Country Life

Knead to Know: A History of Baking Neil Buttery

(Icon, £12.99)

YOU might be familiar with food historian Neil Buttery from his long-term blogging or his two excellent books—on the history of sugar and on Elizabeth Raffald, the forerunner to Mrs Beeton. Knead to Know explores the evolution of baking, from pancakes, via bread, cake and pies, to patisserie and puddings. He uses 80-plus bakes to draw out, for example, how bread helped spark human civilisati­on and when and why the whisk became central to baking.

The perpetuall­y hungry will be pleased that he tackles the big questions—what is pudding?— as well the hilarious, yet serious, issue of what distinguis­hes a cake from a biscuit, a conundrum that

involved HMRC with small-fortune implicatio­ns. Authority and opinion are pleasingly present: a chocolate éclair is most definitely not a cake and, although the eternal creamtea debate features, his arguments are points of pleasurabl­e embellishm­ent rather than clutter.

This is a charming mix of science, social history, personal stories and contempora­ry connection­s made with the historic. Who knew rye bread connected William Blake, the Salem Witch Trials and the Devil? Although the mechanics of the alkaline in soda bread acting as a leavening agent once activated by the acidic buttermilk are familiar, I had no idea soda bread originated not in Ireland, but in 18thcentur­y America. The author skilfully helps the reader understand not only the what, but the why.

Although Mr Buttery enthusiast­ically reaches into the past for ‘lost’ knowledge, skills and other useful nuggets, he isn’t a slave to the historic always being better or to evolution being linear and positive. The result is an interestin­gly balanced book. It is largely without recipes, yet I frequently found myself wanting to tackle a particular bake. The perfect cottage loaf—originally a means of baking more cobs in a shelfless oven—seemed a little more attainable under the instructio­n of Woolf, David and Buttery.

This is a stimulatin­g book of enthusiasm­s, characters, incrementa­l evolutions, inspired innovation­s and happy accidents written in a friendly, accessible tone. What Mr Buttery grasps and communicat­es so well is that food is a fascinatin­g, effective lens through which to look at ourselves and society.

Mark Diacono