Annabel Abbs

In 1845, Eliza Acton published a cookery book -Modern Cookery - that continues to inspire and influence well-known cooks today. Only the barest bones of her life are known. That she was born into a wealthy family reduced by the father's bankruptcy, such that she and her mother were forced to run a boarding house. Here it was that Eliza, born far too grand to lift a ladle, learnt not only to cook, but to be inspired by food, by recipes, by ingredients. Annabel Abbs has taken this bare biography and lifted into an engaging story in which she and her hired help Ann Kirby feed from each other's interest and developing talent to invent and refine dish after dish, faithfully recorded and eventually published. Read this book to get an idea of Victorian genteel poverty - Eliza's family: and actual grinding poverty - Ann Kirby's circumstances, translated into an engaging story about two women who between them revolutionised British cooking, thanks not directly to them, but to Mrs. Beeton, who poached their material (spoiler alert).… (altro)