William Woys Weaver

Food historian, author, gardener, epicure

Any edition of Mrs. Beeton will do because her book became a metaphor for the cuisine of the British Empire and was perhaps the first truly international cookbook in the English-speaking world. I do not cook from Mrs. Beeton yet I am eternally amazed by the way in which her book grew by accretion into an imperial guide for a way of life now forgotten. She is iconic for the food of the Victorian Era.

James Steen

Journalist, author and food writer