Nicola Humble Books

Presents the history of Britain's culinary evolution through the cookery books which have inspired us over the course of a century, beginning with Mrs Beeton and leading to the rise of the celebrity TV chef.

Anne Elliot, persuaded by family and friends that the charming and handsome Frederick Wentworth is not worthy of her regard, questions her decision to send him away until he returns seven years later, his circumstances much improved.

Be it a birthday or a wedding—let them eat cake. Encased in icing, crowned with candles, emblazoned with congratulatory words—cake is the ultimate food of celebration in many cultures around the world. But how did cake come to be the essential food marker of a significant occasion? In A Global History , Nicola Humble explores the meanings, legends, rituals, and symbolism attached to cake through the ages. Humble describes the many national differences in cake-making techniques, customs, and regional histories—from the French gâteau Paris-Brest , named for a cycle race and designed to imitate the form of a bicycle wheel, to the American Lady Baltimore cake, likely named for a fictional cake in a 1906 novel by Owen Wister. She also details the role of cake in literature, art, and film—including Miss Havisham’s imperishable wedding cake in Great Expectations and Marcel Proust’s madeleine of memory—as well as the art and architecture of cake making itself. Featuring a large selection of mouthwatering images, as well as many examples and recipes for some particularly unusual cakes, Cake will provide many sweet reasons for celebration.

Covering every aspect of food within literary texts, from experimental cook books to the sumptuous dinner parties at the heart of every Victorian Novel, The Literature of Food is the first comprehensive study of its kind and a must-buy for students on literature and food courses.