Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking - Hardcover

There is nothing new under the sun. As Kate Colquhoun’s utterly fascinating Taste proves, this nation has always been fascinated by food and cookery, even though it's the more recent explosion of media interest that has made the subject seem omnipresent. Subtitled The Story of Britain through its Cooking, Colquhoun’s brief is to take us on a mesmerising journey from the Roman era right up to the age of bullying TV celebrity chefs.

The book arrives emblazoned with recommendations from such august cookery figures as Marguerite Patten, and mixes sharp social history into its examination of 2000 years of culinary experimentation and achievement. The early Britons enjoyed wild boar feasts, and such delicacies as olive oil and spices were introduced in Roman Britain, and there have been few periods when the English have not been trying to tickle the taste buds in new and inventive ways (even in the straightened times of wartime rationing, great invention could be found in utilising what few ingredients were available).

Colquhoun poses (and answers) a massive range of intriguing questions such as: what was the common factor between roast meat and morality in the 18th century? And why did the Black Death inaugurate new conditions for rural baking? Colquhoun set herself a daunting task with this ambitious book, but Taste succeeds triumphantly in both entertaining and informing. If you read it, you'll be able to enlighten (or bore) friends with a million and one arcane facts about food and cookery. But the thing that most of us will take away from the book is the realisation that the novelties of modern cooking that we pride ourselves on are not quite as novel as we thought -- our ancestors were very imaginative in the kitchen. --Barry Forshaw

"Charming details appear on every page of this fluently written survey." -- Bee Wilson, Sunday Times Culture

"Read Taste when you are hungry-by the end you will feel very, very full." -- Jenny Uglow, Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

"Taste is a treat. Stuffed with scholarly information yet whisked up as light as a soufflé."
-- Jenny Uglow, Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

"The book teems with pleasing insights." -- Paul Levy, Observer

"This is a fascinating book, brilliantly researched and involvingly presented." -- Tim Martin, Daily Telegraph

'Kate Colquhoun is the perfect combination of a meticulous social historian and gifted writer, one who combines information with anecdote to make this a readable history of Britain through its food.' -- The Bookseller, July 20, 2007

Every page is packed with good things, historical and cuinary, peppered
with personalities and salted with wit... Colquhoun makes each period
swim into view through little snapshots of the people and their
culture... We learn of generations of cooks and kitchen maids and
boys, follow the development of technology from Roman cauldrons and
Tudor spits to tinned foods and microwaves and trace the fashions and
shifts in meal times, utensils and place settings. From the mead halls
of Beowulf to 1960s cocktail parties, Taste is a treat, stuffed with
scholarly information yet whisked up light as a souffle... -- Jenny Uglow, The Sunday Telegraph

Every page is packed with good things, historical and cuinary, peppered with personalities and salted with wit... Colquhoun makes each period swim into view through little snapshots of the people and their culture... We learn of generations of cooks and kitchen maids and boys, follow the development of technology from Roman cauldrons and Tudor spits to tinned foods and microwaves and trace the fashions and shifts in meal times, utensils and place settings. From the mead halls of Beowulf to 1960s cocktail parties, Taste is a treat, stuffed with scholarly information yet whisked up light as a souffle...
-- Jenny Uglow, The Sunday Telegraph

Kate Colquhoun's delightfully savoury stamp through the past shows the
history of British cooking, like that of our language, has been one of
adaptation and imitation... not only is it a fascinating and surprising
story; it says more good things about the British than we might
imagine... Crucially, in such a history, Colquhoun excels at evoking
the smells and tastes of the past... this is z book that delights in
overturning our notions of the past... A fascinating book, brilliantly
researched and involvingly presented. -- The Telegraph

`Kate Colquhoun has done an engaging and admirable job of exploring one of food history's richest areas, British food. To understand Britain or understand the central role of food in history, read this book.' -- Mark Kurlansky