Pen Vogler

Pen is a food historian par excellence. Her favourite dish is 19th century Britain, whose cuisine she has served up in a number of works associated with some of the most beloved authors and characters in the English language. Take Dinner with Dickens, for example, where Pen celebrates the food of Victorian England by recreating dishes Dickens wrote about with such brio and gusto, and which he enjoyed himself in real life. Dickens used food for character exposition, to create comedy, and to highlight social issues. Pen is also the author of Tea with Jane Austen and Dinner with Mr Darcy, which focus on the cuisine of the Regency period. Pen will discuss how Dickens and Austen write about food to tell us about the morals, manners and characters in their novels; and how the social forces that they describe have changed what we eat.