ANNABEL ABBS
‘The Language of Food tells the story of the first modern, bestselling cookery writer, and inventor of the recipe as we know it. Her name was Eliza Acton and I discovered her in an old cookery book given to me by my mother-in-law who once collected antiquarian cook books. I’m a keen cook and I loved Acton’s elegant prose. When I discovered that she was really an aspiring poet who had never boiled an egg, I was piqued. How had a poet with no knowledge of food become an international cook-book writer? And why had she been so utterly forgotten? Her back story proved richer than I could ever have imagined.