Movable Feasts: Changes in English Eating Habits

by Arnold Palmer, David Pocock (Introduction)

An informative and amusing treatis on eating habits from 1780 to 1900 with engaging anecdotes of menus and manners.

Genres: History

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What we take as natural and normal ISN'T!!!!
Our furniture, utensils, clothing, hairdos...you name it!! ...ALL have a history - a changing, evolving , colourful history. In England in 1786 people breakfasted at 11am.(Yeeks!!!),dined at 4pm, drank tea at 7pm and at 10pm had a little bit of supper.
They did not create this schedule; they had inherited it and were free to modify it. The "dining" bit, dinner, got later and later. Now some modern apartments in Sydney are built without kitchens. Not because dinner has been abandoned, but because people no longer have the time or the inclination to prepare it and would prefer to eat out. With the dawning recession some people may be installing a kitchen, establishing a vegetable garden and eating cheap by cooking dinner themselves. SEE...changing, evolving...and colourful???

I'll tell you more from this gem of a book when I've reread it. Or you might just beat me to it!!!
Just don't be late for dinner, whenever that bloody well is!!!!

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was charming, and I enjoyed it, but I could not help thinking throughout how much easier (and more accurate) the book would have been if Palmer had had access to Google Books & ngrams. I am left wanting to read some recent scholarship on the same topics, to see how accurate he was.