Janet
25th June 2008, 20:16
The ‘Blurb’
The British are an eclectic bunch, and no more so than when it comes to food. Eating for England is Nigel Slater's affectionate and lively journey around the food - and characters - we find in our shops and kitchens nationwide. Fondly remember Chocolate Limes, or Old English Spangles? Love Fruit & Nut, Dairylea Triangles, pear drops and Rich Tea? You aren't alone - food is at the heart of the nation's collective memory, and in bite-sized anecdotes, Nigel celebrates British food past and present from all corners of the country. And there's tongue-in-cheek homage paid to the Kitchen Fusspot, the Voucher Queen, the Tight-Arse Cook, and the other curious characters that seem to emerge wherever there's food to be boasted about, cooked, or eaten ...
Having enjoyed Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater, I thought this would be a great read.
I wish I hadn't bothered with it now! Whilst some bits were mildly enjoyable, I ended up skim reading a lot of it. It had great premise, with chapters named after the food from the 60s, 70s and 80s, e.g 'Jacob's Club', 'Fry's Five Centres', 'The Ritual of the KitKat' and 'Bisto' etc I thought it would be a walk though my childhood.
However, then I got to the chapter "washing up" and couldn't believe the sexist nonsense he was spewing. I mean, the following statement might have been true in the 1950s but now...?!
An announcement that “having a machine is not the same as when you do it yourself” is perhaps the last, desperate cry of the woman worried her position might be in jeopardy. The idea that she could be replaced by a machine is a thread altogether too real. Losing her husband to another woman would be one thing, but to a machine that did the dishes would be a humiliation altogether too much to bear.
With his slagging off of other celebrity chefs and his sweeping generalisation that British stews are "the colour of washing-up water and smell of old people" (his might be, mine aren't) I decided he was so far up his own backside that I've gone right off him.
What a disappointment.
The paperback is 280 pages long and is published by Harper Perennial. The ISBN number is 978-0007199471.
2˝/10
The British are an eclectic bunch, and no more so than when it comes to food. Eating for England is Nigel Slater's affectionate and lively journey around the food - and characters - we find in our shops and kitchens nationwide. Fondly remember Chocolate Limes, or Old English Spangles? Love Fruit & Nut, Dairylea Triangles, pear drops and Rich Tea? You aren't alone - food is at the heart of the nation's collective memory, and in bite-sized anecdotes, Nigel celebrates British food past and present from all corners of the country. And there's tongue-in-cheek homage paid to the Kitchen Fusspot, the Voucher Queen, the Tight-Arse Cook, and the other curious characters that seem to emerge wherever there's food to be boasted about, cooked, or eaten ...
Having enjoyed Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater, I thought this would be a great read.
I wish I hadn't bothered with it now! Whilst some bits were mildly enjoyable, I ended up skim reading a lot of it. It had great premise, with chapters named after the food from the 60s, 70s and 80s, e.g 'Jacob's Club', 'Fry's Five Centres', 'The Ritual of the KitKat' and 'Bisto' etc I thought it would be a walk though my childhood.
However, then I got to the chapter "washing up" and couldn't believe the sexist nonsense he was spewing. I mean, the following statement might have been true in the 1950s but now...?!
An announcement that “having a machine is not the same as when you do it yourself” is perhaps the last, desperate cry of the woman worried her position might be in jeopardy. The idea that she could be replaced by a machine is a thread altogether too real. Losing her husband to another woman would be one thing, but to a machine that did the dishes would be a humiliation altogether too much to bear.
With his slagging off of other celebrity chefs and his sweeping generalisation that British stews are "the colour of washing-up water and smell of old people" (his might be, mine aren't) I decided he was so far up his own backside that I've gone right off him.
What a disappointment.
The paperback is 280 pages long and is published by Harper Perennial. The ISBN number is 978-0007199471.
2˝/10