The English at Table

Hardcover, 150 pages, glossy paper, b&w illustrations, NOT ex-library. A clean and bright copy, with firm binding and unmarked text; free of inscriptions and stamps. Untorn dust jacket shows moderate shelfwear, mild edgewear; price concealed on the front flap (jacket is not clipped). --- The modern English congratulate themselves that their food is rather good. It was not always so, they say, but the way we eat at home, the standard of our restaurants and the variety of foods available in our shops have been revolutionized. The national palate is, they claim, becoming more 'discerning'. It is all nonsense. Just look at what is eaten daily in homes, restaurants, offices, hospitals, schools, airports, planes, and on beaches and pavements. This daily food is not good - it is awful. The English food of old was dull and insular, but at least there was an abundance of butchers and fishmongers with locally produced food, and English women shopped at them and cooked thrice-daily meals, which their families sat down to eat together. There are more exotic ingredients in the shops, and there are a few good, expensive restaurants. There is also a plethora of second-rate industrial cheeses, meats and vegetables, and third-rate takeaways, fast-food outlets and formulaic 'Indians' and Chinese. And the institution of the family, so vital to the provision of good food and to the passing on of knowledge about it, has collapsed in an orgy of self-indulgent sexual and emotional relationships. With the decline in unified behaviour and values, people eat neither together as a family, nor off tables. Vegetarians reject whole classes of foods prizes by wiser civilisations; healthists reduce food to a mere tool in the pursuit of a few more years of miserable life on earth; environmentalists subject good eating to their dotty political cause; health-safety lobbyists stifle good food with their regulations. Worst of all, we see a refusal to make the daily effort necessary for good meals; the turning of eating into an excuse for showing off; and the relentless pursuit of novelty and celebrity. The bad old traits coexist with these new ones: the rejection of large numbers of ingredients or dishes on one spurious ground or another, squeamishness and insipidity, the fear of the unfamiliar, food treated as a special occasion. "The English at Table" documents the awfulness of English food and the shallowness of English food culture and media comment. It identifies the culprit as the ordinary English cook and diner, who is ignorant, lazy, fastidious and exhibitionist. The book is illustrated by "The Spectator's" cartoon editor, Michael Heath. -- Contents: A Revolution in English Food?; Drowning in Culinary Incompetence; Tendencies that Ruin English Food; Shopping: What the English Won't Buy and Cook; Rejection of Good Food; Restaurants and Restaurant Reviews; Home Cooking and Those Who Write About It; Food in Hospitals and Schools, on Planes and Picnics; Food Ideologues and Assorted Nutters; Conclusion: A Culture That Still Can't Cook.…