The Language of Food (Hardback)

England 1837. 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. England is awash with exciting new ingredients from spices to exotic fruits. That's what readers really want from women. 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 in her life 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. Over the course of ten years Eliza and Ann developed an unusual friendship - one that crossed social classes and divides - and together they broke the mould of traditional cookbooks and changed the course of cookery writing forever.