The home of hungry readers
There was a great stir in the milk-house just after breakfast. The churn revolved as usual, but the butter would not come. Whenever this happened the dairy was paralyzed. Squish, squash, echoed the milk in the great cylinder, but never arose the sound they waited for.
(Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles) Continue reading “Food and Country Life”
Until I visited Pompeii – during a holiday on the Amalfi coast a few years ago – I had always assumed take-aways were a recent invention. But in the ancient Italian city devastated by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, the streets were lined with thermopolia, service counters opening onto the street where people could buy food to take away. There were more than 200 of these in Pompeii, and the remains of houses show few traces of kitchen and dining areas, suggesting that cooking at home was unusual. Continue reading “The Take-Away in Literature”
Today marks the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Bronte, the eldest of the three novelist sisters. Having previously blogged about food in Jane Eyre (published 1847), I thought that today would be a good opportunity to revisit these posts and what we learn about food in Bronte’s best-known novel. Continue reading “Charlotte Bronte and food”
I love eating out almost as much as I love cooking. And living in London as I do, I’m lucky enough to have an amazing array of restaurants within easy reach offering me all types of food. Continue reading “Eating Out”