Dr Annie Gray
Food Historian
Welcome! I’m Annie Gray. I specialise in the history of food and dining from c.1600 to the present day.
I'm a historian, author, broadcaster & consultant.
Food is a brilliant way to get under the skin of past societies: everyone eats, and the choices we make reflect who we are and what we believe – and that’s as true for the Georgians as it is for us today.
By exploring what was eaten, and by whom, how it was cooked and how it was consumed, we can explore a wide range of beliefs and behaviours, shedding light on everything from malnutrition among the poor, to the innermost workings of the country house.
Not only that, but I firmly believe that the recipes and techniques of the past are as exciting and relevant now as they have ever been.
Put simply – the history is fascinating, and the food delicious. What’s not to like?!
Latest news
My latest book, The Bookshop The Draper, The Candlestick Maker is Radio 4's Book of the Week, 2nd-6th December.
I was on Radio 4's Start the Week on the 25th November, again talking high streets.
Tickets are still available for talks in Pontefract (Dec 2nd) and online with the National Archives (4th Dec).
My Books
My books range from culinary biographies to tie-in cookery books. My latest release is a history of the British high street. You can find them at all good and a few bad bookshops.
Clicking on the individual titles will take you to different exciting places to buy books. But remember, you can always order via your local bookshop, and many deliver.
Please support real bookshops. And libraries. Libraries are excellent too.
For all book-related queries, please contact tbates@pfd.co.uk.
Journalism (and other writing)
I don't just write books; I've written a lot of shorter essays and articles, both academic and more popular.
You can find my published academic output through my page on academia.edu, or via the usual search engines - JSTOR and the British Library, or any other academic library you're a member of.
For more public-facing examples of my work, how about heading to The i, The Guardian, The Telegraph or History Extra? I've also written for BBC Good Food, Delicious., English Heritage, The National Trust, Heritage Scotland, and many more.
I also blog, extemely sporadically, and mainly when I have a book out or something else I want to add context to. Don't hold your breath for new content.
Speaking
I’m also a performer and I love the thrill of a live audience.
I spent many years as a ghost tour guide in York, and then became a professional live interpreter, working in costume and character at sites as varied as Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London and No.1 Royal Crescent, Bath. For over five years I led the interpretive team in the service wing at Audley, playing the slightly mischievous first kitchenmaid. It all helped to hone my skills as a public speaker, and, while I still occasionally don a corset and a silly hat, I’m more often to be found being myself.
Please contact roisin@cobjmanagement.co.uk for all speaking enquiries.
To see me talking about Georgina Landemare (the subject of my book, Victory in the Kitchen) as part of the Chartwell Chats series, click here.
Consultancy
Food is a great way to engage people, whether they are visitors to a historic site, or people watching TV while doom-scrolling and drinking tea.
The history of what and how we ate, and the people who transformed it from raw to cooked, is endlessly fascinating, and has the potential to spark questions about a broad range of topics, both historical and contemporary.
With one foot in academic and one foot in public history, I am well-placed to give advice on a broad range of topics. I've helped with everything from interpretative planning to tour guide training, and used my deep knowledge of all things past food-related, plus long experience working in public history, to advise on topics as diverse as what, exactly, to put on an interactive Georgian ball supper table, to how to tackle contested histories through Tudor confectionery.
Please contact me directly to find out more.
Media
I have worked widely across both TV and radio, and have been the resident food historian on BBC Radio 4’s award-winning culinary panel show, The Kitchen Cabinet since its inception in 2012.
I am the consultant and scriptwriter for English Heritage’s wildly successful (and also award-winning) The Victorian Way on YouTube (I very occasionally appear as first kitchen maid, Mary Ann Bulmer as well).
I was both a consultant and presenter on BBC2’s living history series’ Victorian Bakers and The Sweetmakers, and regularly feature on TV, radio and podcasts both talking about and recreating the food of the past. I also work with a crack team of chefs who are up for almost anything.
For media enquiries, please contact me directly.
Still want more?
Click on the images for entirely unrelated links to stuff I'm on.
About
Academic
I've got degrees from Oxford (MA), York (MA) and Liverpool (PhD). I'm an honorary fellow at the University of York, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I wrote my PhD thesis on the process of change from à la Française to à la Russe dining from ca.1750-1900 and have given many conference papers and written related academic content since then.
However, I am now largely a public historian, entirely freelance, and I do not supervise students. My writing now has fewer agonising Harvard references and more fart gags.
Experience
After being sacked multiple times from jobs involving steady salaries or regular working hours, I eventually got the message and started working for myself. However, the various jobs I briefly held did give me experience in marketing, heritage interpretation and really annoying people by deep frying chips and making bearnaise sauce in the staff kitchen.
From 2005-2013 I worked as a costumed interpreter for Past Pleasures, eventually managing a team at Audley End House (English Heritage). I ran workshops and cooking demos and ate a lot of pie. I also did a lot of public speaking, mainly for The Arts Society (then NADFAS). At the same time I wrote research reports for organisations such as Historic Royal Palaces and English Heritage, while slowly building up a media profile and, eventually, writing my first book.
Cookery
I am not a trained chef (though I've done multiple courses and worked alongside people who are ridiculously skilled). In the eighteenth century I'd be what was known as a 'plain professed cook', i.e a self-taught someone who can be trusted to cook for the gentry, but is rapidly replaced by a more expensive french man-cook for special occasions (OK, you can take that too far).
I do cook though, and I have prepared historic food for heritage sites across the UK. I have cooked in character and costume, on screen, as disambodied hands for green screen, and as part of food festival demonstrations. All of the food pictures on this site are mine.
I've also written cookery books, for which I developed the recipes, drawing on sources form the past, but modifying them (slightly) for modern domestic kitchens.
FAQs
To save you time, here are a few things I regularly get asked, and some answers.
I'd like to see you live (or online) - got any events near me?
I want to be a food historian - how do I do it? I get this a lot. There's no quick answer, I'm afraid: we all got into this differently. I came via academia, and if you're that way inclined, I'd suggest looking into where you might study, and having a conversation. Other food historians come out of art history, or model-making, or re-enactment, or cookery. Whatever your background, start by reading around and developing a critical sense - there's a lot of total rubbish out there. Is it peer-reviewed? Written by someone qualified in the topic? Has it got references? I've put a list of other places you can go for inspiration below.
I'm a student, can you help me with my under/graduate essay? Sorry, no. You might find the section below helpful. I'm afraid I just get too many queries from students, and while I'm sure you are all lovely and will totally remember to thank me for my time, I'm not here to give you the answers. But good luck.
I love all of this! What else can I look at? It depends how you prefer to learn. Good starting points are: -Blogs by Ivan Day, Neil Buttery, Mary Ann Boermans and Sam Bilton -The back catalogue of Prospect Books -General histories of British (or English) food by Colin Spencer, Sara Paston-Williams, Jill Norman, C Ann Wilson, Rae Tannahill and JC Drummond -The English Heritage YouTube feed and my own edible histories made by Somethin' Else productions -Gastropodcast and The British Food History podcast -Live interpretation projects at Audley End House and Hampton Court Palace -Additionally, many historic cookbooks are available from the Wellcome Institute, googlescholar and archive.org
Contact Me
Note that when you paste them into your email, you'll have to remove the space after the [@] on the address. It cuts down on spam.
For literary enquiries:
Tim Bates at Peters Fraser + Dunlop
+44 (0)20 7344 1000
Tbates@ pfd.co.uk
For speaking enquiries:
Roisin at COBJ Management
+44 (0) 20 7287 1112
Roisin@ cobjmanagement.co.uk
For publicity specifically regarding The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick maker:
Please contact valentina.zanca@ profilebooks.com
For media & journalism enquiries:
Please contact me directly via dranniegray@ gmail.com
For all other enquiries please contact me through email or follow me on Instagram. While I try to answer everything, there is only one of me, and at times I can be screamingly busy so I’m afraid I don’t always manage to respond. You might find the FAQ section helpful in the 'about' section above. To view upcoming public events, click here.
(I'm on Instagram. This'll take you there).
(I'm also seeing if Bluesky might be fun, so that's that, but I'm not sure about it yet).