Great food

   
    Penguin are about to publish a wonderful series called Great Food, twenty books which bring together "the sharpest, funniest, most delicious writing about food from the past four hundred years." Celebrating food writing as writing, and not just as a means to convey instructions, the series ranges from Gervase Markham whose The Well-kept Kitchen (1615) is a handbook for housewives, to Alice Waters, founder of the slow food movement, whose Recipes and Lessons from a Delicious Cooking Revolution brings us right up to date.

 
    From Agnes Jekyll and Isabella Beeton to Claudia Roden and Elizabeth David, Samuel Pepys, Alexis Soyer and more, writers share their hunger and enthusiasm, their particular pleasures and predilections, to inform and entertain. Whether you're a foodie, have a keen interest in social history, or just enjoy fine writing, there will be something here for you, and if you're like me, you'll covet the entire set!

    I have advance copies of two of the series here, Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by M.F.K. Fisher, who is a great favourite of mine, and A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, and Other Essays by Charles Lamb which explores the joys of food and our complicated social relationship with it in playful, sensuous, mocking and mischievous manner.

    I'll come back to these books soon when I've had a chance to digest their contents, but I can't leave the series just now without commenting on their beautiful covers; to see the whole set, click here.

Comments

[Darlene]

Perfect! I'm much more of a baker than cook but I do love to read about other people working magic in the kitchen.

[MelD]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the illustrator Coralie Bickford-Smith, who also designed the covers for a series of classics (apparently not the same ones in the UK and the US)... she's obviously very talented and I'd buy these books for the aesthetic alone ;)) oh yes, the content is probably fantastic, too!!!