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The story is told through two perspectives, Eliza, born into a wealthy family who then loses it all and Anne, born into poverty with an alcoholic father and a Mother who has succumbed to dementia at an early age. The two meet when Eliza and her mother open a boardinghouse where Ann comes to work. it's fantastic stuff and very easy to read. there's a bit too much of the personal anecdote dropped in, and it is very san francisco-centric, but there's at least one entertaining, thought-provoking fact in each chapter, which is pretty good for a book about something as niche-y as food and linguistics.
The idea behind this story is pretty good, but with the modern twists and the controversial characteristic features of the protagonists, there were too many things that irked me. And it’s the first book about food that did not urge me to eat or to try some new recipes. True, there were some recipes that I wanted to see how they are written down nowadays (with pictures and all), and some recipes reminded me of my first mouthful of that particular food, but I did not want to eat it again or make it.Inspired by the little that is known of the life of poet, and pioneering cookery writer, Eliza Acton, and her assistant, Ann Kirby, The Language of Food (also published under the title Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen) is the third novel from British author, Annabel Abbs. Overall, this is a lovely story of two very different women, from very different walks of life, coming together to create something worthwhile and helpful to generations of cooks who have benefitted from Eliza’s organization and instructions on not only the proper ingredients, but the steps needed to make the dishes a success. This format is still widely utilized today and has influenced several high-profile chefs over the years.
Eliza and Ann grow to create a strong friendship. Ann enjoys cooking just as much as Eliza and the two go about perfecting recipes that they serve to boarders and will add to the cookbook. Eliza has the chance to finally be separated from the constricting reach of her mother through marriage. She also has the chance to mend her estranged relationship with her oldest sister. There are many other aspects to this story, but I don't want to give too much information and spoil the surprises. The best ingredient in this story is the friendship between the twosome. As they cooked and chatted, I wanted to walk into that kitchen, grab a plate and join them. I am thinking in particular of that lovely French dinner that they linger over….. Clever, unsentimental, beautifully detailed and quietly riveting' Elizabeth Buchan, author of Two Women in RomeThis is a collection of articles on language relating to food. It's a mixed bag. There is a lot about etymology and word origins (Why do we "toast" someone or something when drinking? Are macaroons and macarons related, and do macaroni have anything to do with either of them?). This was ok, if not particularly captivating. I was much more interested in the chapter on the language used in menus and how it varies depending on the price point of the restaurant. That was actually quite fascinating, and there's a related chapter that looks at a similar thing in bags of crisps. I also liked the chapter on the phonetics of different foods and how different types of sounds suggest different qualities in the foods (crispy and crunchy? Soft and pillowy?). I realize this may sound like an odd statement to make, because it is an incredibly niche topic, but I spent a long, long time studying theoretical linguistics. And of all the courses I took, of everything I learned, one of the things I still remember is the first day of the Introduction To Historical Linguistics class I took as an undergraduate. It was a big class, maybe fifty of us, and the professor asked us to come up with the word for "tea" in as many languages as we could. And because this was a room of fifty linguistics majors, we knew a whole lot of languages, as an aggregate. And as we called out words she wrote them all down on the board, sorting them into one of two groups, by whether they sounded more like "tea" or whether they sounded more like "chai." Eliza Acton, despite having never before boiled an egg, became one of the world’s most successful cookery writers, revolutionizing cooking and cookbooks around the world. Her story is fascinating, uplifting and truly inspiring.
Told from two perspectives, that of Eliza and a housemaid by the name Ann Kirby, the reader is soon swept into a world where the kitchen is the centre of the household. I will concede the point about the typos -- because, yeah, there are definitely a few misspellings someone should have caught. I think the most unfortunate typos were the ones in the French because now I'm wondering whether the Middle French had typos and I will never know, because do you even know what Middle French looks like? Yeah.Eliza leaves the offices appalled. But when her father is forced to flee the country for bankruptcy, she has no choice but to consider the proposal. Never having cooked before, she is determined to learn and to discover, if she can, the poetry in recipe writing. To assist her, she hires seventeen-year-old Ann Kirby, the impoverished daughter of a war-crippled father and a mother with dementia. Trivia that I listened to but did not retain involved the long journeys of the words “ketchup” and “turkey” into English. I also like the chapter how the Chinese dessert but the whole book was good. Maybe the author did wander here and there to convey a message but it was a good read. Libations are still around too. Modern hiphop culture has a libationary tradition of "pouring one out" -- tipping out malt liquor on the ground before drinking, to honor a friend or relative who has passed away - - described in songs like Tupac Shakur's "Pour Out a Little Liquor." (It's especially appropriate that malt liquor, a fortified beer made by adding sugar before fermenting, is itself another descendent of shikaru.) It depends of course on one's particular branch of linguistics. I envy forensic linguists who can tell dramatic tales of criminal acquittal or conviction on the strength of linguistic evidence. But for many in other branches of linguistics, one would think there is no such hope. Computational and corpus linguists, etymologists, historical linguists, comparative linguists, and phoneticians surely stand no chance. How could one ever make such areas seem not only relevant for a non-academic audience, but popular?
I would be remiss in this review if I don’t mention the lovely cover of the book (which reminds me very much of Delft pottery). While I reviewed an e-arc, the physical copy which I have seen pictures of is absolutely gorgeous, including the lovely painted book edges.Eliza is credited as the pioneer of modern cookery books because she was the first to list ingredients separately from the methodology, and to provide precise quantities of ingredients. She could also be said to have pioneered the genre of ‘food writing’, by combining instruction with description. Foodies should enjoy Eliza’s poetic depictions of scents and tastes, though the fare of the 1800’s, which relied heavily on game and foraged foods, may sound quite unusual. A handful of Eliza’s ‘reciepts’ are printed after the Notes section at the end of the book. This charming story of a friendship that was formed in a kitchen is based on the real life of food writer and poet Eliza Acton, who created one of Britain’s first cookery books. I loved the bond that she and her kitchen help Anna Kirby forge despite the huge difference in their class; they’re both very determined women. A fabulous historical novel” PRIMA 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." This reminds me of an upstairs, downstairs type of book. Very interesting and informative book that I enjoyed a lot. Toasting with drinks and why to health – putting toast in wine or ale (in Middle Ages); soap first came with toast in it; origins of wine (and the word too); on libations (thus hip-hops “pour one out” to the deceased) and cider (from the name for Akkadian honeyed beer).
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