Kathryn Hughes has reviewed Food Britannia in the Guardian Review (30th July). Here are some of the things she's said.
In Food Britannia Andrew Webb embarks on a food-lover's tour of Britain, searching out regional specialities, meeting people who've started businesses from their kitchen table, and generally finding reasons to be cheerful about the state of the nation's stomach. The book gives the reader permission to linger lovingly over brand names such as Bird's Custard and Walker's Shortbread while also rejoicing in the way that generic dishes pulled from postwar childhoods – scotch eggs, curd tarts and bubble and squeak – are making a comeback.
Thankfully she seems to have enjoyed the book, she goes on:
Webb's tone throughout Food Britannia is standard-issue larky, with gallant jokes about not asking lady producers their ages and the effect that hard toffee can have on wobbly teeth. The artisan shopkeepers he meets, meanwhile, all seem to be salt-of-the-earth types with an accumulated wisdom that you can discern in their quick eyes and patient hands. There are also plenty of nostalgic nods back to Webb's 1970s childhood when eccles cakes were referred to as squashed fly cakes and bourbon biscuits were regularly remarked on as looking like something you might give to the dog. Particularly good are the descriptions of tastes and textures. Webb is clearly a messy eater, scattering flakes and crumbs wherever he goes. He's probably horrible to watch in real life, but on paper he's delicious. When he talks about figit pie or bara brith it's a stern reader that doesn't find herself overtaken by a bout of empathetic dribbling.
I'd like to assure any readers that I'm not that messy an eater, well, most of the time.
