Food Britannia

Product Description

British food has not traditionally been regarded as one of the worlds great cuisines & yet Stilton cheese Scottish raspberries Goosnargh duck & Welsh lamb are internationally renowned & celebrated. & then there are all those dishes & recipes that inspire passionate loyalty among the initiated: Whitby lemon buns & banoffi pie for example; pan haggerty & Hendersons relish. All are as integral a part of the countrys landscape as green fields rolling hills & rocky coastline. In Food Britannia Andrew Webb travels the country to bring together a treasury of regional dishes traditional recipes outstanding ingredients & heroic local producers. He investigates the history of saffron farming in the UK tastes the first whisky to be produced in Wales for one hundred years & tracks down the New Forests foremost expert on wild mushrooms. & along the way he uncovers some historical surprises about our national cuisine. Did you know for example that the method for making clotted cream that stalwart of the cream tea was probably introduced from the Middle East? Or that our very own fish & chips may have started life as a Jewish-Portuguese dish? Or that Alfred Bird invented his famous custard powder because his wife couldnt eat eggs? The result is a rich & kaleidoscopic survey of a remarkably vibrant food scene steeped in history but full of fresh ideas for the future: proof if proof were needed that British food has come of age.