Happy New Year! In the first episode of 2023 Neil talks to historian Charlie Taverner about London’s street food sellers. Charlie’s book ‘Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London’ is published by Oxford University Press on the 12th of January 2023, and it looks at every aspect of sellers’ lives from the latter 16th to the early 20th century.

They talked about how one approaches collecting data from so long a period; what was meant by the terms hawker, costermonger and fishwife; their importance to London society and economy; ice cream; fruit; and the logistics of delivering fresh milk to an ever-growing population.

Find Charlie on Twitter: @charlietaverner

Charlie’s website: www.charlietaverner.com

‘Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London’ is available to buy from all bookshops from 12th January 2023, including Amazon and Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/street-food-hawkers-and-the-history-of-london/9780192846945

Review of Charlie’s book in History Today: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/hawk-way

Things mentioned in today’s episode:

Volume 1 of ‘London Labour and the London Poor’ by Henry Mayhew e-book: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/London_Labour_and_the_London_Poor_the_Co/mO09AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivqZbGmr_8AhWZ_7sIHdq_CF8QiqUDegQIDRAC

 ‘Food Cult’, the Irish food project Charlie is involved in: https://foodcult.eu

Neil’s book A Dark History of Sugar is available now from all bookshops as well as from the publisher Pen & Sword: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/A-Dark-History-of-Sugar-Hardback/p/20481

If you want to buy a signed copy directly from Neil for £18 + postage (£2.85 if within the UK, the going rate if outside!). Contact him via email or social media if you fancy it (see below).

Also, don’t forget there will be another postbag episode at the end of the season. If you have any questions or queries about today’s episode, or indeed any episode, or have a question about the history of British food please email Neil at [email protected], or find me on twitter @neilbuttery, or Instagram dr_neil_buttery my DMs are open. You can now find me at Mastodon too: @[email protected].

Join the new British Food: a History Facebook discussion page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/britishfoodhistory

If you like my blog posts and podcast episodes, please consider a monthly subscription or buying me a virtual coffee or a pint? Go to https://britishfoodhistory.com/support-the-blog-podcast/ for more details.

Mentioned in this episode:

Fruit Pig are currently sponsoring The British Food History Podcast

Visit fruitpig.co.uk for more details of their products and journey, and to access their shop. Grant and Matthew are very kindly giving listeners to the BFHP a unique special offer: 10% off your order until the end of October 2025 – use the offer code Foodhis in the checkout. Time to fill your boots.