Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger - Jam Tarts

Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger

By Nigel Slater

247 pages, Fourth Estate, 2003

If there is one thing Nigel Slater’s memoir makes clear from the beginning, it is that we do not necessarily love the foods of our childhood because they tasted good objectively, or were well prepared. Case in point: his mother, described as “not much of a cook,” served him burnt toast every morning. Despite that, Slater writes:

“It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you. People’s failings, even major ones […], fall into insignificance as your teeth break through the rough, toasted crust and sink into the doughy cushion of white bread underneath. Once the warm, salty butter has reached your tongue, you are smitten. Putty in their hands.”

This opening page sets the tone for the remainder of this beautiful memoir. Slater, a British food writer and journalist, recounts his childhood in 1960s England through the prism of food. The book is organized into vignettes, most of which revolve around a specific item of food, from tinned ham to prawn cocktail. But food, however central it is to the book, also works as both a backdrop to Slater’s mostly unhappy childhood and as a path into the most intimate nooks of his memories.