Picked up in a swap at the Little Free Library in Howard Road, Walthamstow.

An interesting memoir regarding the authors success in improving the food provided to soldiers during the Crimean War. I would though like to have been told more about how he went about designing his pioneering field stove.

Given to ancient-welly during a visit.

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Fascinating record from a chef well-known in his day at the Reform club and the West End of London generally. He was also commissioned to improve the diet of the British troops in the Crimea, and he records the obstinacy of Generl Eyre who was responsible for the commissariat that was such a scandal in the early part of the war, highlighted by William Howrd Russell's dispatches to The Times.
Interesting to compare the recipes (he calls them receipts) that Soyer draws up for feeding the troops on the one hand and for consumption at London suppers on the other, especially the weights of meat! Soyer died in 1858, although whether of privations on active service is not clear.
A reviewer describes Soyer as "a kind of Anglo-French Jamie Oliver", but that comparison does Soyer a great disservice; he was an innovator, after all!