Web Only: What I'm Reading - October

Claire Finlayson chows down on Nigel Slater's latest book.

I loved Nigel Slater’s food memoir Toast, so I couldn’t get to his latest book fast enough. Eating For England: the Delights & Eccentricities of the British at Table (Fourth Estate) casts a wry and affectionate glance over British food obsessions and oddities. Here’s Slater is on his nation’s distinctive culinary identity: “…how is it that while the French almost called a national strike over any suggestion of using pasteurized milk in their cheeses, the Spanish all but went to war to protect their fishing, and Italy gave its Parmesan cheese internationally protected status, we British only truly went into meltdown over the repackaging of the KitKat (and quite rightly, if you ask me)?”

Written as a collection of extended dictionary-like entries, it makes for great ‘snack reading’. Gilded with Slater-ish irreverence and charm, it’s a superb, grin-laden portrait of the British via their food.