the period, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. 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."

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: Prologue: The Land After the Romans The Early Church The Countryside Livestock Open Field System Women and the Law Chapter 2: Anglo-Saxon Gastronomy Foods and Fasts Cooking the Food Food for the Elite Feast Halls Herbal Knowledge The Famine Years Chapter 3: Norman Gourmets 1100-1300 The Normans The Earliest Recipes Medieval Sauces Spice and Splendour Colouring The Four Humours Fasting Fish Preservation Game The Kitchen Fruit and Vegetables The Anglo-Norman Cuisine The Significance of the Cuisine Chapter 4: Anarchy and Haute Cuisine 1300-1500 Famine and Feast The Black Death The Forme of Cury A Country Household The Medieval Housewife Milk Drinking Pilgrim Food The Aristocratic Diet The Peasant Diet The Peasant Diet The Church The Wars of the Roses Chapter 5: Tudor Wealth and Domesticity The Reformation Royal Proclamations Tudor Farming Food of the Star Chamber Tudor Cooking Preserving Wealth and Commerce Class Chapter 6: A Divided Century Civil War Gentlewomen's Secrets The Bedford Kitchen The Rise of the Market Garden The Accomplish't Cook New Beverages Samuel Pepys John Evelyn The Rise of Capitalism New Thoughts on Farming Cow's Milk A Coronation and Patrick Lamb, Court Cook La Varenne Chapter 7: Other Island Appetites Ireland Early Medieval Ireland Late Medieval Period The Potato and Famine Modern Period Scotland Early Agriculture The Food The French Influence The Eighteenth Century The Role of Women Scottish Cookery Wales Early Riches The Gentry Cattle Droves Welsh Food The Twentieth Century Chapter 8: Glories of the Country Estate Enclosures Change and Display The Technology of Cooking Tea Time The French and Hannah Glasse Sea Travel White Bread and Potatoes Women Cooks The Country Estate Parson Woodforde Chapter 9: Industry and Empire A Leap Forward The Disappearance of Peasant Cooking A New Town Servants and Cooks Jane Austen and the Brontes Breakfast Street Food Fish and Chips The Food of the Poor Chapter 10: Victorian Food Isabella Beeton Beeton's Book A La Russe French and British Cooking Cheap Imports Convenience Food The Rise of the Fancy Biscuits Drinking Milk Reasons for the Decline of British Cooking Chapter 11: Food for All Food for Heroes Working Class Food Milk Crisis J. Lyons & Co. Ltd. First World War Social Upheaval British Canned Food Diet in the Thirties Rebirth of a Cuisine New Technology and Middle Class Cooking Second World War The Age of Austerity Cordon Bleu Fifties Food Elizabeth David Going Ethnic Chapter 12: The Global Village Health Foods Fast Food Fast Food Diet Towards the Millennium Farming Crisis World Trade The Essential British Cuisine Rebirth of the British Cuisine Appendix I: Wild Food Plants of the British Isles Appendix II: The Traditional British Cooking Notes Glossary Glossary of Conversions Picture Credits Select Bibliography Index

Author Biography

Colin Spencer is an author and playwright and was food editor for The Guardian for thirteen years. He is the author of Vegetarianism: A History and co-author of The Faber Book of Food.