The Language of Food: "Mouth-watering and sensuous, a real feast for the imagination" BRIDGET COLLINS

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This was a beautifully written and very engaging read for me right from the start. I enjoyed following the two women’s lives and both narratives. They two kind of run in continuum with each other since they are for the most part working together on the book, but there are segments where we also follow each of them individually as certain subplots unfold.

As part of this French invasion, sometime in the thirteenth century, a word spelled variously flure, floure, flower, flour, or flowre first appeared in English, borrowed from the French word fleur, meaning “the blossom of a plant,” and by extension, “the best, most desirable, or choicest part of something.” [...] “Flower of wheat,” ... meant the very fine white flour created by repeatedly sifting the wheat through a fine-meshed cloth. Each pass removed more of the bran or germ, leaving a finer and whiter flour." There isn't a lot here that really couldn't have been condensed into a magazine long-read. And it could have been edited much better. As noted elsewhere, "San Francisco" is misspelled (with another "s" vs. a "c" in the middle). His wife Janet is mentioned but it's not clear who she is at the first mention and seems like a rando name dropped into the text. The writing seems disjointed and while some of the information is really interesting (the origins of ketchup) the writing really isn't very good. It almost feels like more than one hand wrote this and everything was combined together in a sloppy effort to make a coherent narrative. Based on the life of cookbook writer Eliza Acton, this is a really charming historical novel that’s full of gorgeous recipes and descriptions of food. At its core is the heart-warming story of the class-defying friendship between Eliza and Ann Kirby, her kitchen help” GOOD HOUSEKEEPING The story is told in dual narratives. Eliza’s thoughts and personal goals and challenges are very different from those Ann Kirby endured, but the women complemented one another beautifully.

Told through the alternating perspectives of the two women, The Language of Food draws on fact and imagination as Eliza and Ann develop what will eventually be “the greatest British cookbook of all time”, published in 1845 as ‘Modern Cookery, in All Its Branches: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, for the Use of Private Families’. It’s also a story of female friendship and fortitude, as the women, despite their different stations in life, work side by side, and a story of creativity and cooking as Eliza and Ann combine their talents for poetry and instinct for flavours. it's definitely a good read for those of you who have an interest in the subject matter. you will learn about the connections and differences between macaroni, macaroons, and macarons and you will learn an awful lot about bread. and what "semantic bleaching" is. and why we use words of anglo-saxon origin for the animals we eat, like "pig," "cow," "hog," "sow," but words of french origin for the resulting meat: "veal," "beef," "pork."

The fact that it was by Dan Jurafsky made a lot more sense when I figured that bit out. Because of course he's doing corpus work. Before I started reading it I was just like, well, I guess everyone likes food.) How the sikbaj of Persia (sweet-n-sour stewed beef with sweet vinegar in it) became a fish dish like ceviche, fish & chips, tempura, escabeche, aspic – sailors’ help c.10th century; the influence of fish-during-Lent, the conquest of Peru, Portuguese Jesuits in Japan, of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in Britain. A 2015 James Beard Award Finalist: "Eye-opening, insightful, and huge fun to read." —Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork Clever, unsentimental, beautifully detailed and quietly riveting' Elizabeth Buchan, author of Two Women in RomeExhilarating to read - thoughtful, heart-warming and poignant, with a quiet intelligence and elegance that does its heroine proud’ Bridget Collins This book is like warm comfort food and a great big hug. And even though there aren���t recipes listed within the book, you feel and taste and smell the comfort of food and the people who create it contained within. England 1835. Eliza Acton is a poet who dreams of seeing her words in print. But when she takes her new manuscript to a publisher, she’s told that ‘poetry is not the business of a lady’. Instead, they want her to write a cookery book. That’s what readers really want from women. England is awash with exciting new ingredients, from spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them Why do we eat toast for breakfast, and then toast to good health at dinner? What does the turkey we eat on Thanksgiving have to do with the country on the eastern Mediterranean? Can you figure out how much your dinner will cost by counting the words on the menu? Ann Kirby comes from humble means with a lame father and a mother suffering from dementia. Her brother works in a London kitchen for a famous French chef, inspiring Ann with his tales of the food they prepare. When Ann is fortunate enough to be hired by Eliza as a kitchen assistant, she draws strength and a sense of purpose from her, discovering her own ambitions.