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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."
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