The Language of Food

by Annabel Abbs (£14.99,

HB, Simon & Schuster)

Eliza Acton had never even boiled an egg, so how did she go on to become one of the most successful cookery writers of all time? We find out in this beautiful fictionalisation of her life. It is 1835 and poet Eliza wants to see her words in print. Instead, she is told by her publisher to go and write a cookery book. Disheartened but determined, she hires an impoverished teenager,

Ann Kirby, to help her. Over the next 10 years, they develop a friendship that sees them change the face of cookery writing forever – and it isn’t long before Eliza realises that there might just be poetry in cooking after all.