The Language of Foodby Annabel Abbs
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781398502239
Publication Date: March 2, 2022
Pages: 399
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
England 1835. Eliza Acton is a poet who dreams of seeing her words in print. But when she takes her new manuscript to a publisher, she’s told that ‘poetry is not the business of a lady’. Instead, they want her to write a cookery book. That’s what readers really want from women. England is awash with exciting new ingredients, from spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them
Eliza leaves the offices appalled. But when her father is forced to flee the country for bankruptcy, she has no choice but to consider the proposal. Never having cooked before, she is determined to learn and to discover, if she can, the poetry in recipe writing. To assist her, she hires seventeen-year-old Ann Kirby, the impoverished daughter of a war-crippled father and a mother with dementia.
Over the course of ten years, Eliza and Ann developed an unusual friendship – one that crossed social classes and divides – and, together, they broke the mould of traditional cookbooks and changed the course of cookery writing forever.
Not quite as good as I’d hoped it would be, but maybe that’s because it also felt a bit different that I expected. This is a fictional work based on the real life of Elizabeth Acton, author of what is considered to be one of the world’s most successful cookery writers, with Modern Cookery for Private Families first published in 1845 and was a best seller internationally for the next 90 years.
Abbs, condensed the 10 years Acton worked on the cookbook, along with her assistant/servant Ann Kirby, and imagined how the partnership might have worked. I think she did a great job, and I was enjoying it right up until the end, where it did so rather abruptly. Acton returns home from a visit to her sister’s, full of enthusiasm, energy, and plans to add a chapter on bread, enters the kitchen to hear Ann humming, and BAM! The next page is the Epilogue. It was disorienting, to say the least.
Otherwise, it was an enjoyable, if not exactly riveting, read. I knew nothing about Acton (as I try never to cook), but by the time I finished this book, I planning on trawling the used book sites for a copy of Modern Cookery for Private Families, even though I have no plans to start cooking. I think it was the scene involving quince paste. I’m intrigued by quinces and would be willing to try my hand at paste. Anyway, a good read, with some great author notes at the end about what’s accurate and what’s story-telling. It’s always a bonus when fiction can be educational too.