Food of Love: Cooking Up a Life Across Gender, Class and Race

Review\nVetta takes us on a lively and delicious journey through her varied and culturally rich life. Her open-mindedness and generosity shine through. And she completely understands how food and memory are inextricably linked. The recipes are great too.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist for the i and the London Evening Standard\nSylvia Vetta's Food of Love is a joy to read - warm and familial, full of lovely sketches and archival photographs. It is a unique journey - deftly articulated - weaving the personal and the public, providing a socio-cultural landscape that is still relevant. There is much to learn from here - digest, eat and imbibe these words with love.
Sudeep Sen, author of EroText and editor of The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry\nFood for Love is a testimony of zest for life, and compassionate anger at the many forms of injustice in post-war England. Sylvia Vetta's story takes us through her many lives, as she reinvents herself time and time again, rising from the ashes of prejudice, misogyny, racism and greed to renew herself. Whilst it is a story of England's hidden everyday evils, it is a story too of what can be achieved with a life steered by passion, integrity and courage.Dr Jane Spiro, professor at Oxford Brookes University
Vetta is a burning fuse on the score of an Oxfordshire cabaret. We can trace here the sweet unrelenting energy which has impacted the collective heart and mentality of its stakeholders and citizens. A Woman for All Seasons.
Haldi Ravenna Sheahan, editor/writer\nA wonderful read with insight into Sylvia Vetta's background and how the impact of having access to books at an early age empowers social mobility. The story resonates with my own background growing up in a remote rural community in western Kenya, an area of extreme poverty with no access to a library. Sylvia's passion for creating access to books for the next generation is inspiring as she mobilises others to share her vision and is now fundraising to build a community library in western Kenya in partnership with the Nasio Trust.
Nancy Mundeyo Hunt, Founder & CEO Nasio Trust, Winner of NatWest Bank Most Inspirational Woman Award 2015\nFood of Love is a personal history while at the same time it is an honest portrayal of the post Second World War period. We are faced with our attitudes to class, education, gender, religion, race, politics and the expectations of people's position in society. It is a serious social comment as well as being amusing and entertaining. The way food is used to link the chapters is brilliant.
Diana Bell, artist\nOne of only four girls from the 160 children in her primary school to pass the eleven plus, Sylvia Vetta was the first in her family to enjoy higher education and got to enjoy that post-WWII wonder: upward mobility.\nBattling racism in Smethwick in the West Midlands during the most racist election in British history changed her life. The slogan bandied by the supporters of the Conservative candidate was, 'If you want a n***er for a neighbour, Vote Labour.'\nBy chance she met Indian-born Atam Vetta. Being less than 21 years of age, her boss could legally inform her parents of her young man and his racial background without Sylvia knowing of it. Sylvia and Atam married anyway and 55 years later, they're still married.\nWhen Sylvia married Atam, mixed relationships were rare and viewed with hostility, not just in the UK. Sylvia's story embraces a revolutionary change in attitudes in the UK. Marriages and partnerships like hers are no longer rare and it is predicted that by 2075, the majority of the population will be of mixed ancestry.\nShe was plunged into a challenging new reality. Through Atam, she learned about glass ceilings for ethnic minority Brits. Atam's research in quantitative genetics confronted institutional and individual racism with the knowledge that discrimination had been justified by scientific racism. Atam set about helping to expose those lies.\nNine mon