Description

What is English food? The award-winning podcaster Lewis Bassett is a chef in search of an answer. Whether examining the recent invention of sourdough or the aristocratic assumptions informing the rewilding of cuisine, Bassett discovers the deep roots of English food culture in the peculiar meanderings and great events of English history.

Part culinary adventure, part political analysis, The Full English is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this nation of eccentric eaters. Through eight iconic foodstuffs – including olive oil, Greggs sausage rolls, roast beef, and curry (naturally) – Bassett takes us through a menu transcending space and time. Working in an artisanal bakery and in Michelin-starred kitchens, boarding a fishing boat named the St George, drinking Huel, eating pastries, he discovers the ways in which our food was shaped by urbanisation, empire, industry, and war.

The Full English uncovers the remarkable connections between food and power, class and culture, tradition and change to make an urgent case for a proud national taste that is both artisanal and modern.

Publisher Review

Required reading for everyone engaged or interested in writing about food in all its glory. — Felicity Cloake, author of Red Sauce, Brown Sauce Compelling, enlightening and insightful, this is fascinating reading, if not vital — Jeremy Lee, Chef Patron, quo vadis Eye opening. Read this to understand where our food culture comes from, and why we need to take more pride in it. — Tom Kerridge, chef and author One of the best books I’ve read on the fundamental contradictions in English food culture, explaining what we are really talking about when the English talk about food. Bassett’s lively account of our nation’s food culture blends history and theory but never veers far from the physical process of how our food is made and who makes it, and the question of who gets to define it — Jonathan Nunn, Vittles