This title is part social history, part personal memoir. It is the story of the 1960s era when a small group of Italian immigrants, led by Mario and Franco and all connected to each other, introduced Britain to authentic Italian cooking and to the 'Trattoria style' which transformed our food and restaurant culture.

Acetaria (1699) was a book with many subjects: the rights and wrongs of vegetarianism; the virtues of eating more salads; cultivating the plants that made them memorable; and recipes for their use. It shows John Evelyn as more than arbiter of visual taste -- his central historical role -- but as one of England's first gastronomes. Acetaria exposes English cookery at a critical moment as it departed from medieval forms and embraced the new styles of France and Europe. Its arguments still have resonance and can be counted as revolutionary at the time they were first expressed.

The Accomplisht Cook was first published in 1660 and this is a facsimile of the 1685 edition. Robert May was cook to the aristocracy of Royalist England; born in the year of the Armada; trained by his own father, then by powerful patrons in Paris; before apprenticeship in London with the cook to the Star Chamber. In the course of a long life, working almost exclusively for fellow Catholics and Royalists, he absorbed all the most fashionable tendencies at large in the kitchens of England. 'By its sheer size and comprehensive scope Robert May's book eclipsed its predecessors,' writes Alan Davidson in his foreword. Here is the most complete portrait of English cooking as it was when Charles II was restored to the throne, as well as before 'the unhappy and cruel disturbances' of the Civil War, in 'those golden days of peace and hospitality,' as the author puts it, 'when you enjoyed your own.' This edition has an excellent biographical introduction by Marcus Bell, revealing new facts about Robert May's life, a graceful foreword by Alan Davidson and a full glossary of contemporary terms. This new reprint of Prospect's edition of 2000 is part of the series 'The English Kitchen' and sits alongside and in similar format to other works, ancient and modern, on the history of English cookery.

Prospect Books' best seller is this handy instruction manual for the ultra-keen breadmaker and DIY enthusiast showing how to build a substantial bread oven in the yard or garden. Together with detailed plans (which do not omit a single block or brick) and a step-by-step specification, the book doubles up as an essay on English bread baking in previous centuries, with special reference to the hardware, equipment and working methods. There is plenty here to interest the reader who is not necessarily going to embark on the building project. The book was first published in 1997 and has had an annual printing since then. It sells at much in America as it does in Britain, although British sales have definitely increased in the last few years. There are other books on the subject, but few give as much historical context. The history of bread is something which is almost entirely ignored in current literature, greatly to its disadvantage. The book closes with a couple of recipes. It was never meant as a cookbook; there are plenty of alternatives, including the same author's Baking Bread at Home (Phoenix). But the enthusiasm for good bread, and for baking it yourself, is still growing and is well served here.

A Treatise on the Art of Bread-Making was published in London in 1805, the work of a medical man, little known for any other books, save a couple of pamphlets on gout and sore throats and fever, which he observed in his native Uxbridge in Middlesex. His book on bread is by no means medical, but rather an entertaining and instructive tour through the whole process of bread-making from growing and harvesting the wheat, to developing satisfactory yeasts, running an effective bakehouse and investigating a whole variety of recipes for breads made not only from wheat, but also other grains, potatoes and rice. The book ends with a resume of current law relating to the sale of bread, and an appendix containing the witness statements to a parliamentary committee on baking in 1804. The literature of bread-making in Britain is by no means as full as that on the continent of Europe. Because baking was a trade craft, practised by people barely on the verge of literacy, most instructions and technical lore were transmitted by word of mouth from master to apprentice down through the years. These instructions were deemed 'secrets' and the very idea of publishing them in a printed book would have been anathema. For this reason, there are surprisingly few recipes in domestic cookery books of the period, the authors reckoning that cooks would leave it to the bakers. The literature did not really kick off until the Victorian period, and only rose to a flood in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. After Edlin, the next person to tackle the subject was a trained baker in 1828; the value, therefore, of this first book is especially great, as no others exist.