The Language of Food: "Mouth-watering and sensuous, a real feast for the imagination" BRIDGET COLLINS

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Clever, unsentimental, beautifully detailed and quietly riveting' Elizabeth Buchan, author of Two Women in Rome The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs is definitely a book to savour, but be prepared to salivate as you visualise and imagine the dishes being tested, prepared and devoured. Abbs provides phrases to roll around your tongue and plenty of description so you can immerse yourself in the sensual writing and imagine yourself in the character's shoes. I particularly related to Ann Kirby, and enjoyed this section describing the first three days of her employment by Miss Eliza Acton:

The characterizations are well done, with both women growing emotionally, gaining confidence and strength as individuals and as partners, each achieving their own personal and professional satisfaction.As a book, this didn't really feel very cohesive, more a random collection of articles probably written for something else originally and just gathered together here. And the writing style was a bit variable as well. Some chapters feel quite narrative and flowed well, some felt pretty dry. Worth reading, but not that great. The fact that it was by Dan Jurafsky made a lot more sense when I figured that bit out. Because of course he's doing corpus work. Before I started reading it I was just like, well, I guess everyone likes food.) I found Miss Eliza's English Kitchen to be an interesting book. The book is loosely based on the life of Eliza Acton, a woman I had never heard of until reading this book.

The writing is deliciously suggestive but also funny on occasion, as in this observation from Ann Kirby early on in the novel: Interesting but even book that would be better as a magazine long-read. Why do menus or TV ads always use buzzwords to make foods sound better (juicy cuts of steak, fresh vegetables, locally-sourced products, etc.)? What's the origins of ketchup? Why do we propose a toast? even though the book is brief, there's a ton of useful information in it. for example, i finally learned why it's called pain perdu. i mean, i knew the words meant "lost bread," but for some reason i'd never made the (incredibly obvious) connection that you make it with bread that has gone stale. i always assumed it was "lost" under the rivers of butter and syrup i poured upon it.

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Based on the life of cookbook writer Eliza Acton, this is a really charming historical novel that’s full of gorgeous recipes and descriptions of food. At its core is the heart-warming story of the class-defying friendship between Eliza and Ann Kirby, her kitchen help” GOOD HOUSEKEEPING I also like the chapter how the Chinese dessert but the whole book was good. Maybe the author did wander here and there to convey a message but it was a good read. A 2015 James Beard Award Finalist: "Eye-opening, insightful, and huge fun to read." —Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork All this calling food by seductive names has been going on a long time. In 1066, when the Normans (who were originally Norsemen) defeated the English, they brought with them French, which became the language for the upper classes. But everyone soon adopted these upscale words for food - pork, not pig, boeuf - beef - for cow, mouton - mutton - for sheep. Latterly we say 'jus' rather than gravy, and often 'cuisine' rather than cooking. A menu written in French will be presumed to be of higher class, better cooking and more expensive than a similar one in English. Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.