A joyful collection of vignettes told in a highly humorous fashion that touches on two things which interest me significantly: cooking/food and English social anthropology. Slater's premise is to attempt to give a description of English food. Axiomatically, it is difficult (or impossible) to reduce this to one thing, hence the exploration of all that makes our cuisine what it is. Beyond food and drink, Slater is also good on modes of behaviour: not just the why of consumption but the how too. The remit is necessarily broad but captured effectively. Slater is particularly funny on topics as diverse as why our default is to boil (over, say, frying or grilling) and why the Brits can spend hours debating the merits of which biscuit is best for dunking in tea. The shortness of anecdote and the random ordering may irritate some readers, but this is a great book to dip in and out of.
By Nigel Slater