Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford
TORCH Book at Lunchtime welcomes Professor Diane Purkiss to discuss her highly acclaimed book English Food. Described in one review as a "mouth watering history" Professor Purkiss takes the reader on a culinary tour of English history. The book is divided into chapters that lay bare our ancient fondness for things like pig and cake, punctuated by a quartet of shorter essays on the subjects of breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Purkiss correctly identifies food as a subject “at once crucial to us and consigned to the margins of our lives”, rarely given the attention it deserves by serious historians despite its central role in events from the Great Fire of London to the Corn Laws.
