Eating Albion

Left to right - Top row
Silver Spoon
Japanese Cooking
BBQ fFood for Friends
Fish
Last food of England
Les Halles Cookbook
Last Chance to Eat
Julie and Julia
Food in England
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Englishman’s Food (1957)
A Cook’s Tour
Culinary Pleasures
Heat
Kitchen Con
Cookery Illustrated (1914)
Seven Centuries of English Cooking
Londoner’s Larder
Tarts With Tops
Morocco: World Cuisine
Trolley Wars

Left to right - Bottom row
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management
Traditional Foods of Britain (this is a new Harper Collins reprint in 5 vols)
Food Mania
Feast: A History of Grand Dining
Food: A History
Not on the Label
Tasting Tuscany
The Accidental Connoisseur
Choice Cuts
The Potato
Fast Food Nation
Everything I Ate
Kafka’s Soup
The Perfectionist
Beef and Liberty
The Devil’s Picnic
Cutting it Fine
Cookery in England
The Amateur Gourmet
Eating for England
The Land that Thyme Forgot (not pictured as it’s on loan)

A small collection but an interesting one I feel. As you can see, there’s a strong lean on British/English cooking. Of particular note is Drummond’s ‘The Englishman’s Food’ which was a Christmas present a few years ago, and I now see Amazon is offering for £65. Drummond led an interesting lift having been a top nutritionist during the war he worked hard to try and improve the nations health. Sadly he was murdered along with his second wife and child in France in ‘52. There was talk recently of him being a spy and the case still provokes discussion in France today, perhaps due to the way his 10 year old daughter was murdered. Instead of being shot like her parents, her head was smashed in with the butt of the rifle. Grusome.

As you can see I don’t really go in for modern celeb recipe books too much, I’m more of a ‘history of’ kind of a guy. Why? Well, most recipes you can now find on-line nowadays. Not only that, but if I want to make say Thai green curry, do I need Delia’s recipe or some Thai teenager who’s blogged about her Gran’s recipe? And this is my problem with a lot of recipe books today, the question of authenticity.

Ayrton’s ‘Cooking in England’ and Hartley’s ‘Food in England’ are my desert island books. Hartley also lead an interesting life, she once came home to find a burgler, unfazed she sat him down and gave him something to eat, before sending him on his way and calling the police. He later gave himself up. ‘Food in England’ contains some fantastic illustrations too. More on her here and here.

And last and by all means least. Dick Emery’s cookbook, a birthday present from a friend. Some of the recipes are terrible however!

If you’re after expanding your collection of books on food rather than just £25 celeb cookbooks from Waterstones, you should head to Books for Cooks in Notting Hill. There is one other unique old book in my collection, but more on that another time.