Put simply, this book is the first and last word on absolutely everything to do with traditional English (and British) cooking. I sought it out after a reference to it in, of all things, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth. That small reference was enough to entice me, but did not prepare me for the sheer scale of Hartley’s work. Published in 1954, it’s a magnum opus that’s as much about cookery as it is about history, and traditional country life. For example, […]