Image: Michal Klajban · CC BY-SA 4.0
Food in England
- Year
- 1954
- Era
- 20th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- English 20th C
Food in England, by Dorothy Hartley, published in London by Macdonald in 1954, is a wide-ranging survey of English cookery, foodways, and rural domestic craft drawn from centuries of practice. Combining recipes, folklore, agricultural lore, and the author's own observations and line drawings, it stands as a foundational reference for the revival of interest in regional English cooking, influencing later writers including Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson.
Cooking from this book
Boiled Bacon and Pease Pudding
Signature dishThis humble pairing of salt-cured bacon with a smooth, savoury pudding of dried split peas stands as a quiet emblem of Hartley's great survey. Roaming the country lanes and farmhouse kitchens of pre-war England, she gathered the rhythms of rural cookery with an artist's eye, and few dishes capture her vision so well. Earthy, frugal, deeply seasonal, it speaks of hearths, hedgerows and the long English habit of making plenty from little.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
