The Old Foodie

Compared with, say, chocolate, the potato was slow to be adopted in the Old World for a number of reasons touched upon in previous blog post...

I have heard it said that the best time to have lived was in a country estate in England, between the wars – if one lived upstairs, of cours...

Well, we have had a couple of interesting breads this week, so how about an interesting-sounding spread to go on them? A new American produc...

20Marshmallows made with tomato may be intriguing, but lets face it, the tomato is never going to be the number one confectionery ingredient...

Methinks I have neglected the potato lately, which is not laudable, given that this blog has a special archive called Fun With Potatoes . ...

I thought that in the remaining few posts before Christmas day we would look at some historic menus for the season. There is no doubt that ...

Well folks, I usually have a week’s worth of stories posted ahead, but these have now been all used up. I am rather busy and pre-occupied wi...

I had the opportunity to sample three different forms of ‘boxty’ (or boxtie) in Dublin last night. Foolishly, I had ordered Irish Stew to ...

One of the most important and famous food writers of recent times was the vaguely aristocratic and adventurous British woman, Elizabeth Davi...

The concern about food adulteration and safety which led to the formation of the “Poison Squad” and the eventual promulgation of the Food an...

In 1863 the Epidemiological Society of London conducted an inquiry into the state of health of young women employed in the large dressmaking...

The English novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) lived in Paris between 1903-1913. He invariably ate out in the first few years, before he ma...

Today, let us imagine we are back in those glorious (if you were rich) between-war years. It is the morning of April 9, 1927, and we are ret...

The source from yesterday, the Australian wartime book edited by Dr. Phyllis Cilento ( The Truth and Daily Mirror Cookery Book , c1943) cont...

A friend once said that he hadn’t yet met a potato he didn’t like (you know who you are.) I feel the same way myself – with the exception o...

I have been considering the history of bouillon cubes recently, to determine what role they will play in my forthcoming book Soup: A Global ...

FROM THE BEGINNING: The problem with many early recipes (16th – mid 18th centuries) is being sure what is meant by “potato” as often swe...