The Language Of Food by Annabel Abbs

 

The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs.

Published in hardcover 3rd February 2022 by Simon and Schuster.

From the cover of the book:

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

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.

Over the course of ten years, Eliza and Ann developed an unusual friendship – one that crossed social classes and divides – and, together, they broke the mould of traditional cookbooks and changed the course of cookery writing forever.

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1835: Spinster, Miss Elizabeth Acton is a women ahead of her time. Determined to pursue her literary leanings, and wishing to take advantage of her well received privately produced volume of poetry, she submits her poems to Longman and Company. However, her dream of following in the footsteps of her inspiration, poet Miss L. E. Landon, is dashed when her writing is dismissed as "not suitable for a lady". Instead, the publisher informs her that they will consider accepting a book about cookery.

As a lady, Elizabeth has had very little to do with the domestic affairs of her family household, and she is insulted at the very suggestion that she should turn her attention to writing about cooking. But when her father becomes bankrupt and flees the country, she is forced to reconsider the offer - and she discovers that she not only has a talent for the culinary arts, much to her mother's embarrassment, but that the new kind of cookery book she has in mind would allow her to give flow to her literary talents too.

To achieve her aim, Elizabeth throws herself into her work with the kind of passion that is considered most unseemly for a woman of her class. To help her she employs seventeen-year-old local girl Ann Kirby, who is in dire need of a job - little does Elizabeth know that it is Ann's dream to become a cook, and soon her natural talent in the kitchen begins to shine through as they form a successful culinary partnership. Over the next few years, Elizabeth and Ann develop a close friendship and working relationship - one which produces a recipe book that takes the cookery world by storm, and changes the face of cookery writing forever.

The Language of Food is a wonderful combination of historical fact and fiction, threaded with a delicious voyage into the world of flavours, ingredients, and cooking methods; that comes together to delve into the life of one of the most important people in the world of cookery writing - Elizabeth Acton. Abbs draws on what we know about Acton, and her cooking partner Ann Kirby, filling in detail that is hinted at in historical records to make them spring from the page as living, breathing people. 

As a keen cook and collector of recipe books, it was a delight to be at the side of Elizabeth and Ann as they worked together in their epic quest to produce a cookery book unlike any that was seen before - Modern Cookery for Private Families, which was eventually published in 1845. It was a book that has had significant influence on every cookery book that followed in its wake. Elizabeth and Ann's tireless experimentation with flavour, texture and ingredients, in parallel with meticulous recording of their observations, led to the evolution of the modern recipe format that we are familiar with today - especially the standard formula of a list of ingredients with exact measurements coming before the cooking method, and the inclusion of precise timings and processes, which it seems bizarre to think were not part of the traditional cookery manual before 1845. It is even more bizarre to think that I had not even heard of Elizabeth Acton before reading this novel, although I do own a copy of Mrs Beeton's book that came later and plagiarised much of Acton's work.

But this is not just a book for the foodie, because Abbs also goes to great pains to depict every trial and tribulation that made it such a feat for Acton to produce this book in a patriarchal Victorian society that was so judgmental about women in engaging in activities that were considered unladylike - particularly when such women were determined to cast aside the roles of matrimony and motherhood. Abbs paints a picture of an underground movement of a set of firebrand female characters among Acton's social circle who shared her outlook too, as well as those of both sexes who were very much against the idea of a woman having agency in deciding the course of her own life.

As for the lesser known Ann Kirby, Abbs imagines the existence she lived before meeting Elizabeth and seeing opportunities open up to her that she could have never conceived of, despite the constant pull of the responsibilities assigned to her as the female child of her family. The stark difference between their stations in life is explored beautifully through poignant threads around the experiences of poor families like Ann's, showing how unusual it was for two such women to become so close, and there is a heartrending storyline that introduces you to all the horrors of the Victorian asylum and the treatment of the insane too. 

I absolutely loved this book. It held me spellbound throughout, and was so much more of an emotional journey than I was expecting. I cannot recommend it highly enough to those of you who adore novels about the hidden history of strong and influential women. 

The Language of Food is available to buy now in multiple formats.

About the author:

Annabel Abbs is the new rising star of biographical historical novels. She grew up in Bristol, Sussex and Wales before studying English Literature at the University of East Anglia and Marketing at the University of Kingston. 

Her debut novel The Joyce Girl was a Guardian Reader's Pick and her second novel Frieda: The Original Lady Chatterley earned critical acclaim including Times 2018 Book of the Year. 

She regularly appears on national and regional media, with recent appearances on Radio 4 Woman's Hour and Sky News, and is popular on the literary festival circuit. She was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award, the Caledonia Novel Award and the Waverton Good Read Award. 

Annabel lives in London with her husband and four children.