A wonderful book that gives a real insight into the history of baking. It does contain some recipes however this book is more about the the history of food preparation and baking methods, which was absolutely fascinating. Great that it includes some of my favourite foods such as mince pies and sausage rolls. A real reflection on old recipes and people from the past. If you love a bit of social history and particularly food, you'll love this book.

A fascinating historical look at British baking and how it has evolved. Well written and perfectly researched.

This was an interesting book that was heavy on historical details, most of which I found fascinating. It’s less of a cookbook than I was expecting, but it definitely covered British baking from A-Z.

A captivating and well-researched read that delves deep (and I mean, really deep!) into baking and particularly in Britain. Loved all the details the author added - didn't mind that the focus seemed to be 'scattered' on most pages to add a tidbit here and a tidbit there. Found this to be absolutely charming and really informative, a lot of places eliciting an 'Aha!' when history was thus explained and suddenly made a whole lot more sense.
Lovely book for anyone who enjoys baking and/or loves history in general. Kudos to the author for such a profound and interesting book

This is a very detailed book about the history of baking.
It’s a very well researched book and the author goes into lots of detail.
I confess I found it hard going as I thought it would be more short amounts of information and then lots of recipes. That is my fault alone!

There are some really interesting historic pictures as well covering set times in history related to baking which were nice to see.

I feel this would make a wonderful t v programme to watch as it would be very informative and interesting.

This is a fascinating overview of the interplay between historical events, technical advances, and the evolution of food preparation and consumption over the past several centuries in Britain. It ranges from descriptions of the royal menus of the 1400-1500s, to the work of the Women's Land Army during WWII, to the kitchen supply of the ill-fated Titanic. Sprinkled throughout are depictions of kitchens and machinery during these times, and the stories (often with recipes) behind well-known dishes such as Victoria sandwich and Woolten pie. Cookbooks are generally a series of recipes, interspersed with short historical or anecdotal asides; here, that formula is essentially inverted, to good effect -- the anecdotes keep the overall historical narrative flowing, and are the most entertaining portions of the book.

A History of British Baking: From Blood Bread to Bake-Off by renowned food historian, Emma Kay, gives readers insight into how some of the most beloved British baked good evolved. True foodies, who not only cook but are curious about how certain dishes came about, and want to read up on it, will find themselves hooked on this book. Although it’s not a cookbook with beautiful photographs, and dozens of mouthwatering dishes, there are black and white photos along with vignettes and historical information that will inform and enlighten readers.

This book is extremely well-researched, and the prose is written in an excellent, flowing narrative that anyone interested in the historical aspects of food will be excited about. Although there are dozens of recipes, some dating back centuries, the history of certain British dishes and the stories of those who developed them are what will keep readers interested. Some of the most beloved British dishes such as the ubiquitous sausage roll (available almost everywhere in Britain and very common), and the Victoria sandwich (a sponge cake that is available at every bakery and deli), got their start centuries ago and haven’t waned in popularity. There are also dozens of not so well-known baked items that foodies will be tempted to bake from this historical cookbook if they can pull themselves away from reading.

While it is a must read for foodies, it isn’t for bakers and cooks who just want to get dinner on the table or bake a treat to serve a few friends. This one is for die-hard epicures who want to know everything they can about the food they are preparing. It is reminiscent of a textbook and the price, which is quite steep, reflects it. However, that shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying this book at home.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

My baking skills tend to be...patchy at best but I love all things Bake Off and I'm a bit if a history geek, so I got two scratch two itches with this book!

It's a well-rounded tome. With little footnotes that prevent it from ever becoming too academic. It flows from the history of baking from the dawning of written records, via the Romans, the Normans, and into the industrial revolution. There is also a great section on breadmaking during the wars and how immigrant bakers have helped shape breadmaking.

Plenty of recipes to try, some with handy translations. There are enough photographs to keep your own attempts at baking said recipes in line with the originals. Some of mine weren't exactly picture worthy but they tasted fine!

Although the writing seemed a little scattered, this is an eloquent and, for the most part, well-researched history of the British and their relationships with everything baked.

A trip through the history of baking in England. It is a long held place of honor and tradition. You get not only a taste of history of food and it’s evolution in England but the people it took to establish that tradition. It is forthright in it’s telling but very English in it’s no nonsense. It is a true picture of a people who survive at all costs.

A really interesting social history of baking in Britain. It shows how baking methods and products were shaped by the circumstances people lived in, and how baking is linked to the development of society as a whole.

It is also great at showing how baking was influenced by Britain's contacts - good and bad - with the rest of the world. And the book is written in a very engaging, chatty style.

This is a great book for anyone interested in how baking developed the way it did in Britain.

This meticulously researched book is wide-ranging, both in time and subject. From flour to leaveners, ovens to mills, Emma Kay writes about the ingredients and technologies that have shaped British baking over the years since the Romans up to the Great British Baking Show. There are few actual recipes here, and most of the ones included are from times past and involve ingredients that to the modern reader might sound less than appetizing. (What are ‘pineapple seeds’ anyway?)

Kay’s file cabinet of baking references is impressive, and she talks about baking in fashion, the theatre, and even magic. For the reader who wants more, there are both extensive footnotes and an impressive bibliography for further research.

A History of British Baking by Emma Kay, published by the excellent Pen & Sword, is a frustrating book. It’s crammed with fascinating facts. The author has clearly done a lot of diligent research. And yes, there is a “but” coming….

The Introduction states that “this book primarily seeks to uncover the numerous ambiguous effects of baking on society as a whole”. However, it doesn’t explicitly review whether it achieved this aim in the conclusion.

The book is a comprehensive history of baking in Britain from Roman times to the twenty first century with recipes covering the whole period (although the one for ash cakes as eaten in Roman times is a 1940s recreation). It’s really pleasing to see old recipes written in their original wording (sometimes with essential translations for us modern readers!) and modern versions as well.

My gripe is with the style of writing, not the information presented. There are numerous basic errors of grammar and punctuation which distract from the text; and I sometimes had to stop and try to understand what the author meant to convey. The book is divided into chapters such “Mastering the Masonry Oven and Medieval Menus”; “Of Pies and Puddings - Tudor and Stuart Baking”; and “Gorging Georgians to Excessive Empire”. The Tudor (1485-1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) chapter discusses immigrants in the late 1700s and the nineteenth century as well as Jewish bakers in Plymouth 1803-5. The detail is really interesting, but why label the chapter as covering a specific period but then ignore the self-imposed time boundaries? It confuses the reader when they think the signposts tell them they’re going from A to B but then jumps past B to C and back to a place before A.


There are clumsy phrases and contradictory statements such as that implying the Bible’s Testaments were compiled about 3000 years ago (even though this year is only 2020 AD); and Piers Plowman being a twelfth-century poem written by William Langland (born in the fourteenth century). Kay states that Melton Mowbray “… successfully withheld the right to carry out their own methods of bakery.” Eh? And I suspect a tart containing “meddlers and gooseberries” might be improved by using medlars instead of meddlers. I can safely assure you that, at the height of the Stuart period (ended 1714), thousands of British citizens didn’t choose to go to Australia (first visited by Captain Cook in 1770).

And there are errors that made me blink:
1) Key tells us that a bushel of gingerbread cost a farthing in 1315 or 45p in today’s prices, which is a little on the steep side. However, she states that the bushel weighed about ½ gramme. That would be steep. However, a bushel of apples weighs 48lb – it looks like she has drawn the wrong conclusion based upon a silly mistake.

2) Henry Bourchier (1587-1654), described as the great grandson of Edward III, employed a particular cook between 1640-1646. Given that Edward III died in 1377, his successors must have sired children at a grand old age! Henry was the 5th Earl of Bath and it was Henry Bourchier (1404-1483), the 1st Earl of Essex, that was Edward’s great-grandson. Thomas Pye Williamson may have opened a bakery in Yass in the 1890s but he wouldn’t have delivered bread at that time in a reconditioned Model T Ford (first produced 1908).

3) Kay states that some parts of the UK were being charged more than others for their average loaf during WWII – “as much as an extra farthing”. Given that there has never been a coin with a value less than a farthing circulating in Britain, I am unsure whether Kay is being ironic or has misrepresented the facts.

As I said at the outset, the book is fascinating and I really do recommend it as an interesting read. I just wish it had been edited properly. Unfortunately, the author seems to have ignored previous reviewers’ comments to this effect. A review of her "The Georgian Kitchen" from 2015 states "What is particularly annoying is the author's insistence on straying away from the period under discussion". One of "Dining with the Georgians" from 2014: "…the style is frequently clumsy […]. One example: the writer describes something as 'obsolete' in a particular geographical area when what she means is that it hadn't reached that place yet."

The interesting information gathered for the book merits five stars but the sloppy writing only three. I'll compromise on four!

#AHistoryofBritishBaking #NetGalley

In A History of British Baking: From Blood Bread to Bake-Off food historian Emma Kay gives readers a well-researched history of baking in England. The general focus remains on bread- that staple no matter the social class- but pastries, tarts, and cakes are all included. This is a history of the social, technological, and cultural changes in Britain from Roman occupancy to the present day as seen through baking. Where did certain foods originate? How did they come to Britain? How did baking change over the centuries? How did travel, trade, and conquest influence baking? Kay traces it all back as far as possible, and does an excellent job of including the influence of immigrants on baking in Britain. I particularly enjoyed the early chapters where she includes mentions of bread in early literature and describes the superstitions surrounding bread through medieval England. She also includes some historical recipes ranging from medieval pies to Waldorf pudding to mooncakes. This is not primarily a recipe book, but the included recipes add an extra element- especially the early recipes that are clearly written to feed a whole castle!

The copy I read was an advance copy and I have to hope that additional editing takes place before the book is finally released. While there was a general timeline to the book the writing was often disjointed, bouncing back and forth in time and making some of the historical progress hard to follow. Additionally, plenty of unfinished sentences made some of Kay's ideas hard to follow. She also tends to bounce from topic to topic and might have almost done better following, for example, the history of pies in one chapter and pastries in another. You can see why she didn't though, the social and legal trends for baking we see apply to all aspects of British baking and make more sense in a chronological order. Still, more editing and tighter writing would have greatly improved the presentation of this fascinating food history.

Overall Kay's writing is accessible to all, a casual academic style that will appeal to casual readers as well as serious academic food historians. She writes as if speaking to the reader, sharing stories and opinions with the same ease as she traces the historical origins of hardtack. This well-researched and highly interesting book will appeal to bakers, food historians, and those just interested in learning a little more about British history as seen through its bakes.


I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This is a remarkable book. Chock full of vintage recipes and more importantly the rigors of bread making in Britain. In the war years the circumstances of field baking was astounding. I found this book to be a very interesting history of baking and learned for more than expected. In fact, I will admit to a bit of shock at times. The copious amounts of research needed to pen such must have been a formidable task indeed.

It was hard for me to read because of the language so I mostly flipped through the book. It tells the history of the British baking and there are recipes between paragraphs and some photos. The are black and white photos of people, food, places and things. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

I love history and I love baking, so I was predisposed to enjoy this book! Unfortunately I was disappointed. Although very well-cited (Kay seems very knowledgable about her subject), the book was so poorly organized as to be almost unreadable. It bounced from period to period, subject to subject and location to location with no rhyme and no reason. In my opinion, the best way to organize this book would have been by subject -- a chapter on bread, then one on pie, and so on; with a fairly strict chronology within each chapter. As it was, the lack of structure made this a frustrating read.

Thanks to NetGally for providing an ARC copy for my review.

A History of British Baking was such a great read! Emma Kay does a fantastic job detailing the history of British baking; it is very detailed but super easy to read! The wealth of knowledge found in this book is indicative of the sheer amount of research Kay conducted before writing it. I recommend this book to anyone interested in culinary history or even general history.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC for this remarkable book!

Food history books have intrigued me since I was a child, It's the combination of history, cultures, traditions, related laws/crimes/punishments, superstitions and passion for the science of baking which is so fascinating. This book delves into baking history from Roman times to Medieval times to the present and everything between with a focus on breads, cakes and pastries, including several recipes. It brims with information, yet at no point does it feel like a textbook or an overload. Instead, it's a superb balance, detailing the importance of simple bread in the Bible to baked elaborate battle reenactments later on to migrant shops to the oldest existing wedding cake to industrialization and factories.

The old English recipes are splendid fun to read, as are the ingredients and preparations and history. Photographs and illustrations are wonderful.

I'm a seasoned baker but was thrilled to learn new-to-me information such as the reasons for the low mortality rate of bakers in Victorian times and earlier, bread baking etiquette and laws, bread preservation during wars and the origin of many recipes. The need for bread in every culture has remained a constant in a changing world.

If you crave a food history book to devour, this it it! I loved everything about it.

Baking is one of the many ways a person shows love. When you bake someone a cake, cookies or bread, you pour your best into the dough.
Baking has not always been a choice. You could not run to the store for a loaf of bread or cupcakes for school. Home baking has evolved along with our lifestyles. The choices in basic ingredients have expanded so I can make Irish soda bread or traditional rye breads with authentic ingredients from the store down the block.
So much of history is tied up in the art of cooking and baking. This book is an interesting and entertaining story of how methods and recipes have changed as both ingredients and equipment has improved and become universally available. It is both a history lesson tied up in a familiar landscape, everyone of us has spent time in the kitchen, and a look at the recipes that have been handed down. Emma Kay is obviously one of us....you know one of those women who show their families love often through baking.