'Toast is a magnificent reminder of...food in family life.' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times
Nigel Slater is Britain's top food writer. His hugely popular columns and books have won him an enormous following for his direct, up-to-the-minute and delicious approach to food. He has written six books previously to this, has an award-winning column in the Observer and a regular column in Sainsbury's Magazine.
It seems only natural that most of food columnist Slater's (Real Last Food) childhood memories are somehow connected to food. Rice pudding, Sunday roasts, mince pies, and, of course, toast all played different roles in Slater's life growing up in 1960s England, but not all of those memories were happy ones. Slater's mother, who suffered from asthma and eventually succumbed to it, never really enjoyed cooking but did love her food-fussy son. Slater's relationship with his father, who could be both kind and cruel, became even more complicated when his father remarried, and Slater's new stepmother, a gifted cook with an obsession for cleanliness, took over the kitchen. Slater's spare, brutally honest style of writing might not appeal to readers who prefer a cozier culinary memoir, but his emotionally powerful story is sure to please anyone who enjoys superbly written, food-flavored biographies, e.g., Jacques Pepin's The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen or Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone. Originally published in Great Britain in 2003 and winner of the British Book Award for Best Biography, Toast is highly recommended for all public libraries. John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
'Acutely observed, poignant and beautifully written...Slater tells his heartbreaking story with great subtlety. The theme of food and love is a fascinating one and I have never seen it better handled.' Daily Telegraph
'He recreates with moving honesty and laugh-out-loud comedy the hopes and fears of boyhood. Remarkable.' Observer
'"Toast" connects emotions, memory and taste buds. Genius.' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times
'A talent for prose as simple and pleasurable as his recipes.' Sunday Telegraph
'Exquisitely written...You read this remarkable memoir partly cringing, partly marvelling at Slater's hallucinogenic retrieval of times past. He is the Proust of the Nesquik era.' Independent
'It achieves a remarkable freshness...[and] reveals a gift for doleful, Alan Bennett-like comedy.' Guardian
'This touching memoir proves [Slater] is more than a cookery writer. Its emotional impact will touch a chord with many.' Sunday Mirror
'Wonderful, precise...extraordinary.' Matthew Fort
'It's bitter-sweet, it's a book to be consumed in a single sitting, a book that slips down really nicely. However you want to put it, "Toast" is delicious.' The Oldie
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