An interesting and entertaining account of some of the myths and lore relating to the food we eat. I still have memories of my grandmother putting a muslin bag of leeks under my pyjamas to get rid of thread worms when I was a child and I am also the proud owner of my great grandfather’s recipe for asthma which involved boiling 20 bulbs of garlic into a syrup (untested) and I expect there are many similar stories to be had around the country. The way the book is organised by type of food makes it easy to dip in and out of and use as a reference book, but it is less compelling reading it from cover to cover as there is a muddle between myth, natural folk remedies and traditions. I would have also liked a bit more curiosity about the history and origins of some of these folk lores. It is a good overview, however, for those who are interested in these things.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

A fun and enjoyable foray into the folklore of British Food. Some of the tales and superstitions are quite well known, like throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it. There are however, many obscure facts and stories I had never heard of, some of which are quite bizarre. We learn where these tales originate from and how they have evolved over time. The book is well laid out; split into different food types eg Vegetable Lore, Fruit Lore, Fish Lore etc making it easy to dip in and out of. The information is engaging and well written with just the right amount of humour. A great gift for foodies who love facts and folklore.

Many thanks to Unbound and NetGalley for my reader copy in return for an honest and unbiased review

A well researched but still easy to read book; helped in thanks to the author's writing style. (Striking that fine line between casual and informative without tipping too far in either direction and making the book either flippant or boring to read)

Some facts I already knew as they are so ingrained in our day-to-day life, but even with previously unknown facts, I was so intrigued by that I often found myself them reading out loud to friends and family.

A Feast of Folklore traces food related myths, legends, and lore across Great Britain. It features random tidbits, stories of saints, kings, and witches, and all manner of stories related to the food of the rich and the poor. By its nature, folklore is comprised of rumors and old wives' tales. Some of has root in historical moments or actual practices, and some of it is made up years later with little basis. It's intriguing to see which of the bits of lore have survived today.

While there are a lot of footnotes, the book stays light on historical depth, intentionally keeping the stories brief. That said, there are a lot of primary source quotes and illustrations from the Middle Ages through the Victorian era.

The book starts and ends with a pinch of salt, and in between is organized by food category: fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, breads, cakes, food linked with faeries and magic, and drinks. Some of these tidbits are fascinating, while others left me scratching my head and wondering how humanity made it this far. (For example, a seemingly common cure for certain ailments was to hang some sort of food (from fruit to meat) around one's neck and when the food shriveled, so too did the ailment...)

The format of the book was easily digestible (pun intended), but sometimes the transition from one bit of lore to another about the same piece of food was abrupt or repetitive. This may be stylistic - the author is distinctly British - or may be the nature of collecting a compendium of so many stories it's hard to organize. Either way, I enjoyed this, and if you ever wonder why you throw a pinch of salt over your left shoulder, this book is for you.

This is an incredible book. So completely well researched, the authors search for folklore amd legends relating to food must have been exhaustive. It has everything from the familiar (put trinkets/tokens in a cake to predict the future) to the downright bizarre (put live eels in your husbands drinks to cure his alcoholism).

While I was initially disappointed that the folklore was only extending to British history, that concern was immediately put to rest when I realized how MUCH there was. It's, it's a lot.

We need more books like this to capture and preserve our shared local histories and culture.

This book is a delight - one to be dipped in and out of, chapter by chapter a couple of tasty morsels at a time. I am a food writer so am always interested to learn the lore behind certain foods and this did not disappoint.Incredibly well-researched and packed with information, this is one you'll come back to again and again (and might come in handy on trivia night!). If you're looking for a quirky read, this will not disappoint.

Reading like a organized miscellany, A Feat of Folklore: The Bizarre Stories Behind British Food is an encyclopedic snapshot of British food traditions, superstitions and common practice. A welcome reference for those in need of such a thing.

Gazur organizes the foods by types a selection not in the order they appear: breads, drinks, meats, etc... They are very episodic sharing an anecdote, practice or perhaps a song, poem or other snippet of dialect to match the usage. In the introduction Gazur detailed that the sources he relied on where very much snippets of time, showing how things were practiced at their time of recording. As presented here, the content begs for more context or a wider study of how the tradition or practice developed and when it went away, and sometimes this is done, but mostly not.

Recommended for readers of British culture and folklore, food ways or superstitions.

Food has always been an important part of life, and all sorts of interesting or strange stories have been told about various kinds of foods. Ben Gazur has attempted to collect the folklore surrounding food in Britain in A Feast of Folklore: The Bizarre Stories Behind British Food.

This book is a nonstop collection of stories about various kinds of foods. You find out quickly how concerned everyone was about witchcraft and sorcery: a lot of the stories involve when and how foods might be compromised by spells. Certain foods should not be eaten at certain times because they might be Satanically influenced. Many other stories involve medical associations: attempts to apply foodstuffs to relieve bodily aches or infelicities. Many of them feature stories of saints. A fair number are about more mundane aspects of life, including the search for love: apparently you could figure out who you might marry based on certain food rituals.

It’s a good collection since many such stories were only preserved in newspaper articles or the like in days of old, and many such ideas and rituals are being lost as we lose our connections with pre-modern life. We may want to think we’re so much more advanced, but we no doubt have our own odd and peculiar beliefs and stories regarding various kinds of foods.

This was such a fun and interesting book! Each chapter dives into a particular food or drink, uncovering unusual origins, superstitions, and cultural myths, making this a perfect book for food lovers and history buffs alike.

From Vegetables to Fruits to Dairy, Egg, Cake and Drink, this collection of food-based folklore has something for everyone to enjoy or will simply put a smile on your face. Of course the foods with the most lore to offer are the ones that have been a staple since time immemorial: milk, cheese, berries and bread. Close seconds are garlic (vs wild garlic) and potatoes, while not native, have been around long enough to establish their own lore. You may even find something familiar, I certainly did, having grown up in Appalachia. For example, if you hold a buttercup up to your chin and it turns yellow, you love butter! And you can thank the Royal Air Force if you believe that carrots lead to better eyesight!

"A Feast of Folklore" is also brimming with food-based festivals and vocabulary. This sentence alone is a delight: On Punkie Night in Somerset one can "see punkies made from swedes and mangelwurzels!" You'll even learn the importance of bletting a medlar or why pears are called wardens! But even if you're not familiar with the history of certain areas, a pattern quickly emerges. Remote areas that, historically, had minimal Christian contact, have combined their religious beliefs with folk practice. There's an endless supply of saints - some of which only exist in oral tradition in a single village - to establish when food was sown, harvested, eaten and sometimes thrown; as is the case in Kenelstowe on St. Cynehelm's Day! I was happily surprised at how many festivals and practices have evolved and stood the test of time. After all, "food is the universal ingredient in all our lives" and folklore certainly adds a bit of spice to the bounty.

This was such an interesting book! I am a huge fan of random knowledge and this is what this book is. Highly entertaining!

this was a really interesting and comprehensive look at why we do various superstitions and cures around food. told accessibly and split into digestible chunks, i really enjoyed this

This was such an interesting and fascinating read. I was absolutely in awe in just how much lore there is for so many different types of food and drink. I learnt so much with this read and it was written in a great way that I didn’t get overwhelmed with information so I wasn’t put off reading. The chapters were short which I loved as it meant to could continue reading this throughout my daily routine.

A Feast Of Folklore by Ben Gazur is about the history of food and non-food meanings we get from the things we eat every day. From throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off bad luck to how onions can cure fever and potatoes cure gout to the reason why you shouldn’t take nuts on the Sabbath, to so so much more. They had superstitions for how many peas were in a pod and they were even foods that help you with your love life like carving the names of potential suitors an individual pieces of cheese in the one that molded first was out. Some of these tails or just that made up myths but some have been proven to be true like the village that grew onions and had the lowest plague victims to using cabbage to help with raw breast while feeding a nursing baby. Not everything having to do with Food nourished and or made you healthier there were some things they did with food that were dangerous like the knife in the cheese wheel game the Christmas dragon fly game and others the author really covers every aspect Just like the authors last book I found this book so Uber interesting and found myself not wanting to close it I love this authors books his humor just everything about this book and his others fascinate me.#NetGalley,#PenguinRandomHouseChildren’s, #BenGazur, #AFeastOfFolklore,

Thanks to NetGalley and Unbound for the ARC.

A quick, chill read about British superstitions surrounding food. It can be a little repetitive, if only because the folk cures were similar in procedure to each other regardless of ingredients.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6941876314

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/51f6d459-fb25-41fc-9356-e494f99af3d7

Check out this review of A Feast of Folklore on Fable. https://fable.co/review/1060e4ca-d4a2-4dea-8ca8-96f53429ed1a/share

My favourite type of food. Food for the brain. And when is being told as humorously as Ben Gazur does, well then I will take 2 servings please!!

This was fun and interesting! I enjoyed learning about the unusual beliefs and traditions involving food and drink in Britain. It's fascinating to learn where some customs or sayings we still use came from. Tracing folklore shows us so much about our ancestors and ourselves.

The book did start to feel repetitive in the bread and cakes sections, especially since there were a couple times where a custom was related multiple times.

I also found it confusing how sometimes a paragraph would be about a specific belief except for one unrelated sentence about some other belief. They were grouped together as if they had bearing on each other, but they usually didn't.

Overall though, I enjoyed this book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Unbound in exchange for an honest review.

The concept here is fun, but I did struggle with the formatting - it was not quite "narrative" enough for me to fully enjoy and pay attention to for long stretches. However, the facts and history are great.

Lovely book for the curious foodie who loves history (or vice versa). Food, facts and folklore all intertwined into a great book to drop in and out of and learn the significance behind traditions.

Fascinating facts of the folklore surrounding food and drink. Good old fashioned common sense is included in some examples such as why Shrove Tuesday was once called Shrews Tuesday after you tell your wife her pancakes are rubbish and she wallops you over the head with her frying pan.
Since a friend of mine has a viral cough, I suggested a couple of remedies from this book for whooping cough to them. Unfortunately I am unable to put the answer here as it's nsfw, oddly enough.
But it's definitely worth a read and if you're interested in local history or history of witchcraft I'd strongly recommend it.