The British at Table

1940-1980

by Christopher Driver

Chatto & Windus, 1983, [First Edition], ISBN 0701125829, lightly illustrated in black and white, hardcover, dustjacket  

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear (see photographs)

“Cookery books abound: food books are few.  Some of us pay more attention to what we eat than previous British generations dis, and the curious can find in the High Street foods and tastes their grandparents never knew.  But food revolutions creep upon us unaware, by tiny day-to-day changes in the domestic menu, and in the organisation of meals eaten away from home.  It comes as a surprise to realise that in the past forty years there have been more drastic changes in our diet than in any similar period since the Norman Conquest – changes that have been brought about by, for instance, the disappearance of domestic servants, foreign restaurateurs, the industrialisation of food production, and the missionary labours of writers like Raymond Postgate and Elizabeth David.
Christopher Driver has lived through this entire period, from experiments with dried egg in his mother’s kitchen in the 1940s to his controversial editorship of The Good Food Guide throughout the 1970s.  No one is better qualified to tell us not only what we wat but why: whether describing the futuristic horrors of food technology, immigrant cuisines, wartime Woolton Pies or the marvels of British catering (including the waitress who uncorked the wine with her teeth), he brings to this fascinating and increasingly topical area of social history an unmatchable fund of knowledge and a wonderfully caustic wit.”