Cake by Nicola Humble

Cake by Nicola Humble

Let them eat cake! What birthday, wedding, bar mitzvah or children's party would be complete without it? It is the ultimate food of celebration in many cultures throughout the world, but how did it come to be so? "Cake: A Global History" explores the origin of modern cake and its development from sweet bread to architectural flight of fancy, together with the meanings, legends and rituals attached to cake throughout the world. Nicola Humble reviews the many national differences in cake-making techniques and customs the French, for example, have the gateau Paris-Brest, named after the cycle race and designed to imitate the form of a bicycle wheel; in America there is New England's Election Day cake or the Southern favourite, Lady Baltimore cake and what they reveal about the nations that make them. From Proust's madeleine to Miss Havisham's decaying wedding cake, the symbol of her betrayal in Dickens' "Great Expectations", Humble also relates the food's place in literature, art and film, and what it can symbolize and illustrate: indulgence, gender, motherhood and guilt. With a large selection of mouthwatering images, "Cake" will appeal to the many readers with an interest in food history, social, cultural, literary and art history or, indeed, just in cake.

'I had been awaiting Nicola Humble's Cake: A Global History with as much anticipation as a warm Dundee cake coming out of the oven on a winter's afternoonA mere 150 pages in length and the colour of creamed butter and sugar, this is the story of cake and its place in our history, its myths, legends and folklore ... I have found it as difficult to put down as a slice of village-fete chocolate cake.' Nigel Slater, The Observer 'This small book was a lot like a good slice of cake to me, because when I finished it I wished there were more.' - Times Higher Education 'These are food memoirs, salacious and exotic, colorful, powdered, sweet, greasy and globe-trotting ... sharp and speedy little reads, spotted with off-kilter illustrations' - Chicago Tribune 'I devoured this volume in one sitting' - Text Journal of Writing

Nicola Humble is Professor of English Literature at Roehampton University. She is the author of Culinary Pleasures: Cook Books and the Transformation of British Food, as well as Victorian Heroines: Representations of Femininity in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Art.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781861896483
ISBN 10	1861896484
Title	Cake
Author	Nicola Humble
Series	Edible
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Reaktion Books
Year published	2010-04-01
Number of pages	144
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable