In a major new history of English food, Clarissa Dickson Wright takes the reader on a journey from the time of the Second Crusade and the feasts of medieval kings to the cuisine--both good and bad--of the present day. She looks at the shifting influences on the national diet as new ideas and ingredients arrived, and as immigrant communities made their contribution to the life of the country. She evokes lost worlds of open fires and ice houses, of constant pickling and preserving, and of manchet loaves and curly-coated pigs. She also tells the stories of the chefs, cookbook writers, gourmets, and gluttons who have shaped public taste, from the salad-loving Catherine of Aragon to the foodies of today. Above all, she gives a vivid sense of what it was like to sit down to the meals of previous ages, whether an 18th-century laborer’s breakfast, a 12- course Victorian banquet, or a lunch out during World War II. Insightful and entertaining by turns, this is a magnificent tour of nearly 1,000 years of English cuisine, peppered with surprises and seasoned with Clarissa Dickson Wright’s characteristic wit.