Best-selling author opens ‘Eliza Acton Cookery Classroom’ as School celebrates renowned food writer
International best-selling author Annabel Abbs came to Tonbridge on Monday (5 June) to give a talk about the hugely influential food writer and cook Eliza Acton.
In her historic novel The Language of Food (published in 2022), Annabel tells the extraordinary story of how Eliza’s best-selling recipe book, published in the Victorian age, changed the way British families cooked and ate.
During her visit Annabel officially opened Tonbridge’s cookery facility, now called the Eliza Acton Cookery Classroom, in recognition of this important historical figure who lived literally around the corner from the School.
Eliza is back in the spotlight thanks to Annabel’s extensive research and the success of her novel both in the UK and internationally: it has been translated into numerous languages and has been commissioned by CBS to become a TV series.
The author unveiled a plaque, donned a specially prepared Eliza Acton apron and spent time with some Lower Sixth boys who, in the spirit of the cookery-themed event, were preparing warm chocolate brownies for guests.
The Cookery Classroom is available to all boys at the School and plays an especially key role in the Sixth Form, where students take a course in ‘Life Skills’ designed to equip them for life after Tonbridge. As part of the Sixth Form Curriculum, boys learn about cookery and nutrition as well as gaining other skills in, for example, first aid, personal finance and interview techniques.
Annabel later gave a lecture at the School’s EM Forster Theatre, in which she explained how she researched Eliza’s life and her “revolutionary” book, Modern Cookery for Private Families. The latter introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times for each recipe.
The book was a bestseller in its time and many modern cooks acknowledge their debt to Eliza, with Delia Smith describing her as “the best writer of recipes in the English language”. Modern Cookery has also been cited as “the greatest British cookbook of all time” and “the greatest cookery book in our language”.
Eliza, who lived between 1799 and 1859, had many Tonbridge and Kentish connections. Also a poet and teacher, she resided in the town at No. 1 Bordyke (now The Priory) with her mother, brother and sisters. Eliza’s brother and nephew were pupils at Tonbridge.
Her range of recipes included many with local connections, such as Tonbridge Brawn, Bordyke Receipt (recipe) for ham, Tart á la Judd (an apple tart, named after the founder of Tonbridge School), Kentish suet pudding and Kentish pudding pies (rice pudding in a pie crust with currants).
“I first found Eliza Acton in an antiquarian collection of cookery books amassed by my mother in law when she was a cookery teacher in the 1950s, and the story started there,” Annabel said. “We inherited the collection when she downsized to a smaller house, but it wasn’t until 20 years later that I started cooking from it. Eliza’s recipes and her writing style were head-and-shoulders above that of her peers.”
Annabel has a son at Tonbridge and her husband also attended the School. She added: “I have spent many a happy day over the past few years in Tonbridge, walking the walks that Eliza would have taken, nosing around her house, and just generally getting to know the town. Researching and writing the story of Britain’s first domestic goddess has been a wonderful culinary adventure.”
In 2022 the Tring Book Festival called The Language of Food “the most thought-provoking and compelling historical novel you’ll read this year”, adding: “Abbs explores the enduring struggle for female freedom, the complexities of friendship, the creativity and quiet joy of cooking and the poetry of food, while bringing Eliza Acton out of the archives and back into the public eye. A portrait of Victorian domestic life that is both encompassing and finely detailed.”
Annabel has been referred to as the “rising star of biographical historical novels”. Her debut novel, The Joyce Girl, won the Impress Prize and was a Guardian Reader’s Pick and her second novel Frieda: The Original Lady Chatterley was a Times 2018 Book of the Year. She regularly appears in national and regional media, and is popular on the literary festival circuit.
Photo above: Annabel with her bestselling novel, The Language of Food.
