Just under two years ago I wrote a post about Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel The Light Years, the first novel in a series of five – The Cazalet Chronicles – a family saga spanning three generations and unfolding between 1937 and 1950. The Light Years covers the build-up to the Second World War and – in culinary terms – is a masterclass in the writer’s use of food to locate a story in a particular moment in time. Continue reading “Food as distraction”
Tag: plums
Childhood Nostalgia
There was no scolding for being late. There was stewed fruit on the kitchen table and a rice pudding in the oven, of which those who felt hungry partook, and glasses of milk all round. And, even then, they did not have to go to bed…
(Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford)
If we are honest most of us are ‘guilty’ of looking back on our past – or parts of it – through rose-tinted spectacles. Between the ages of 8 and 10 I lived in a huge, Victorian vicarage in rural North Devon. I remember the fun of having attic rooms to play in, the open fires over which we toasted crumpets in the winter, the huge garden boasting three massive horse chestnut trees, the conkers from which all the village children wanted to come and collect for conker fights in the school playground. Continue reading “Childhood Nostalgia”