Description

Winner of the British Book Awards Biography of the Year

Nigel Slater’s bestselling memoir of a childhood remembered through food, featuring a new introduction from Elizabeth Day, photographs and an additional final chapter.

Whether relating his mother’s ritual burning of the toast, his father’s dreaded Boxing Day stew or such culinary highlights of the day as Arctic Roll and Grilled Grapefruit (then considered something of a status symbol in Wolverhampton), this incredibly moving and deliciously evocative memoir of childhood, adolescence and sexual awakening vividly recreates daily life in sixties and seventies suburban England.

‘Wonderful, precise, extraordinary’Guardian

‘Toast connects emotions, memory and taste buds. Genius’Sunday Times

‘You read this remarkable memoir partly cringing, partly marvelling at Slater’s hallucinogenic retrieval of times past. He is the Proust of the Nesquik era’ Independent

‘Acutely observed, poignant and beautifully written … Slater tells his heartbreaking story with great subtlety’ Daily Telegraph

Publisher Review

'Acutely observed, poignant and beautifully written...Slater tells his heartbreaking story with great subtlety. The theme of food and love is a fascinating one and I have never seen it better handled.' Daily Telegraph 'He recreates with moving honesty and laugh-out-loud comedy the hopes and fears of boyhood. Remarkable.' Observer '"Toast" connects emotions, memory and taste buds. Genius.' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times 'A talent for prose as simple and pleasurable as his recipes.' Sunday Telegraph 'Exquisitely written...You read this remarkable memoir partly cringing, partly marvelling at Slater's hallucinogenic retrieval of times past. He is the Proust of the Nesquik era.' Independent 'It achieves a remarkable freshness...[and] reveals a gift for doleful, Alan Bennett-like comedy.' Guardian 'This touching memoir proves [Slater] is more than a cookery writer. Its emotional impact will touch a chord with many.' Sunday Mirror 'Wonderful, precise...extraordinary.' Matthew Fort 'It's bitter-sweet, it's a book to be consumed in a single sitting, a book that slips down really nicely. However you want to put it, "Toast" is delicious.' The Oldie