Because of my interest in Social History and the amount of research we do for our period food, I quite often get asked to recommend books, sometimes on a special subject, sometimes on just one time period or aspect of it.

A lot of the books I use are now out of print, some can be tracked down by book shop finding services, and I haunt second hand book stores, but there are also now many more new books being published or significant early books being re-printed, due to the surge of interest in the restoration of old buildings, how they were used and lived in, who these people where, what they ate and what they wore.

To this end I have compiled a short list of books available from Amazon which might be helpful to anyone looking to round out a particular time with regard to food.

This list will change periodically to cover different aspects of earlier centuries. I hope it is of help.

I'm going to start by recommending a series of books published by English Heritage covering food and cooking from Pre-historic to Wartime. These are a great introduction giving an historical overview and then recipes, not that you would necessarily want to try them, but the recipes show what was available and how they prepared it. The actual series begins with Pre-Historic and Roman but you can start with your chosen time:-

With Amazon you do not nessarily have to buy the book new, they do a used and second hand service which is usually much cheaper and very good value.

All miniature food items are hand made with slight variations in colour and texture. All items shown are for dolls house food and miniature food collectors, they are not toys and are not suitable for small children. care has been taken in the production of our replica food but some substances used may be harmful to small children