Schott’s Food and Drink Miscellany

Ben Schott was born in North London in 1974. He was educated at University College School. Hampstead, and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences. He has worked with the Independent, The Times, the Sunday Times, Reader's Digest and Sunday Business, amongst many others and has photographed celebrities from Hugh Grant to Tony Blair and Enoch Powell. Now a full-time writer, he has had columns with a number of publications including Condé Nast Traveller and the Daily Telegraph , and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times and The Times of London. He lives in London.

From the mind that brought you SCHOTT'S ORIGINAL MISCELLANY comes a collection of vital irrelevance and uncommon knowledge surrounding the worlds of food and drink. SCHOTT'S FOOD AND DRINK MISCELLANY is a snapper up of unconsidered trifles (in both senses of the word) - from food history to cooking terms; cocktail recipes to dining etiquette; grace before meals to after-dinner toasts. What other book can tell you the accepted procedure when drinking from a Loving Cup; which potatoes are best for mashing; how to fold your napkins into a variety of pleasing shapes; the correct technique for lighting a cigar, or a Christmas pudding; or how to make the legendary Monster Egg ? SCHOTT'S FOOD AND DRINK MISCELLANY offers all this - and more. It will inform you of the King who served foie gras to his dog; the feast where guests ate in fear of their lives; the socialite who spiked his punch with benzedrine; and the dining club whose members ate their meals in reverse. An olla podrida of all that is pertinent to wining, dining and socialising, SCHOTT'S FOOD AND DRINK MISCELLANY offers everything for the food-lover, wine-drinker, gastronome and glutton.