Food & Drink

Joanna Richardson takes the reader on a culinary tour of the French capital, asking why, for several centuries, Paris has been the gastronomic capital of the Western world.

William Seymour describes how a large area of Dorset and Wiltshire, abounding in deer, was hunted by King John and granted to Robert Cecil by James I.

Born in Brunswick, Louis Weltje became cook to the Prince of Wales in the 1780s and landlord of his Marine Pavilion at Brighton. L.W. Cowie describes his life and times.

Windmills abounded in England from the twelfth century onwards. Terence Paul Smith describes how their bodies usually revolved on a vertical post so that the miller could face the sails into the wind.

An elaborate hierarchy maintained the royal household of Elizabeth I, writes Alan Haynes, but there was much pilfering and graft among the purveyors of domestic goods.

Since before Roman times, writes Marjorie Sykes, pearl-fishing has been practised in North Wales, Cumberland and Perth.

David Lance on the history of food in the Royal Navy, from canteen messing to professional catering.

Ronald Webber describes how, from the banks of the Thames, London was supplied with asparagus, melons, artichokes, carrots, beans and berries.

Iris Macfarlane describes how the Malabar coast in western India was the earliest scene of European sea-borne trade.

William Gardener describes how, since the first century A.D. rhubarb was known to the Romans as a panacea for internal ailments, and imported from China.