by Pen Vogler (Atlantic £20, 480 pp)
‘Tell me what you eat,’ pronounced 19th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin, ‘and I will tell you what you are.’
In Britain, few things better reveal our place in the nation’s complex class structure than our eating habits. When do you eat ‘dinner’? At midday or in the early evening?
Why did the avocado become such a signifier of ‘middle class’? How did oysters, food of the poor in Victorian England, become a delicacy for the better off?
Pen Vogler provides a fascinating social history of British food through the centuries and throws in a selection of enticing recipes from the past for good measure.