While clearing out the attic of her mother’s house, Bryony Hill came across a box full of documents relating to her ancestors' lives in India from 1818 onwards. The result of the find was two books: Scotland to Shalimar – a Family’s Life in India, in which she recounts the aspects of their lives in India in the 19^th Century; and An Indian Table concerning the foods that they ate.

Grace Dent is widely regarded as one of today’s most eminent restaurant and food critics and was 2019 winner of the Guild of Food Writers Award. We have two extracts from her new memoir, Hungry, read by Grace Dent herself.

Mark Crick’s  Kafka’s Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 17 recipes is a book often borrowed and seldom returned.  It is a joy to dip into this collection of literary pastiches for recipes written in the style of Raymond Chandler, Irvine Welsh, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Homer, Chaucer and so on.

Ned Palmer reads three extracts from his A Cheesemonger's History of the British Isles.

Edward Trencom has bumbled through life, relying on his trusty nose to turn the family cheese shop into the most celebrated fromagerie in England. But his world is turned upside down when he stumbles across a crate of family papers. To his horror, Edward discovers that nine previous generations of his family have come to sticky ends because of their noses. Giles Milton, the author, has chosen two passages to read from this, his first novel.

Letitia Clarke’s second book is La Vitaè Dolce. She read two extracts from it for Talking of Food.

Chef, artist and food-writer Letitia Clarke reads an extract from her first book Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from the Island of Sardinia.

Mrs Cromwell's Cookbook was published in 1664, long after the "Commonwealth" under Oliver Cromwell, with an intention to discredit the Cromwells as having been unsuited to run the country.