Insatiable Appetites

Eating Out in Georgian London

This book follows the hungry citizens of Georgian London over one day as they navigate culinary pleasures and horrors in the capital's diverse food landscape. 

Ross.achieve[s] that rare thing: a happy balance of academic rigour and vivacious storytelling, with an eye for the details that bring the past delectably to life. 

- Alice Loxton, Financial Times, May 2026

'Insatiable Appetites' combines rigorous research with an engaging style. Its portrait of Georgian London is vivid and surprisingly modern, showing how many of today’s eating habits have eighteenth century roots.

- Rebecca Williams, Jane Austen Society

Step into the kitchens, streets and chop houses of Georgian London – one day, one city, countless appetites.

From dawn until past midnight, Londoners dined at taverns, coaching inns, oyster rooms, confectioners, coffee shops, chocolate houses, soup shops and dining rooms. For the poor, the streets bustled with vendors offering early versions of fast food: hot green peas, baked potatoes, suet puddings, curds and whey, rice milk, gingerbread, pastry ‘pigs,’ and the now-forgotten saloop, a warming drink made from orchid roots. After dark, sex workers and their clients indulged in a glass of jelly, then considered an aphrodisiac, as a precursor to a visit to the brothel. As the empire expanded, culinary influences poured in: London’s first Indian takeaway appeared in 1773, while the East End became home to Jewish fried fish, Italian boloney and German sausages.

Through the course of a single day, this book takes readers on a journey through breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper in Georgian London, drawing on contemporary archives to follow hungry citizens from all walks of life as they navigate the city’s diverse food landscape. It reveals not only culinary pleasures and horrors, but also the social challenges and daily struggles that shaped life in the capital.

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