This book offers an enticing mix of social and culinary history, discussion of culinary artifacts, excellent and well tested recipes, and informative and attractive line illustrations by the author.



The books opens with a survey of the inhabitants of the county: the pitmen; the farmers and their labourers; the lead miners; the fishermen and the mariners; not forgetting the poor (note that this books is not concerned with the upper classes – and that itself is a revolution). It then moves on to the food itself with separate chapters on meat, fish, vegetables, puddings, cakes, drinks, breads, the store cupboard, and the dairy. The final three chapters look at feasts and celebrations, calendar customers, and rites of passage.



It cannot be sufficiently stressed that the traditional food of England has never so far been subjected to such rigorous inspection.

Peter Brears