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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”Fish and chips, bacon and curry in particular … These meals are more than food - more even than good food. They’re soul. Heart. Comfort. Home. They’re who I really am, and possibly, who many of us really are.”
In Britain, we have always had an awkward relationship with food. We’ve been told for so long that we are terrible cooks and yet according to a 2012 YouGov survey, our traditional food and drink are more important than the monarchy and at least as significant as our landscape and national monuments in defining a collective notion of who we are. Taking nine archetypically British dishes - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - and examining them in their perfect context, Pete Brown reveals just how fundamental food is to our sense of identity, perhaps even our sense of pride, and the ways in which we understand our place in the world.
Pete Brown is a food and drink commentator and food award judge. This is a fascinating look at 9 dishes that have come to be regarded as quintessentially British (including curry, cream teas and fish and chips) with Brown mixing comment on their development, place in British society, questions of authenticity and what they say about British class and culture with his own relationship with food, having grown up working class in Barnsley.
I picked this up because although I have never been much of a foodie, I am fascinated by the role that food plays in society and particularly in British society. I had not come across Brown before but he is a tremendously engaging writer and one of the things that makes this book stand out is how much it draws on his own life and his own feelings as regards food and his upbringing. His background as the son of a working class Barnsley family whose father usually worked nights at a factory (resulting in the absence of his presence) and how he moved past his roots to go to St Andrew’s University and then work in advertising in London give this book an emotional core. This is a book about Brown’s relationship with food and his memory of meals as much as it is about Britain’s relationship with it and class attitudes are a theme that pervades the book.
The 9 dishes selected for the book - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - are chosen as much as for their importance to Brown as to Britain. I very much enjoyed the way that Brown mixes in some of the history of the development or introduction of the dishes to the UK as much as he talks about the cultural and social implications. For example, I hadn’t realised how often working class people used to eat fish and chips because it was cheap and had a high calorific content while also being a rare chance to have a hot meal as many poor people lacked facilities at home. Brown is also very astute in his observations about class attitudes towards food, particularly the way in which certain people look down their nose at food enjoyed by others. He makes a particularly keen point about how this plays into discussions about “authenticity” (notably in the chapters on spag bol and curry) and a recurring theme in the text is how the British don’t show the same pride in their dishes that other countries have in theirs.
All in all, I found this a deeply absorbing and interesting read and I learnt far more about the process of making cheese than I ever thought I’d be interested in discovering. On the strength of it, I would definitely check out Brown’s other books.
The Verdict:
Pete Brown is a food and drink commentator and food award judge. This is a fascinating look at 9 dishes that have come to be regarded as quintessentially British (including curry, cream teas and fish and chips) with Brown mixing comment on their development, place in British society, questions of authenticity and what they say about British class and culture with his own relationship with food, having grown up working class in Barnsley.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
In Britain, we have always had an awkward relationship with food. We’ve been told for so long that we are terrible cooks and yet according to a 2012 YouGov survey, our traditional food and drink are more important than the monarchy and at least as significant as our landscape and national monuments in defining a collective notion of who we are. Taking nine archetypically British dishes - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - and examining them in their perfect context, Pete Brown reveals just how fundamental food is to our sense of identity, perhaps even our sense of pride, and the ways in which we understand our place in the world.
Pete Brown is a food and drink commentator and food award judge. This is a fascinating look at 9 dishes that have come to be regarded as quintessentially British (including curry, cream teas and fish and chips) with Brown mixing comment on their development, place in British society, questions of authenticity and what they say about British class and culture with his own relationship with food, having grown up working class in Barnsley.
I picked this up because although I have never been much of a foodie, I am fascinated by the role that food plays in society and particularly in British society. I had not come across Brown before but he is a tremendously engaging writer and one of the things that makes this book stand out is how much it draws on his own life and his own feelings as regards food and his upbringing. His background as the son of a working class Barnsley family whose father usually worked nights at a factory (resulting in the absence of his presence) and how he moved past his roots to go to St Andrew’s University and then work in advertising in London give this book an emotional core. This is a book about Brown’s relationship with food and his memory of meals as much as it is about Britain’s relationship with it and class attitudes are a theme that pervades the book.
The 9 dishes selected for the book - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - are chosen as much as for their importance to Brown as to Britain. I very much enjoyed the way that Brown mixes in some of the history of the development or introduction of the dishes to the UK as much as he talks about the cultural and social implications. For example, I hadn’t realised how often working class people used to eat fish and chips because it was cheap and had a high calorific content while also being a rare chance to have a hot meal as many poor people lacked facilities at home. Brown is also very astute in his observations about class attitudes towards food, particularly the way in which certain people look down their nose at food enjoyed by others. He makes a particularly keen point about how this plays into discussions about “authenticity” (notably in the chapters on spag bol and curry) and a recurring theme in the text is how the British don’t show the same pride in their dishes that other countries have in theirs.
All in all, I found this a deeply absorbing and interesting read and I learnt far more about the process of making cheese than I ever thought I’d be interested in discovering. On the strength of it, I would definitely check out Brown’s other books.
The Verdict:
Pete Brown is a food and drink commentator and food award judge. This is a fascinating look at 9 dishes that have come to be regarded as quintessentially British (including curry, cream teas and fish and chips) with Brown mixing comment on their development, place in British society, questions of authenticity and what they say about British class and culture with his own relationship with food, having grown up working class in Barnsley.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
