Red Sauce Brown Sauce

Red Sauce Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake (2022 Harper Collins Kindle 384pp)

 

I heard this book being mentioned on the always excellent “Backlisted” podcast and tossed up whether to order the hardcover and wait for it to arrive or to go down the Kindle route for instant gratification. I took the latter option and glad I did as this was the perfect tonic for me in some recent stressful times.

Subtitled “A British Breakfast Odyssey” the concept of this non-fiction book is simple. The author, Felicity Cloake, a mild-mannered food writer and cycling enthusiast follows up a previous adventure in France (chronicled as “One More Croissant for the Road”) by riding her bike around the nations of the UK discovering the different breakfast traditions and related regional foodstuffs. At the end of each chapter, she polls the people she’s met whether they prefer Red (i.e., Tomato/Ketchup) or Brown (i.e., HP/etc) sauce on their breakfast fry-ups or bacon sandwiches, hence the title.

After a false start (the pandemic comes along and scuppers her plan to do the trip in 2020) and some minor accidents she sets off on her journey. She’s joined on some legs by friends and family so she’s very seldomly alone. There’s a lot of humour and good cheer to this book. People on the whole are friendly towards her and help her on her way.

As well as visiting café’s, greasy spoons and restaurants she also visits factories and premises where some of the more common and some more obscure breakfast products are made. We meet the various characters trying to preserve local food traditions or just make money in these uncertain times. Along the way she includes potted histories of many breakfast-related products and at least one recipe per chapter.

It’s a joy to read and two or three chapters a night on the Kindle put me in a good mood before sleep. I was looking forward to reading more all the following day. Its not earth-shattering or important but was just a good read.