For a while now, we’ve been living through a renaissance of classical British cooking: a whole host of restaurants have been embracing the joy of the old school, the pies and puddings, the traditional and the retro. But there’s something missing. Bring back the savoury! An Edwardian favourite, a ‘savoury’ was an extra course that
For sheer volume of words produced, it’s hard to beat Ambrose Heath. A newspaper columnist, Heath wrote (and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote) about comestibles. And in an admirable act of recycling, he turned his many columns into books. He authored Good Food in 1932 and More Good Food in 1933. By the end of 1939, he had cranked out some 20 books more, among them Good Savouries, Good Potato Dishes, Good Soups, Good Sweets, Good Dishes from Tinned Foods, and (the reason I have been reading the groaning shelves born of Heath’s fecund pen) Good Drinks.
Last modified on Sat 8 May 2021 03.38 EDT
On the front page of the first Guardian was an advert for the first vegetarian cookbook: “A NEW system of VEGETABLE COOKERY with an INTRODUCTION recommending abstinence from ANIMAL FOOD AND INTOXICATING LIQUORS.” The book was written anonymously by Martha Brotherton, wife of the campaigning minister of the Bible Christian Church, Joseph Brotherton, Salford’s first MP. They were later to become leading figures in the Vegetarian Society, which had its inaugural annual meeting in Manchester in 1848.
The Guardian attended the Vegetarian Society’s 1850 banquet and soiree, reporting in detail on the spread of mushroom pies, fritters, “omelets” and moulded sago, the floral arrangements, the philosophical beliefs of the guests that meat-eating led to aggression, and their disgust at the diseased meat on sale in London, Manchester, Oldham and Bolton. The 1874 soiree sounded lively, with a guest ranting about “blood lickers” and deman