Diane Purkiss does a good job of highlighting some of the voices that are often glossed over in most narrative histories: the women, the poorer population, and the children. She is effective in showing that rather than simply being a faceless mass following recognisable leaders (which I don't think we truly believe anyway), these people not only had their own views but a significant amount of agency. She uses the example of a range of women (Lucy Hay, Anna Trapnell, Ann Fanshawe, and more) to illustrate their central role to the period: they were preachers, soldiers, politicians, managers, and landlords as much as wives and mothers. She also gives a strong sense of the opportunities offered by those turbulent times and the world-shattering confluence of ideas, concepts and situations that changed society - and ways of thinking - forever. Basically, Canadian wheatbelt flour is a shortcut. And like all shortcuts, it has its disadvantages. It’s been argued that the higher gluten content is one of the reasons that we’re seeing so much celiac disease and so much gluten intolerance. People’s systems have just been overloaded with gluten that they are not genetically equipped to handle—in the way that many Asians can’t tolerate dairy. We offer our warmest congratulations to all winning and shortlisted writers and editors. Our sincere thanks go to our members who judged the awards, to our sponsors for their generous support, and to our outstanding volunteer committee who worked tirelessly to

Gold Top as a brand through its company Quality Milk Producers Ltd is a co-operative of farmers to help the Guernsey and Jersey herd dairy farmer and their products.As an accused witch, you could be tried in a church court, at quarter sessions (local courts), or at an assize court, where you could be condemned to death. The process, however, was similar at every level. Somebody would complain to the local justice of the peace (JP) that you had bewitched an animal, or a foodstuff, or a child. Whether or not the complaint is taken any further depends on how energetic the JP is and how much he believes in witchcraft. The Gold Top selection stands for premium quality and superior taste, it is this quality, alongside our high end service, which makes us stand out from our competitors. As Purkiss points out, the passions of the time were inflated by numerous pamphlets that cited true, sort-of-true, and frequently false acts of barbarity committed by the other side. Hence one can not avoid imagining a similar conflict taking place in the U.S. between a militarized Christian heartland versus the multi-cultural, secular humanist coastal elites so reviled in populist media. Perhaps we haven't come so far from the 17th Century than we think. Imagine you’re standing on a hillside. You look at the lumps in the grass. You are probably wondering what they are, or what they used to be. A panel nearby says that they are prehistoric burial mounds. Diane’s book English Food: a People’s History available here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/english-food-a-peoples-history-diane-purkiss?variant=39825973411918

Family-run Trewithen Dairy produce milk, clotted cream, yoghurt and butter from the Cornish Glynn Valley. This is a history of the English Civil War, told to a considerable extent through the words of observers and participants. Letters and diaries of people such as Brilliana Harley; tracts by Garrard Winstanley (a leading Digger); the debate at Putney, between leaders and Levellers add a very human element to this history. Weirdly, a lot of food history ignores food preparation, and particularly the material needs of food preparation. There are only a small number of books that focus on the kitchen and utensils, but they’re very important in terms of what you can and can’t cook. The main reason people choose the foods they do is material. So: Do you own a cake tin? Do you have enough resources to get an oven hot enough to bake a cake? Have you heard of cake? I chose this book because it’s one of the best accounts of the way we eat and how that is shaped by what we have and what we inherit in the way of equipment and expectations. One such figure was peculiar to the western Alps. She was the female embodiment of winter, a female figure often called Bertha or Perchta or Befuna. She punished social disobedience and rewarded ‘goodness’. She was always portrayed as an old hag, because she represented cold and winter. It did not take long for intellectuals to note her resemblance to the witches with whom they were familiar from classical literature. And of course, there’s the evergreen subject of “the poor”, whose eating habits were fodder for criticism long before Tory MPs were telling the House of Commons that food banks would be unnecessary if such people would only learn to cook. In 1821 the radical William Cobbett dismissed women who bought, rather than made, their own bread as “wasteful … indeed shameful”, apparently giving no thought to the fuel and labour costs involved. The accounts of women going hungry to feed their children a century later also feel depressingly familiar.In this delicious history of Britain’s food traditions, Diane Purkiss invites readers on a unique journey through the centuries, exploring the development of recipes and rituals for mealtimes such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to show how food has been both a reflection of and inspiration for social continuity and change. Neil will be speaking at the Ludlow Food Festival on Sunday 10 September at 2.30pm, talking all things Elizabeth Raffald: https://www.ludlowfoodfestival.co.uk/