Description

This is the story of a woman who was not a royal, not rich, not famous; someone who simply worked hard and enjoyed her life. But while Georgina Landemare saw herself as ordinary, her accomplishments were anything but. Georgina started her career as a nursemaid and ended it cooking for one of the best-known figures in British history: Winston Churchill.

To him, food was central, not only as a pleasure but as a diplomatic tool at a time when the world was embroiled in war.
With this eager eater and his skilled cook, ranging from rural Berkshire to wartime London, via Belle Epoque Paris and prohibition-era New York, Annie Gray shows how life in service – and food – changed during the huge upheavals of the twentieth century.

Publisher Review

Deliciously entertaining * Daily Mail * Engaging ... appeals to three national obsessions: the preparation and presentation of food; the lost world of great households, above and below stairs; and the private life of a national hero, Churchill * The Times * Gray is an inventive researcher ... she likes to get close up to the everyday past * Spectator * The queen of food historians -- Lucy Worsley Annie Gray is a brilliant writer and scholar who brings a glorious combination of enthusiasm and greed to every subject she tackles. In the field of food history she leads the pack -- Jay Rayner Popular history at its very best * Daily Mail * Victory in the Kitchen ... recreates a corner of early 20th-century domestic life * Spectator * Gray writes with great authority, verve and confidence * The Times *