I have just finished reading "The Cottage Garden Diaries: My year in the Eighteenth Century" by Fiona J Houston.
Fiona spent a year living as a school master's wife in the 1790s. She was mainly inspired by her fury at the machinations of supermarkets, who care little for the nutritional value of the food they sell, its environmental impact and the survival of the poor people who farm the crops. But she was interested in history and how people lived before the industrial revolution, and also concerned how we would survive without the oil we currently rely on.
I got it in a charity shop, but it seems still to be available on the Internet. Being interested in history, having enjoyed the BBC2 programmes set in farms of different periods, also being interested in recipes and tips that would help green and country living in the city it immediately appealed. (I didn't know of Fiona's green interests until I started reading the book.)
I enjoyed the book and found it very interesting. I will have to go back through the book to see if any of the recipes I might actually get round to trying.
Living a year in the 1790s made Fiona really appreciate electricity for heating, light, freezing food, for music, but now back in the 21st century she has changed what she does to be greener - eating locally produced food no longer flying and restricting how much she uses the car, for instance.
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