Colin Spencer – författare

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, English cuisine was known throughout Europe as extraordinarily stylish, tasteful, and contemporary, designed to satisfy sophisticated palates. So, as Colin Spencer asks, why did British food "decline so direly that it became a world-wide joke, and how is it now climbing back into eminence?" This delectable volume traces the rich variety of foods that are inescapably British-and the thousand years of history behind them. Colin Spencer's masterful and witty account of Britain's culinary heritage explores what has influenced and changed eating in Britain-from the Black Death, the Enclosures, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of capitalism to present-day threats posed by globalization, including factory farming, corporate control of food supplies, and the pervasiveness of prepackaged and fast foods.He situates the beginning of the decline in British cuisine in the Victorian age, when various social, historical, and economic factors-an emphasis on appearances, a worship of French cuisine, the rise of Nonconformism, which saw any pleasure as a sin, the alienation from rural life found in burgeoning towns, the rise and affluence of the new bourgeoisie, and much else-created a fear that simple cooking was vulgar. The Victorians also harbored suspicions that raw foods were harmful, encouraged by the publication of a key cookbook of the period, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. However, twenty-first century British cooking is experiencing a glorious resurgence, fueled by television gurus and innovative restaurants with firm roots in the British tradition. This new interest in and respect for good food is showing the whole world, as Spencer puts it, "that the old horror stories about British food are no longer true."

'A marvellous and remarkable book.' Melvyn Bragg'A life-affirming novel.' TelegraphFirst published in 1963, Anarchists in Love was the first of a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family. This volume centres on Sundy Simpson, who, on a warm May evening in Brighton, runs into Reg Pearson in a bar. They begin an affair: she paints, he writes, and on the surface they seem well matched. Reg, however, is a keeper of secrets.In a new preface to this edition Colin Spencer recalls the controversy that attended its first publication, and his wish to celebrate Brighton, 'which appeared to me in my twenties to be as complicated as the human soul'.

First published in 1967, The Tyranny of Love was the second in a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family. At the forefront of this story is Matthew, only son of Eddy and Hester Simpson. He loathes his lecherous father and wants to avenge his mother's misery. He begins an obsessive, sexless relationship with Jane, the girl next door, but his driving passion tends in another direction, and threatens to cause chaos.This edition of the novel includes a new preface by Colin Spencer.'[The novel] has a passionate feeling for the sensuous world; the characters live at full blast, a family driven by dark and uncontrollable forces, but always flesh and blood people.' London Illustrated News

First published in 1970, Lovers in War was the third of a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family. This volume finds brother and sister Matthew and Sundy Simpson suffering fresh emotional turmoil. Sundy has divorced her philandering husband, Reg, and is living with Jamey Best-David, whose Catholic wife will not grant him a divorce. Matthew, resisting the homosexual world to which he feels drawn, has married his boyhood sweetheart, Jane. But when Reg resurfaces, both Matthew and Sundy succumb again to his incorrigible charm.This Faber Finds edition includes a new preface by Colin Spencer wherein he reflects on 'how the ethics of loving, its agonies and joys, are so unchanged'.

First published in 1978, The Victims of Love was the last in a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family and their charged relationships across the generations. Now we are in the 1960s, as Sundy Simpson attempts a reclusive existence as a single mother and Matthew struggles with the aftermath of a superficially civilised divorce and the continued rage of passion within.In a new preface Colin Spencer recalls how he drew inspiration from his own life and the lives of others, intending 'to be as honest to my experience as I can be, to be ruthless in my vision of others as I have been to myself'.'Affecting, hilarious, and grave . . . [the Generation Quartet] is a tapestry of unforgettable characters in all their seaminess and sadness, their idealism and desires. It is a delight to meet them again.' Sir Huw Weldon

Though the word vegetarianism was not coined until the mid-nineteenth century, the vegetarian diet has been around as long as man has. Vegetarians have included in their number: heretics, humanists, Hindus, Christian fundamentalists, radicals, agnostics, philosophers, founders of religion and even an Emperor. Not surprisingly vegetarians have often been discriminated against sometimes tortured, even killed for their beliefs. So the history of vegetarianism is also a history of dissidence and revolt. Colin Spencers comprehensive book, reissued in paperback for the first time in fifteen years explores the psychology of abstention from flesh and attempts to discover why omnivorous humans at times voluntarily abstain from an available food. The result is a thorough work of scholarship, entertaining in places, horrifying in others. The breadth of Spencers research is quite outstanding and makes for a truly erudite read. He begins in pre-history and ends in the present day. Colin Spencer is one of the countrys leading food historians but his prolific output has not been limited to this field alone. He has written nine novels, a dozen cookery books, has had six plays produced, as well as writing for television and film and was food columnist for The Guardian for thirteen years. He has also written two other Grub Street titles: British Food (9781908117038) and From Microliths to Microwaves (9781908117007).