Toast : The Story of a Boy's Hunger - Hardcover

Slater, Nigel

3.78

7,443 ratings by Goodreads

9781841152899: Toast : The Story of a Boy's Hunger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841152897 ISBN 13: 9781841152899

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2003

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One of Britain's most well-known cooks describes his personal culinary odyssey, from dangerous encounters with his mother's weevil-seasoned cakes to being harangued by readers who think he deliberately styles Yorkshire puddings to look like a woman's private parts. This book aims to capture 30 years of British cooking and the recipes that we have grown up with since the days when a grilled grapefruit was the last word in dinner party chic. Everyone has gorged on cake mix, endured disastrous dinner parties, and put up with the loved one who can only ever produce burnt toast. Nigel Slater is no different. Accounts of hotels modelled on Fawlty Towers, the mystery of the disappearing condom and the seafood cocktail, and many more, take readers behind the scenes of British cuisine to reveal the unlikely origins of one of our foremost cooks.

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From the Back Cover:

"Nigel Slater at his unpretentious, delicious best." –Nigella Lawson, author of How to Be a Domestic Goddess

"His writing could not be more palate-cleansing... his acidic riffs put you in mind of Nick Hornby, Martin Amis and Philip Larkin all at the same time." –The New York Times

"Nigel is a genius." –Jamie Oliver, author of Jamie’s Kitchen, The Naked Chef, and Happy Days with the Naked Chef

"Nigel Slater's Toast is an exceptional book. It brilliantly weaves hungers together: belly hunger, sexual hunger, and the hunger for love and loss. I loved every page and the poignancy of being a child is dead on." –Jane Stern, author of Ambulance Girl, coauthor of Roadfood, and contributing editor at Gourmet magazine

"I enjoyed every moment of reading Nigel Slater's Toast. It's hard to imagine a more elegantly rendered memoir of growing up. Funny, poignant, artful, erotic, sad, a story conveyed through intelligent and unsentimental prose—the book is a jewel." –Michael Ruhlman, author of The Soul of a Chef

"Toast is a remarkable story of a young man's life, and the food that nourished it. Well written, lively and engaging." –Marie Simmons, author of Fig Heaven

"The genius of his food writing comes from an obvious belief that food and happiness share the same organ in the brain." –Lynne Truss

"Convincing, engaging, and rich with detail, Slater’s prose lets readers taste the pink marshmallows, smell the freshly baked oat cookies, and feel the crunch of the green beans. Paced as superbly as a seven-course meal, [Toast is] able to engage the heart and the memory as well as the taste buds.--Publishers Weekly

"A banquet of unlikely delectations... England’s answer to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential." –Daily Telegraph (UK)

"No one writes more temptingly about food." –The Independent (UK)

"An inspired memoir, boil-in-the-bag Proust!" –Tim Adams, Observer (UK)

"This artful, disconcerting, endearing book deserves a place in the literature of childhood unhappiness and survival against the odds." –Daily Telegraph (UK)

"A vivid record of people whose lives never warrant the study of historians, biographers or even novelists... wonderful... extraordinary." –Matthew Fort, The Observer (UK)

"Nigel Slater's Toast eats its way through a difficult childhood... this is an ingenious and touching treat." –Hermione Lee, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 2003 (UK)

"Utterly irresistible... You read this remarkable memoir partly cringing, partly marvelling at Slater’s hallucinogenic retrieval off times past. He is the Proust of the Nesquik Era. – Independent Books of the Year (UK)

"Proves he can write mouth-wateringly about families and life, too: I gobbled it up." –Daily Telegraph Books of the Year (UK)

"Toast follows a recipe—boyhood blues without bitterness—that looks simple yet is actually hard to pull off. Slater manages it." –Guardian (UK)

"Delightful... singular and original." –Evening Standard (UK)

About the Author:

Nigel Slater is Britain's top food writer. His hugely popular columns and books have won him an enormous following for his direct, up-to-the-minute and delicious approach to food. He has written seven books previously to this, is editor of Observer Food Monthly and has a regular column in The Sainsbury's Magazine.

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