Food And Drink In Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century

by C. Anne Wilson

C. Anne Wilson Traces culinary practices and preferences from our earliest prehistoric forbears down to the generation of the Industrial Revolution, and offers an extraordinary taste of the times. She provides a tabletop perspective on class structure, religion, politics, and social custom, generously seasoned with such culinary and cultural tidbits as the importance of salt in English history and the role of romance in England's first taste of the wines of southernmost France. Readers will become acquainted with the sources of many of our current tastes and conventions. Discover "macrows," the prototype of macaroni, and that "whales, porpoises and sturgeon were all royal fish." Meringue, to the Elizabethans, was a "dishful of snow," and rather difficult to whip up before the advent of the fork in the late 17th century. Before the Reformation all buns were "hot cross" in order to ward off evil spirits that might prevent the bread rising. Adventurous readers who wish to dine as their ancestors did may do so; Ms. Wilson includes many authentic recipes—such as 17th century rice pudding—which add flavor of a unique kind. This cornucopia of custom and cuisine provides plenty of food for thought for everyone, and what could be of more interest if we are, indeed, what we eat?

Genres: History, Food, Nonfiction, Food History, Medieval, Cookbooks, Food and Drink

452 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Constance Anne Wilson (in her published works C. Anne Wilson) is a British food historian. She was previously in charge of the special collection of cookery books at the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, Leeds, England.
She published the wide-ranging Food and Drink in Britain in 1973, and her more specialised The Book of Marmalade: its antecedents, its history and its rôle in the world today won the 1984 Diagram Prize for the oddest title of the year at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
In 2006 she published Water of Life: a history of wine-distilling and spirits; 500 BC - AD 2000.
She has edited several volumes of the proceedings of the Leeds Symposium on Food History and Tradition.

Reviews

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent account of pretty much all aspects of foodways in the British Isles (focused on England but also including Wales, Scotland, and Ireland). Instead of the book being arranged chronologically, each chapter focuses on a particular food type (Seafish, Freshwater Fish and Salt; Game Beasts and Tame Beasts; Wild Fowl, Tame Fowl and Eggs; Milk, Cheese, and Butter; Cereals, Potherbs, and Pottage; Bread, Cakes and Pastry; Spices, Sweeteners, Sausages and Puddings; Fruit and Salad Vegetables; Drinking in Britain) and each chapter is then organized chronologically showing the evolution of each food type through production, trade and marketing, preparation, and serving. My only criticism is that, despite the title, there us not much food information from the Victorian-era; Each section covers prehistory through the 18th Century, while anything after the early 19th Century is shoehorned into a separate 3-page long chapter entitled "The Nineteenth Century and After." While this book is primarily a food microhistory, there are a good number of period recipes - but, be warned, that the only alterations the author made is to normalize spelling; these are mostly not recipes for the modern cook. Very readable and informative. Strong four stars.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A completely fabulous, highly readable (though not gossipy in the slightest) treatise on edibles in Britain from cavemen to the Victorians. The book is mostly made of the histories of various dishes and ingredients, and traces the slow evolution of, say, rice pudding. Intermingled are recipes like: "For to make spinee. Take the flowers of the hawthorn, clean gathered, and bray them all to dust, and temper them with almond milk, and allay it with amidon, and with eggs will thick, and boil it. And mess it forth; and flowers and leaves laid above on." WHAT? I love this stuff.

[Emy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the things I loved about this book was the way Wilson takes each foodstuff seperately. Rather than writing an account of 'this is the diet in the palaeolithic period' and so on through time, she takes an item, like Bread, or Eggs, or Wheat, and deals with that exclusively.

[Paul Burnette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful reference. Nicely detailed and organized. Very helpful information for a writer working on stories set in 2500-1500 BCE, though I would have liked more specifics on that era rather than the later centuries.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for passionate cooks and food historians alike. Detailed and thorough research and a fine writing style. I enjoyed every page.

[Jane Austen]

“marzipan was a discovery of the later Middle Ages, dependent as it was upon the union of ground almonds with sugar. One of the earliest uses for the paste was in subtleties. When they had been sufficiently applauded they were dismantled and eaten. In the fifteenth century a marchpane began to emerge as a sweet in its own right. And by Elizabeth I's reign, when the subtlety was becoming archiaic, a marchpane was regularly produced as the chief showpiece at the banquet or dessert course served to guests at the end of a meal. It was made of ground almonds and sugar on a base of wafer biscuits, and was formed into a round (a hoop of green hazelwood sometimes helped shape it). The frosting of the marchpane with sugar and rosewater to make it shine like ice was an important part of the preparation; and so was the gilding with decorative shapes in gold leaf."

Excellent book!
https://www.janeausten.co.uk/mollands...