Toast is Nigel Slater’s truly extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. In each chapter, as he takes readers on a tour of the contents of his family’s pantry—rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda, mince pies, lemon drops, bourbon biscuits—we are transported...
His mother was a chops-and-peas sort of cook, exasperated by the highs and lows of a temperamental stove, a finicky little son, and the asthma that was to prove fatal. His father was a honey-and-crumpets man with an unpredictable temper. When Nigel’s widowed father takes on a housekeeper with social aspirations and a talent in the kitchen, the following years become a heartbreaking cooking contest for his father’s affections. But as he slowly loses the battle, Nigel finds a new outlet for his culinary talents, and we witness the birth of what was to become a lifelong passion for food. Nigel’s likes and dislikes, aversions and sweet-toothed weaknesses form a fascinating backdrop to this exceptionally moving memoir of childhood, adolescence, and sexual awakening.
Review
"Like openly gay food writers and culinary memoirists Craig Claiborne and James Villas before him, Slater includes strikingly candid portraits of youthful homosexuality. Subtitled "The Story of Boy's Hunger" Slater's picaresque and racy book uses delicious and repulsive food memories to propel his memoir, with no shortage of sudden sexual moments...As Slater once said, "You can't write about being 14, 15 without writing about masturbation or whatever. In fact, there was a good deal more wanking I could have put in." From Out Magazine
