Penguin Books Australia

'The cook book as literature'   Guardian

'Marvellously funny and horrifyingly mouth-watering'   Rolling Stone

'Poet of the appetites' John Updike

M.F.K. Fisher's personal, intimate culinary essays are well-loved American classics, combining recipes with her anecdotes, reminiscences, cultural observations and passionate storytelling.

In 1615 the poet and writer Gervase Markham published an extraordinary handbook for housewives, containing advice on everything from planting herbs to brewing beer, feeding animals to distilling perfume, with recipes for a variety of dishes such as trifle, pancakes and salads (not to mention some amusingly tart words on how the ideal wife should behave).

Aimed at middle-class women who would share...

'The first celebrity chef - a kind of Anglo/French Jamie Oliver'   Peter May

The flamboyant Frenchman Alexis Soyer was the most renowned chef in Victorian England. This is his colourful account of his time at the front in the Crimean War, where he joined British troops in order to improve the quality of the food they were eating.

'An absolute delight to read' India Knight

Whether extolling the merits of a cheerful breakfast tray, conjuring up a winter picnic of figs and mulled wine, sharing delicious Tuscan recipes, or suggesting a last-minute pre-theatre dinner, the sparkling writings of the society hostess and philanthropist Agnes Jekyll describe food for every imaginable occasion and mood.

Travelling physician, salesman, author and self-made man, Dr Chase dispensed remedies all over America during the late nineteenth century, collecting recipes and domestic tips from the people he met along the way. His self-published books became celebrated US bestsellers and were the household Bibles of their day.

'The Georgian essayist, tender and puckish, with a weakness for oddity and alcohol'   Observer

A rapturous appreciation of pork crackling, a touching description of hungry London chimney sweeps, a discussion of the strange pleasure of eating pineapple and a meditation on the delights of Christmas feasting are just some of the subjects of these personal, playful writings from early nineteenth-century...

'Sublime . . . A Victorian gem'   Julian Barnes

Firmly of the belief that a home should be run as an efficient military campaign, Mrs Beeton, the doyenne of English cookery, offers timeless tips on selecting cuts of meat, throwing a grand party and hosting a dinner, as well as giving suggestions on staff wages and the cost of each recipe.

'It will be the fiercest Francophobe who can read Alice's recipes and not hanker for a taste'   Time

In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day.

'His recipes are so meticulous and clear, that the absolute beginner can follow them'   Elizabeth David

Elizabeth David's . . . makes you want to cook'   Terence Conran

'The fountainhead of modern Italian cookery'  Gastronomica

Pellegrino Artusi is the original icon of Italian cookery, whose legendary 1891 book Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well defined its national cuisine and is still a bestseller today.

'Roden's great gift is to conjure up not just a cuisine but the culture from which it springs'   Nigella Lawson

Award-winning food writer Claudia Roden revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuisines of the Middle East with her bestselling Book of Middle Eastern Food . Introducing millions to enticing new scents and flavours, her intensely personal, passionate writings conveyed an age-old tradition...

'The most ordinary and the most extraordinary writer you will ever meet' 
Claire Tomalin

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater and connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer.

'The first domestic goddess'   Clarissa Dickson-Wright

Writing for domestic servants in a conversational, accessible way, eighteenth-century housewife Hannah Glasse disapproved of French terminology and fussiness, instead favouring simple dishes that are still cooked today .

'Alice is the queen of simple, healthy, tasty food'   Jamie Oliver

A champion of organic, locally produced and seasonal food and founder of acclaimed Californian restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters has recently been awarded the Légion d'honneur in France for her contributions to food culture. In this book, she explores the simplest of dishes in the most delicious of ways, with fresh, sustainable...

'Marvellously tart and smart, and also comfortingly, absurdly French'   A. A. Gill

Epicure and gourmand Brillat-Savarin was one of the most influential food writers of all time. His 1825 book The Physiology of Taste defined our notions of French gastronomy, and his insistence that food be a civilizing pleasure for all has inspired the slow food movement and guided chefs worldwide.

'Racily written'   Alan Davidson

William Verral, the redoubtable eighteenth-century landlord of the White Hart Inn in Lewes, Sussex, trained under a continental chef and was determined to introduce the 'modern and best French cookery' to his customers. Gently mocking Englishmen who eat plain mutton chops or only possess one frying-pan, he gives enthusiastic advice on must-have kitchen gadgets...