Stuffed by Pen Vogler review – tasting history | Food and drink books

Pen Vogler explains that her new book “is about how society in the British Isles has arranged itself around … two versions of ‘stuffed’”. On the one hand, there is that post-dinner feeling of being pleasantly replete with delicious, wholesome food. But then there’s also “stuffed” in the sense of being trapped in an impossible situation with no safe way out. This is the experience of the millions of Britons currently living with chronic food insecurity, obliged to fill up on cheap meals to satisfy immediate hunger pangs while skimping on the nutrients that every body needs.

It is the lack of common ground between these two types of stuffedness, the privileged and the deprived, that troubles Vogler. She points to the fault line that opened up during Marcus Rashford’s 2020 campaign to extend free school meals into the school holidays. Kate Green, the former shadow education secretary, supported the scheme on the grounds that “it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that children do not go hungry”. Brendan Clarke-Smith, for the government, countered that he did not believe in “nationalising children”: feeding your family was a matter for individuals, not the state.

Vogler suggests that the roots of this division go all the way back to the 15th-century enclosure movement, which saw landlords fencing off the common land on which cottagers had previously grazed their animals, foraged food and collected firewood. By way of compensation for these lost rights, each villager got a small strip of land that wasn’t big enough to do more than grow vegetables. Abolishing Britain’s small-holding culture while consolidating food production into large, privatised silos effectively deprived the growing population of an intimate relationship with its food. It also created the conditions where emerging agri-business competed to bring produce to market at the lowest possible cost. Unlike those European countries that retain something of the small-holding mindset, Britons are particularly vulnerable to being scanted and scammed when it comes to their food.

To illlustrate this long decline, Vogler presents a series of detailed case histories. Take strawberries. In the 16th century they were a peasant indulgence, looked at askance by an elite who saw them as death-dealing if gobbled down with too much cream, which is what ravenous rustics were apt to do. From here they went upmarket, morphing into a brief six-week high-summer treat whose sweetness aligned them with female tastes (a man who ate too many was believed to be in danger of becoming effeminate). In the 20th century, strawberries’ association with Wimbledon made them socially smart while the pick-your-own farmshop movement of the 1970s returned them to a fantasy of communal rural labour.

These days, thanks to polytunnels and a tentacular global transport system, strawberries are available from late March to autumn, although there is an unofficial competition taking place to see who can be first to get them ready in time for Valentine’s Day. In many supermarkets they are the top sellers, outpacing the far more pedestrian bread and milk. Vogler reels off the qualities of this modern-day cultivar, from its mildew resistance to its bland sweetness to its unnaturally throbbing colour. Nor does she disguise her unease: “The fruity lure of the strawberry hides something darker at the heart of our food system.”

What is that darkness exactly and how do we let in the light? Vogler does not pretend that the answer is simple or obvious. She is excellent, as in her 2020 book Scoff, at foraging among the sources to bring us wonderful stories of older food cultures. Of how in medieval times parsnips were just the thing if you were having difficulty conceiving, or of how artichokes in wine would rid you of body odour. Suffering from depression? Then radishes – with salt and pepper – will lift your spirits in a jiffy.

It is in the difficult business of gathering up these narrative ingredients to make a food future that is equitable and safe that things get really tricky. Vogler concludes by suggesting that nothing will become unstuffed until we – individuals, state, agri-business, energy suppliers, transport planners – begin to work together, not just for the greater good, but to save ourselves.

Pen Vogler explains that her new book “is about how society in the British Isles has arranged itself around … two versions of ‘stuffed’”. On the one hand, there is that post-dinner feeling of being pleasantly replete with delicious, wholesome food. But then there’s also “stuffed” in the sense of being trapped in an impossible situation with no safe way out. This is the experience of the millions of Britons currently living with chronic food insecurity, obliged to fill up on cheap meals to satisfy immediate hunger pangs while skimping on the nutrients that every body needs.

It is the lack of common ground between these two types of stuffedness, the privileged and the deprived, that troubles Vogler. She points to the fault line that opened up during Marcus Rashford’s 2020 campaign to extend free school meals into the school holidays. Kate Green, the former shadow education secretary, supported the scheme on the grounds that “it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that children do not go hungry”. Brendan Clarke-Smith, for the government, countered that he did not believe in “nationalising children”: feeding your family was a matter for individuals, not the state.

Vogler suggests that the roots of this division go all the way back to the 15th-century enclosure movement, which saw landlords fencing off the common land on which cottagers had previously grazed their animals, foraged food and collected firewood. By way of compensation for these lost rights, each villager got a small strip of land that wasn’t big enough to do more than grow vegetables. Abolishing Britain’s small-holding culture while consolidating food production into large, privatised silos effectively deprived the growing population of an intimate relationship with its food. It also created the conditions where emerging agri-business competed to bring produce to market at the lowest possible cost. Unlike those European countries that retain something of the small-holding mindset, Britons are particularly vulnerable to being scanted and scammed when it comes to their food.

To illlustrate this long decline, Vogler presents a series of detailed case histories. Take strawberries. In the 16th century they were a peasant indulgence, looked at askance by an elite who saw them as death-dealing if gobbled down with too much cream, which is what ravenous rustics were apt to do. From here they went upmarket, morphing into a brief six-week high-summer treat whose sweetness aligned them with female tastes (a man who ate too many was believed to be in danger of becoming effeminate). In the 20th century, strawberries’ association with Wimbledon made them socially smart while the pick-your-own farmshop movement of the 1970s returned them to a fantasy of communal rural labour.

These days, thanks to polytunnels and a tentacular global transport system, strawberries are available from late March to autumn, although there is an unofficial competition taking place to see who can be first to get them ready in time for Valentine’s Day. In many supermarkets they are the top sellers, outpacing the far more pedestrian bread and milk. Vogler reels off the qualities of this modern-day cultivar, from its mildew resistance to its bland sweetness to its unnaturally throbbing colour. Nor does she disguise her unease: “The fruity lure of the strawberry hides something darker at the heart of our food system.”

What is that darkness exactly and how do we let in the light? Vogler does not pretend that the answer is simple or obvious. She is excellent, as in her 2020 book Scoff, at foraging among the sources to bring us wonderful stories of older food cultures. Of how in medieval times parsnips were just the thing if you were having difficulty conceiving, or of how artichokes in wine would rid you of body odour. Suffering from depression? Then radishes – with salt and pepper – will lift your spirits in a jiffy.

It is in the difficult business of gathering up these narrative ingredients to make a food future that is equitable and safe that things get really tricky. Vogler concludes by suggesting that nothing will become unstuffed until we – individuals, state, agri-business, energy suppliers, transport planners – begin to work together, not just for the greater good, but to save ourselves.