Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part One: Tea and Confusion -- Breakfast: or the Two Nations -- Recipe: Kedgeree -- The Sandwich: the working lunch -- Etiquette: the civilizing or discriminating process -- Tea: a now universal magic -- Afternoon Tea: the Duchess of Bedford's sinking feeling -- High Tea: a bourgeois affair -- Recipe: Parkin for the many -- The Dinner Party: the middle classes' revenge -- Supper: a subtle rebuke to the aspirational classes -- Part Two: Brit…ish -- Carving: the whole hog -- The Roast Beef of Old England -- Recipe: Spiced Beef for Christmas -- Roast Chicken: murder most fowl -- Mashed Potato: disguising humble roots -- The Cornish Pasty: trying to square the circle -- Recipe: Cornish Herby Pasty -- Peas: the fresh and the dried -- The Gravy Wars -- Jelly: slithering down the social ladder -- Christmas Pudding: charity and family -- Part Three: Foreign Introductions -- Turkey: its journey to greatness -- Old Spice -- Curry: an Anglo-Indian relationship -- French Food: male chefs and female cooks -- Stews: a hotch-potch of names -- Parmentier Potatoes: food for the republic -- Macaroni: and other Olde English pastas -- Recipe: Macaroni -- Ice cream: the big business flavour theft -- Recipe: Brown Bread Ice Cream -- Gingerbread: feast and famine -- Part Four: Rooms, Plates and Cutlery -- Where We Sit: and why we care -- The Restaurant: the rise, fall and rise of British food -- Small Plates: a return to Georgian dining in miniature -- Fish Knives: and other ways of being cutting -- Forks: making a stab -- Recipe: Eighteenth-century Duck and Green Peas -- Doilies, Napkins and Tablecloths -- Food in Tins -- Recipe: Potted Shrimps -- Part Five: Disappearances and reappearances -- The Venison Pasty: too posh to last -- Tripe: a social outcast -- Oysters: from national treasure to rarity value.

Fruit: the raw and the cooked -- Recipe: Quince Pye -- Saloop: comfort for outsiders -- Metheglin and Mead: champagne or alcopop? -- Gin: how it drove everyone crazy -- Bread and Butter: tea-time essential to pre-dinner bagatelle -- Recipe: Wiggs -- Part Six: Fads, Fasts and Health -- Almond Milk: why fasting fell out of favour -- Recipe: Quaking Pudding -- Vegetables and Vegetarians: unpopular cranks, revolutionaries and proselytizers -- Recipe: A Poor Man's Pease Porridge -- Rationing: making the class war obsolete -- Bread: white or brown? -- Brussels Sprouts and Brassica Cousins -- The Avocado: the middle-class signifier -- The Tomato: whose heritage? -- Chocolate: my health drink, your drug -- Part Seven: Country and Town -- The Pork Pie: class-free but not unclassy -- Cheddar and Stilton: a tale of two cheeses -- Rabbit: a poacher's tale -- Fish and Chips: a mixed-race marriage -- Picnics: wandering lonely as a cloud… or being sociable? -- Foraging: the knowledge economy -- Recipe: Nettle Soup -- Cake: a regional lexicon -- Recipe: Mrs MacNab's Scones -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Endnotes -- Acknowledgements -- Index.