Londoners' Larder: English Cuisine from Chaucer to Present

A really interesting book for food history and cooking aficionados, but sadly confirms that English food is sort of terrible from past to present. Even accounting for changing standards of taste, seriously, there are a lot of foods into which one should not add cinnamon or cloves. Either way, it's a great marriage of history and food and literature, actually, since Annette Hope tracks the history of food in London through writers and diaries, from Chaucer and Shakespeare and Evelyn through Oscar Wilde. But no, the recipes are terrible. Do not read this book for the recipes.