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Index
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Introduction
PART I
CHAPTER ONE: In which it is fish day on the Mary Rose, anchored in Portsmouth harbour (Saturday 18 July 1545): How the trade in Newfoundland salt cod laid the foundations of the Empire
CHAPTER TWO: In which John Dunton eats oatcake and hare boiled in butter in a Connaught cabin (1698): How Ireland was planted with English, became a centre of the provisions trade and fed the emerging Empire
CHAPTER THREE: In which the Holloway family eat maize bread and salt beef succotash, Sandwich, New England (June 1647): How the English chased the dream of the yeoman farmer but were forced to compromise
CHAPTER FOUR: In which Colonel James Drax holds a feast at his sugar plantation on the island of Barbados (1640s): How the West Indian sugar islands drove the growth of the First British Empire
CHAPTER FIVE: In which la Belinguere entertains Sieur Michel Jajolet de la Courbe to an African-American meal on the west coast of Africa (June 1686): How West Africa exchanged men for maize and manioc
CHAPTER SIX: In which Samuel and Elizabeth Pepys dine on pigeons à l’esteuvé and boeuf à la mode at a French eating house in Covent Garden (12 May 1667): How pepper took the British to India, where they discovered calicoes and tea
PART II
CHAPTER SEVEN: In which the Latham family eat beef and potato stew, pudding and treacle, Scarisbrick, Lancashire (22 January 1748): How the impoverishment of the English rural labourer gave rise to the industrial ration
CHAPTER EIGHT: In which a slave family eat maize mush and possum on Middleburg plantation, South Carolina (1730s): How the American colony of South Carolina was built on African rice
CHAPTER NINE: In which Lady Anne Barnard enjoys fine cabin dinners on a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope (February to May 1797): How the Empire stimulated the growth of the provisions industry
CHAPTER TEN: In which Sons of Liberty drink rum punch at the Golden Ball Tavern, Merchants Row, Boston (a cold evening in January 1769): How rum brought the American colonies together and split Britain’s First Empire apart
PART III
CHAPTER ELEVEN: In which Kamala prepares a meal for her family, near Patna, Bihar (February 1811): How the East India Company turned opium into tea
CHAPTER TWELVE: In which Sarah Harding and her family grow fat eating plenty of good food in Waipawa, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand (29 July 1874): How hunger drove the explosion of European emigration in the nineteenth century
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: In which Frank Swannell eats bean stew, bannock and prune pie in British Columbia (15 November 1901): How the industrial ration fed those who pushed out the boundaries of empire and processed foods became magical symbols of home
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: In which the Reverend Daniel Tyerman and Mr George Bennet attend a tea party in Raiatea, the Society Islands (4 December 1822): How the spread of European provisions colonised taste
PART IV
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: In which diamond miners cook up an iguana curry at a rum shop in Guyana during the rainy season (1993): How non-Europeans migrated to work on plantations producing tropical foods for the British
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In which the Bartons entertain the Wilsons to tea in the London Road slum district of Manchester (May 1839): How the wheat for the working-class loaf came to be grown in America and the settler colonies
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: In which Prakash Tandon enjoys a Sunday roast with his landlady’s family in a Manchester council house (1931): How foreign food imports improved the working-class diet and made Britain dependent on its Empire
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: In which the recipe for irio changes (Kenya, 1900–2016): How the Empire impacted on subsistence farming in East Africa and introduced colonial malnutrition
CHAPTER NINETEEN: In which infantryman R. L. Crimp eats bully beef and sweet potatoes in a forward camp in the North African desert (September 1941): How the Empire supported Britain during the Second World War
CHAPTER TWENTY: In which Mr Oldknow dreams of making an Empire plum pudding (24 December 1850) and Bridget Jones attends Una Alconbury’s New Year’s Day Turkey Curry Buffet Lunch (1 January 1996): How Christmas fare took the Empire into British homes
Photos
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Notes and References
Bibliography
Index
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