Food Worth Fighting For

Shortlisted for Guild of Food Writers Award, 2017

This book is a survey of the food riots of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as the The West Country Food Riots of 1766, The Ely and Littleport ‘Bread and Beer’ Riots of 1816 and other food related social conflict in the UK. Using evidence from contemporary broadside ballads and folk song, which emerged in the years that followed on from those events, the author looks closely at the evolution of the modern food system. Drawing on some of the actions of food rioters of earlier centuries, the author suggests that the spirit of the food riot is still very much alive today, and is apparent in the practice of some of those engaged in providing food charity in modern Britain.