Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship 

400 pages William Morrow publisher November 16,2021 publish date

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick * A Country Living Best Book of Fall * A Washington Post Best Feel-Good Book of the Year * One of the New York Times’s Best Historical Fiction Novels of Fall

In a novel perfect for fans of Hazel Gaynor’s A Memory of Violets and upstairs-downstairs stories, Annabel Abbs, the award-winning author of The Joyce Girl, returns with the brilliant real-life story of Eliza Acton and her assistant as they revolutionized British cooking and cookbooks around the world.

Before Mrs. Beeton and well before Julia Child, there was Eliza Acton, who changed the course of cookery writing forever.

England, 1835. London is awash with thrilling new ingredients, from rare spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them. When Eliza Acton is told by her publisher to write a cookery book instead of the poetry she loves, she refuses—until her bankrupt father is forced to flee the country. As a woman, Eliza has few options. Although she’s never set foot in a kitchen, she begins collecting recipes and teaching herself to cook. Much to her surprise she discovers a talent – and a passion – for the culinary arts.

Eliza hires young, destitute Ann Kirby to assist her. As they cook together, Ann learns about poetry, love and ambition. The two develop a radical friendship, breaking the boundaries of class while creating new ways of writing recipes. But when Ann discovers a secret in Eliza’s past, and finds a voice of her own, their friendship starts to fray.

Based on the true story of the first modern cookery writer, Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen is a spellbinding novel about female friend­ship, the struggle for independence, and the transcendent pleasures and solace of food.

Upperclass Victorian Era Cooking Dinner Courses, Meals, Foods

MY THOUGHTS

I found Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen to be an interesting book. The book is loosely based on the life of Eliza Acton, a woman I had never heard of until reading this book.

Eliza Acton wrote a collection of poems and had arranged for it to be published through a publisher. At this point she had been writing poetry for a few years. The book sold well and had several reprintings. Upon writing another collection of poems this one was declined at the publisher, and she was told to write a cookery book. She took ten years to write her cookery book and it was aimed at the English middle class. The book was the first of its kind to list ingredients and a suggested cooking time.

Eliza had never cooked before but was now forced to. England has many exciting and new ingredients to use, and, in her experimentation, she was not afraid to try cooking foreign dishes with their spices and ingredients.

Ann Kirby is hired as her assistant cook and the two develop a friendship outside of the normal social class boundaries. As the two women’s friendship develops, we see Ann looking up to Eliza as she is taught about not only cooking but about poetry, life skills and love. Eliza has become a real mentor to her.

When you hold someone in such high esteem and then discover something they have hidden that brings them down to a human level again you are highly disappointed, and this became the downfall of the two women’s relationship.

This reminds me of an upstairs, downstairs type of book. Very interesting and informative book that I enjoyed a lot.

Pub Date 16 Nov 2021
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

THE AUTHOR

Annabel Abbs is the multi-award-winning author of The Joyce Girl, Frieda, Windswept, The Language of Food (Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen in the US) and 52 Ways to Walk. Her next book, Sleepless, comes out in 2024.

Abbs is also the co-writer of The Age-Well Project (written under Annabel Streets), a non-fiction work which explores the latest science of longevity and has been serialised in the Guardian and The Daily Mail.

Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Irish Times, Tatler, The Author, Sydney Morning Herald, The Weekend Australian Review, Psychologies and Elle Magazine.

Abbs has a BA in English Literature from the University of East Anglia, where she now sponsors a post-graduate scholarship in creative writing, and an MA from Kingston. She was born in Bristol, and now lives in London and East Sussex. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @annabelabbs, or visit her website, http://www.annabelabbs.com.

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