📖 Blog Tour ~ Good Taste by Caroline Scott

 

Simon Schuster
13 October 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and to Random Things Tours  for the invitation to the blog tour

You can tell a lot about a person from what they like to eat..

When Stella Douglas, author of a much-loved but not very successful biography of a forgotten cookery writer, is summoned to see her editor in London, she is dreading being told her writing career is over before it's even started. But much to her surprise, she finds she is being commissioned to write another book - this time a history of food in England and how the English like to eat. It's to be quintessentially English and will remind English housewives of the old ways, and English men the glory of their country. The only problem is - all English food is really from elsewhere.

So Stella sets about inviting recipes from all corners of England, in the hope of discovering a hidden culinary gem. But what she discovers is oatcakes and gravy and lots of lots of potatoes.

📖 My Review..

I can think of no better way to spend a rainy October afternoon than to settle down with the latest book by this talented writer. Good Taste is a rather lighter foray into historical fiction than the author’s previous books which have focused mainly on the aftermath of WW1. 

The story starts in 1931 when we meet Stella Douglas, a struggling writer, who realises that her biography about a not very well known cookery writer is never going to make her fortune and is fully expecting to be decommissioned by her editor. It is with great surprise, however, that Stella is asked to research and write a book about the history of English cookery. Stella’s detailed search into the vagaries of English cuisine takes to her to the different counties of England and in her travels from north, south, east and west she discovers rather more than she bargained for especially when her trusty old Austin breaks down in Gloucestershire.

I've really loved being with Stella, she's such a delightful character that it becomes very easy to be taken over by her completely and whilst food plays a big part in her story there is so much more to be found than recipes for oatcakes and gravy. Beautifully descriptive the story reads like a beautiful homage to this eccentric country I call home, from the idiosyncrasies of our not so national cuisine, to our ability to laugh at ourselves whilst at the same time making the best out of every situation. Good Taste is an absolute joy to read and I devoured it ...forgive the pun, over the space of a couple of days, lost in Stella's world and her quest to find the best, and worst, of English cuisine whilst at the same time finding out so much more about herself.

Good Taste is warm, witty, wise and utterly glorious - I loved it.

Best Read with...a Chorley cake, slathered in butter, with a side slice of Lancashire cheese.

About the Author

Caroline completed a PhD in History at the University of Durham.She has a particular interest in the experience of women during the First World War, in the challenges faced by the returning soldier. Caroline is originally from Lancashire, but now lives in south-west France.

Twitter @CScottBooks #GoodTatse

@simonschusterUK

@RandomTTours