...[a] joyously delicious account of Britain’s gastronomic influence on the world ... original and supremely captivating ... In British terms, she is Henry Mayhew and Mass-Observation rolled into one — a stellar observer of the day-to-day and the mundane, a social historian of extraordinary talent ... From such lavish depictions we derive with infinite pleasure a pointilliste picture of the world’s food economy in all its magical complexity.
...an energetic and refreshing account of a little considered aspect of British history. By examining what people ate, Collingham skilfully provides a full account of complex, even chaotic international connections ... It’s hard to think of a more ingenious way of treating imperial history ... This book’s treatment of food in the empire is innovative and exciting; to bring such vibrancy to an old topic is a remarkable achievement.
The book maneuvers as deftly as possible through this densely interconnected subject. Sorting chapters by meals allows for a certain focus, though it's still such a vast topic that every so often the scope is overwhelming. But even when it's imposing, it's absorbing. This is, at heart, a story about how, 'having eradicated the peasantry at home, Britain had acquired an enormous peasantry abroad' ... There's a certain academic remove that can make Collingham's discussion of particularly unsavory aspects (violence against Native nations and African slaves in particular) seem a little distant...But The Taste of Empire is so direct about the impact of colonialism that the overall effect of the tone is that Collingham is simply assuming a sympathetic reader ... facinating reading.
In this book, which is as thick as a double-cut pork chop, the author sees trade in sugar, spice, rice and tea as the reason the British were so keen to command sea routes dating from the 16th century … The result is the stuff of lively cocktail party conversation among the geekiest food lovers, right down to the occasional recipe for mock turtle, rum punch and (Hello, Bridget Jones!) leftover-turkey curry … Collingham devotes fewer pages to food and empire in Britain’s modern times, understandably. Her thesis is not so easily sustained in the Brexit era.
...a tour de force of synthesis ... Ms. Collingham uses a series of meals as springboards for short chapters on their political, social and economic context and consequences, each one a little gem of condensation of reams of academic prose ... The British Empire’s days and its outsize influence on food politics, though, have been over for more than half a century. Ms. Collingham’s great achievement is to take its food history out of the realm of cozy nostalgia and show it for the potent economic and political force it was.
Lizzie Collingham’s fascinating new book demonstrates that a cup of tea is never just a cup of tea — it is a history of trade, exchange, land-grab, agricultural innovation and economic change ... This is a marvellously wide-ranging and readable book, stuffed with engaging details and startling connections.
... details are the strength of this book—and its weakness. Paragraphs are as studded with dates and numbers as a plum pudding with raisins. Still, it is hard to mind when many of them are so interesting. And what other book would offer its reader instructions on 'how to make the best liquid laudanum'?
The history of West Indian sugar, African slavery, and American colonization is an oft-told tale, but Collingham takes mere mercantilism and expands and deepens its consequences ... This unique approach to British history holds appeal for both professional historians and everyday buffs and includes a comprehensive bibliography and a few historical recipes.
