Today, Claret Press sent me the press release for my memoir
Food of Love – cooking up a life across gender, class and race.
It is hard to believe that the comments of the distinguished people who have endorsed it, are writing about me! I’m delighted that the artist Diana Bell mentions the humour because, although I tackle tough subjects, I want Food of Love to be a pleasurable read. Hope comes to the accompaniment of food ! In the fifties most people in the UK ate similar meals based around meat and boiled veg with a few exceptions like the Sunday roast, cottage pies and fish and chips. Some writers like Elizabeth David championed a Mediterranean diet but, for the working classes, change happened because of new opportunities to travel and exposure to the cuisine of immigrants from the Commonwealth .
Difference can induce fear and that used to be the case with food but in the UK of 2022, we taste the world and relish it. The recipes at the end of each chapter provided by my diverse family members and friends reveal a Britain which embraces the world. The challenge is to relish other differences too and to recognise that our country, at its best, is open to immigrants and to the cultures and ideas they bring with them. Twenty first century Britain is best represented by the transformational chemistry of food from everywhere prepared with love & the spirit of the London Olympics and NOT by those nostalgic for a brutal empire in which a pale skin and not merit determined superiority.
Food of Love will be launched in the autumn