More than a cookbook, although partly a cookbook, this is a history of what must be every natural ingredient English cooks ever used from Roman Britain to the time of writing, covering everything from seaweed to hedgehogs. I'd always thought of Hartley's Food in England as a history book, yet on rereading this endearing work from 1954, I found that it isn't, quite. To become a subscriber to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly Magazine, please visit our subscriptions page.

Her love of the infinite variety of English cooking and her knowledge of British culture and history show why our food should never be considered dull or limited. The Queen's Cheese recipe (1600), to be made between Michaelmas and Allhallowtide, and a huge cheese, nine feet in circumference, made in 1841 for Queen Victoria from one milking of 737 cows. Hartley's love of the infinite variety of English cooking and her knowledge of British culture and history show why our food should never be considered dull or limited. the American word "piecing" for a snack taken in the hand, has been preserved since it left England with the Pilgrim Fathers. I've tried the Christmas pudding recipe that she gives as being "The Royal Family's Christmas Pudding".They are short, charming pieces on such subjects as shrimp teas, toffee apples, watercress and Kentish cherry picking. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

The book is a compendium of favourite tips and treats, many of which just happen to be several hundred years old .

When I look back at the food of my 1970s childhood, it all seems as brightly coloured as a pair of toe-socks or a brand new Space Hopper. It’s a curious mixture of cookery, history, anthropology, folklore and even magic, illustrated with Dorothy’s own strong, detailed and lively illustrations. Her appreciation of English food was rare in that she started not with ingredients but with tools and techniques. The middle-class Victorian household 1800-1900 section includes mention of brisk exercise before breakfast, which brought to mind the old ladies I met when I was alumni officer at the boarding-school where Enid Blyton's daughters were educated. The book is unusual as a history in not citing its sources, serving more as an oral social history from Hartley's own experiences as she travelled England as a journalist for the Daily Sketch, interviewing "the last generation to have had countryside lives sharing something in common with the Tudors.