The Hungry Empire

This is a fascinating and timely study of the far-flung sources of our food supply – Jane Shilling * Daily Mail *After reading this you’ll never sit down to dinner without finding a trace of empire in your meal again * Strong Words *A wholly pleasing book, which offers a tasty side dish to anyone exploring the narrative history of the British Empire – Max Hastings * Sunday Times *Revelatory… Original, thought-provoking and highly entertaining – Daisy Goodwin * The Times *Dazzling… This book’s treatment of food in the empire is innovative and exciting… A remarkable achievement * Guardian *Fascinating… This is a marvellously wide-ranging and readable book, stuffed with engaging details and startling connections * Financial Times *Joyously delicious…In her original and supremely captivating book, [Collingham] has cleverly recreated the fine details of some 20 meals, consumed for four and a half centuries in a variety of homes and ships and tented encampments far from the motherland…In British terms, she is Henry Mayhew and Mass-Observation rolled into one—a stellar observer of the day-to-day and the mundane, a social historian of extraordinary talent * New York Times Book Review *The Hungry Empire is impressively scholarly… it is also fascinating. And although Collingham does not flinch from the cruelties and brutalities of empire, she refrains from the self-congratulatory finger-wagging indulged in by some modern historians * Daily Telegraph *Some of the most revelatory anecdotes are the funniest… As with all her work, Collingham has read most of what matters and has selected from it with a lively eye… She can unwind suggestive strands of evidence to lead readers through the labyrinth… Her brisk narrative of the origins of IPA is exemplary * Literary Review *Fascinating… Collingham’s decision to organize her enormously ambitious research around a series of intimate family meals is a good one. Material that would otherwise be numbingly abstract is made profoundly personal… You will certainly enjoy the journey * Mail on Sunday *

Lizzie Collingham taught History at Warwick University and was a Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge before becoming an independent historian. Her books include Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors and The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food. She is currently an Associate Fellow of Warwick University and the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge. She recently completed a project researching the history of the kitchens of the Indian President’s palace and regularly lectures on a gastronomic tour of Kerala. She works in a garden shed near Cambridge.

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