Food and the pastoral

In 2015 James Rebank’s The Shepherd’s Life was published to great acclaim. The book describes the way of life of shepherds in the Lake District, as practised by Rebanks himself, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Continue reading “Food and the pastoral”

Food and paranoia

In Virginia Feito’s debut novel Mrs March, a food establishment – the eponymous protagonist’s ‘favorite patisserie – a lovely little place with a red awning and a whitewashed bench in front’ – is the site of a humiliating episode that precipitates a nightmareish journey into paranoia. Continue reading “Food and paranoia”

Food and the nun’s life

When I started my A Level English Literature studies in the late 1980s, the first text I had to read was one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale). I’d never encountered medieval literature before, but from the outset I was hooked. Continue reading “Food and the nun’s life”