I have just finished the book Hungry by Grace Dent. It is a wonderfully nostaglic trip if you grew up in working class Britain in the 80's like I did!
I found the part about the 'Big Asda' arriving in a neighbouring town a particularly joyful trip down memory lane. The wonderment at which we could for the first time buy our big food shop alongside a TV, a foot spa and a CD for the car was a big moment in our lives too at the time.
Hungry is Grace’s ‘memoir of wanting more‘, follows her story from childhood, eating beige food and being Brownie in Carlisle, a small community in the North of England. To making it in media, while battling with her imposter syndrome under the bright lights and fancy restaurants of London and the world.
Dent's desperate ambition to climb the ladder and carve a career for herself in a competitive male dominated world, normally reserved for the upper classes, while frequently being drawn back to Carlisle to care for her family is intense and heart breaking.
Food is the second character in the book, but it really isn't about the food, it's about the moments we share over a Tunnocks teacake and the way food shapes all our lives and features always in our memories, a like music. A hugely relatable biography and told with such wit and wisdom.
I do need to come clean though, it wasn't until I got to the latter chapters I googled who Grace Dent was, as I initially had her mistaken for Jane Middlemiss! Also dark hair, on the telly a lot and from the north, it's an easy error to make!
In fact Grace has been a regular face on Masterchef since 2013, she presents the award-winning series The Untold on BBC Radio 4, she is the restaurant critic for the Guardian and has written numerous teen fiction books. So I am not sure where the confusion set in!
In a bid to declutter I am now passing on my read books, so if you would like my own copy of this book to read for yourself the please comment below or on my instagram and I will pick someone at random at the end of the month to send it to. Only open to UK residents only I'm afraid, please don't send me your address I will message you if you have been picked. Thank you x
