The Book Club: did Churchill's cook help him win the war?

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2020

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

This week's Book Club stars the food historian and broadcaster Annie Gray, whose new book Victory In The Kitchen excavates the life and world of Georgina Landemare - Winston Churchill's cook. From the shifting roles of household servants, and the insane food of the Edwardian rich - everything jellied and moulded and forced through sieves - to the inventive ways that haute cuisine responded to rationing, Georgina's is a story that gives a fascinating new insight into 20th century culture and society. Annie makes the case that without Georgina's cooking, Churchill might never have achieved the political success he did. Hear what Andrew Roberts got wrong, how Churchill simultaneously saved his cook's life and ruined pudding, and what's wrong with Woolton Pie. Allergy warning: contains jellied consomme, plover's eggs, roast beef and stilton.

The Book Club, what used to be known as Spectator Books, is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before you start listening to this podcast, a reminder that we have a special subscription offer.
0:04.8	You can get 12 issues of The Spectator for £12, as well as a £20,000 Amazon voucher.
0:10.3	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher if you'd like to get this offer.
0:20.6	Hello and welcome to Spectator's Book Club podcast.
0:23.4	I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.
0:25.6	This week my guest is the food historian and writer Annie Gray,
0:29.4	whose new book is called Victory in the Kitchen,
0:31.8	The Life of Churchill's Cook.
0:33.9	And before you go, it's another book about Winston Churchill, please shoot me now.
0:38.3	She has found a new angle on the great man by not writing directly about the great man at all,
0:44.8	but about his tummy and what went into it and who supplied it.
0:48.4	Annie, welcome.
0:50.2	Start by telling me, who was Georgina?
0:53.4	Georgina Landemar was born Georgina Young.
0:56.2	She was born in 1882 in rural Hertfordshire,
0:59.2	and she had a very, very average life on paper,
1:02.5	which became less and less average as she grew up.
1:05.4	So she went into service,
1:06.9	which was the biggest employer of women at the time,
1:09.3	and really the biggest employer, especially women of her class.
1:12.4	She started as a nursemaid.
1:13.5	She then became a scullery maid, which again, so on, so forth.
	...

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