Portal:Food/Selected article/45

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Food in England is a 1954 book by the social historian Dorothy Hartley. It is both a cookery book and a history of English cuisine. It was acclaimed on publication; the contemporary critic Harold Nicolson described the book as a classic. It has remained in print ever since.

The book provides what has been called an idiosyncratic and a combative take on the history of English cooking. The book is unusual as a history in not citing its sources, serving more as an oral social history from Hartley's own experiences as she travelled England as a journalist for the Daily Sketch, interviewing "the last generation to have had countryside lives sharing something in common with the Tudors." The book strikes some readers as principally a history, but it consists mainly of recipes. Some of these such as stargazey pie are old-fashioned, but all are practical recipes that can be cooked. (Full article...)