Analysis on Toast by Nigel Slater
Toast by Nigel Slater
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food”, said George Bernard Shaw. Some people say that Nigel Slater’s emotional stories of his childhood remembered through food which is represented in his book Toast was not an autobiography and some say it was an autobiography. I say it was a Memoir in the predictable sense. It covers a period between mid-childhood and mid-adolescence, but neither dates nor autobiographical details are laid out in chronological order. Events and people emerge almost at random through the sequence of short stories. “One of my early childhood memories was my grandmother always having a bowl of Nestle chocolate bars at her house. My sister and I would argue over who could eat the chocolate bars. Looking back, I don't know why we just didn't share. We could have split them”, said Carla Hall. With the quote above it is simple to identify that children will only remember the main events that happened in life when they grow older and they won’t remember things in order, explaining Nigel Slater’s way of writing.
As a memoir about a food writer for a newspaper covering his life from mid-childhood showing how his importance in and love for food developed through or perhaps, even with the involvements of his family life. It begins with his mother who always had trouble with making food the way it is was meant to be made, “The Correct Way” and describes her often frustrated efforts at cooking an appetizing meal for the family in which case she wanted to stop cooking at some point. There are details of the foods which the author liked and disliked as a child. As well as the foods that symbolized objects, people or an idea. A person may not recognize some of the foods by name, but the descriptions are so detailed the reader can almost taste the food. ‘It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you'. A quote by Nigel Slater referring to the love to his mother whom as he described was the best at cooking.
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food”, said George Bernard Shaw. Some people say that Nigel Slater’s emotional stories of his childhood remembered through food which is represented in his book Toast was not an autobiography and some say it was an autobiography. I say it was a Memoir in the predictable sense. It covers a period between mid-childhood and mid-adolescence, but neither dates nor autobiographical details are laid out in chronological order. Events and people emerge almost at random through the sequence of short stories. “One of my early childhood memories was my grandmother always having a bowl of Nestle chocolate bars at her house. My sister and I would argue over who could eat the chocolate bars. Looking back, I don't know why we just didn't share. We could have split them”, said Carla Hall. With the quote above it is simple to identify that children will only remember the main events that happened in life when they grow older and they won’t remember things in order, explaining Nigel Slater’s way of writing.
As a memoir about a food writer for a newspaper covering his life from mid-childhood showing how his importance in and love for food developed through or perhaps, even with the involvements of his family life. It begins with his mother who always had trouble with making food the way it is was meant to be made, “The Correct Way” and describes her often frustrated efforts at cooking an appetizing meal for the family in which case she wanted to stop cooking at some point. There are details of the foods which the author liked and disliked as a child. As well as the foods that symbolized objects, people or an idea. A person may not recognize some of the foods by name, but the descriptions are so detailed the reader can almost taste the food. ‘It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you'. A quote by Nigel Slater referring to the love to his mother whom as he described was the best at cooking.