The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs

 

England 1835. Eliza Acton is a poet who dreams of seeing her words in print. But when she takes her new manuscript to a publisher, she’s told that ‘poetry is not the business of a lady’. Instead, they want her to write a cookery book. That’s what readers really want from women. England is awash with exciting new ingredients, from spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them. Eliza leaves the offices appalled. But when her father is forced to flee the country for bankruptcy, she has no choice but to consider the proposal. Never having cooked before, she is determined to learn and to discover, if she can, the poetry in recipe writing. To assist her, she hires seventeen-year-old Ann Kirby, the impoverished daughter of a war-crippled father and a mother with dementia. 

Hey my name is Rea and I am shallow and fell in love with the cover for The Language of Food but thank god I did because this book is not my typical read that I would opt for so it may well have passed me by but this book had me whizzing through the pages and I have already recommended it ten times over!

The story follows Eliza Acton who was a poet and cookery writer, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of Eliza before reading The Language of Food but I have been googling away since finishing this novel as I grew to love and admire her in this novel and was keen to find out more. Along with Eliza we also meet her assistant Ann Kirby and both of these women were remarkable in my eyes, both from opposite walks of life but joined together in the love and passion for food and cooking.

With each chapter alternating from both Ann and Eliza’s points of view we really build a true and deeper understanding of their lives and experiences and I hearing from them both, my heart really went out to dear Ann working to look after her parents but feeling the guilt of not being there for them at the same time. Eliza was a strong willed and determined woman who I found quite admirable that even back in those times she was determined to follow her dream and get her name out there published on books to grace everyone’s homes and if writing a cookery book was the only avenue to get her words out there she was determined to make it a triumph!

I loved the friendship that slowly bubbled underneath the surface between Eliza and Ann, surely would have been frowned upon back then but yet the care that Eliza had for Ann and the help and inspiration Ann brought to Eliza naturally pulled them both together.

I highly recommend The Language of Food and I do love it when I discover something new from a book so this is certainly going to be a book that will stay with me for a long while.

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