A riveting new biography--the first in 30 years--of the influential floral artist and founder of the Cordon Bleu cooking school ""Dress by Schiaperelli, photographs by Cecil Beaton, flowers by Constance Spry--The decorator of the moment, the photographer of the moment, the florist of the moment--what more could you ask?"" Thus "Vogue "magazine described the wedding in 1937 of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but most people today, if they have heard of her, associate Constance Spry with the cookbook bearing her name. But Connie was much, much more than the author of a bestselling cookbook. She was deeply unconventional, extremely charming, and very determined; Spry's life took her from a poverty-stricken childhood to running a hugely successful business as the florist of choice for the highest of high society, organizing the flowers for royal weddings and for the Queen's coronation. Along the way she escaped a violent marriage, had a lengthy affair with a cross-dressing lesbian artist, and built a hugely successful flower business--a pioneer for working women at a time when few women had careers. Sue Shephard tells her extraordinary story with insight, wit, and flair.

We may not give much thought to the boxes in our freezers or the cans on our shelves, but behind the story of food preservation is the history of civilization itself. The development of portable, preserved food enabled the great explorers to travel into the unknown and gradually map the planet, facilitated the conquest of new territories, and created routes for the expansion of trade and the exchange of knowledge and culture that opened up our world. In "Pickled, Potted, and Canned, " author Sue Shephard weaves together the stories of the inventors -- and inventions -- in a lively and richly detailed narrative that spans centuries and continents. It is a tale filled with extraordinary characters, old legends, and new revelations: how Attila the Hun and his men "gallop cured" their meat; how cooks became chemists and chemists became cooks and how some even lost their lives, like seventeenth-century statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon, whose death was caused by an experiment with a frozen chicken.

From the primitive techniques of drying and salting to the latest methods that have allowed us to feed men in space, "Pickled, Potted, and Canned" gives us fascinating insights into the histories, cultures, and ingenuity of people inventing new ways to "cheat the seasons."