Toast: The story of a boy’s hunger by Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater has brought comfort, relief and delight to my tastebuds and stomach for years with his soothing, warming recipes. It is a surprise, then, to discover that his childhood was far from soothing or warming.

The Slaters lived in a suburban part of Wolverhampton, where lawns were manicured and life was orderly. They were comfortably off, but not rich. His mother did daily battle in the kitchen in her efforts to produce meals for the family, but more often than not something would go wrong (I was reminded of Wendy Craig's character in Butterflies). She appears to have been very kind to - and protective of - her youngest son, who made snowmen on his own rather than play with the rougher boys up the road. Nigel's father was unpredictable: he could be kind but had a fearsome temper.

When Nigel was nine, his Mum died; he wasn't allowed to go to the funeral.Thus folllowed a difficult time for father and son, made more so for Nigel by the appearance of Joan, who subsequently became his stepmother. Nigel escaped the confines of his difficult teenage years by immersing himself in the world of catering.

There is a distinct whiff of nostalgia to Nigel Slater's autobiography - particularly for the food of the sixties and seventies around which the book is structured - but it is also a touching and at times shocking reminiscence of a (probably not untypical) buttoned-up English childhood. The photo of the author as a boy on the cover of the book seems to sum him up exactly: politely hunched at the table, dressed in his jacket and tie, the little smirk on his face tempered by the nervous darting of the eyes in the direction of his hard-faced parents. I for one am glad that he broke out.