Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill's Cook

(Paperback, Main)

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This is the story of a woman who was not a royal, not rich, not famous; someone who simply worked hard and enjoyed her life. But while Georgina Landemare saw herself as ordinary, her accomplishments were anything but. Georgina started her career as a nursemaid and ended it cooking for one of the best-known figures in British history: Winston Churchill.To him, food was central, not only as a pleasure but as a diplomatic tool at a time when the world was embroiled in war.

With this eager eater and his skilled cook, ranging from rural Berkshire to wartime London, via Belle Epoque Paris and prohibition-era New York, Annie Gray shows how life in service - and food - changed during the huge upheavals of the twentieth century.

Reviews

Deliciously entertaining * Daily Mail *
Engaging ... appeals to three national obsessions: the preparation and presentation of food; the lost world of great households, above and below stairs; and the private life of a national hero, Churchill * The Times *
Gray is an inventive researcher ... she likes to get close up to the everyday past * Spectator *
The queen of food historians -- Lucy Worsley
Annie Gray is a brilliant writer and scholar who brings a glorious combination of enthusiasm and greed to every subject she tackles. In the field of food history she leads the pack -- Jay Rayner
Popular history at its very best * Daily Mail *
Victory in the Kitchen ... recreates a corner of early 20th-century domestic life * Spectator *
Gray writes with great authority, verve and confidence * The Times *

Author Bio

ANNIE GRAY is a historian, cook, broadcaster and writer specialising in the history of food and dining in Britain from around 1600 to the present day. She does her research in libraries and archives but is a firm believer in cooking as research as well. She is the resident food historian on BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet and has presented TV history documentaries including Victorian Bakers and The Sweetmakers. She is the author of The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria, among other books, and is a Research Associate at the University of York. She lives in East Anglia.