Lucy Worsley and Food in England

She’s so darned cute and smart. I love watching Lucy Worsley and hearing her blue-stockinged R’s that sound like W’s and figuring out how she makes her hair come to those points. And then I envy her position as Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces (Hampton Court, the Tower of London, etc.). And then I laugh at how much fun she’s having.

In this documentary (another offering from edwardianpromenade), Lucy looks at Food in England by Dorothy Hartley. I was unaware of this book and its importance and also of Ms. Hartley, who sounds like a classic English spinster, but who I suspect had a lot of fun in her life. One can’t help but think what Jane Austen’s life would have been in the 20th century.

Food in England is more than just a latter-day Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, because it’s basically a history posing as a cookbook, and if you look at Hartley’s other books—Water in England, Land of England and The Life and Work of the People of England—it’s pretty obvious she was an historian.

I watched this with my husband and yes I’m rubbing it in that I have a husband with whom I can watch such things.