Elisabeth Luard
What We Eat Is What We Are
Planet Chicken: The Shameful Story of the World's Favourite Bird
By Hattie Ellis
Sceptre 320pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
The English at Table
By Digby Anderson
The Social Affairs Unit 151pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
At first glance one might think that Hattie Ellis, author of this frightening tale of Man's inhumanity to bird, and Dr Digby Anderson, a fellow with a talent for setting the fox among the chickens, are unlikely barnyard companions. Yet both put broadly the same argument.
At issue is whether we, consumers of horrible food produced in horrible ways, are prepared to change our habits and pay decent money for food which tastes the way it should. The case for chicken at the buy-one-get-one-free level – 'bogofs' in supermarket-talk – is that cheap meat is protein for the masses and anyone who argues is a toff with more money than sense.
Anderson is a man for the rapier-thrust: 'healthists' are dismissed for their disapproval of everything which actually tastes good (butter and so forth); 'environmentalists' for their desire to eliminate salt cod on the spurious grounds that the cod fisheries are all fished-out, thereby depriving gourmets of their brandade de morue;
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa
Some salient thoughts on book collecting from Michael Dirda with a semi tragic conclusion that I suspect many of us can relate to from the @Lit_Review #WednesdayMotivation
Sign up to our newsletter! Get free articles, selections from the archive, subscription offers and competitions delivered straight to your inbox.
http://ow.ly/zZcW50JfgN5