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In my new book ’Oats in the North, Wheat from the South’ I’m showing the reader how the diverse climate of the British Isles influenced the growth of cereal crops and the development of a rich regional baking identity with it. Imports of spices, sugar, treacle, fortified winesand citrus added flavour, colour and warmth to a baking culture much adored and replicated all over the world.
With the help of historical cookbooks, diaries and newspaper archives, I have given the most traditional recipe of a bake – which means, how it usually appears in old cookbooks – but often also a more recent version of that recipe to show how recipes evolve through a change of taste, economy and fashion.
With a foreword by food historian Dr. Annie Gray.
The book was nominated for the André Simon Award and included in ‘The best cookbooks of 2020’ list by BBC Radio 4’s The Food Program in the US in The New Yorker magazine and The Washington Post.
Erratum
There are two errors in Oats in the North: When halving the recipe for Flapjacks the butter wasn’t halved, use 100g instead of 200g. For the Bannocks the same thing happened; use 225 ml of buttermilk instead of 450 ml. Mea culpa! In the new print it has been corrected.
Praise for Oats in the North, Wheat from the South:
”An excellent and diligently written book celebrating some super-tasty British treats”
— JAMIE OLIVERA feast for the eyes, as well as the stomach, meticulously researched and beautifully photographed, this is a true love letter to the food Britain does best. One to savour, and treasure, but most of all, one to bake from!’
— FELICITY CLOAKE, THE GUARDIAN
”While this is a book that you just long to bake from instantly, it is also one to be read, and savoured, as it brings alive the link between culture, climate and cuisine.”
— NIGELLA LAWSON“It’s a love letter to British baking and all that that implies. It brings together buns and bakes that you’ll find in every local shop, and cakes and breads that have long since disappeared. Here you’ll find recipes both old and new, resurrected for the future, together with the stories that make them such a window onto both the past and the present. The joy of Regula’s writing is that through it all, we realise that it takes an outsider looking in to show us who we truly are.This is a beautiful book. It is a lyrical book. It is a book full of good things, modern and old, with a multitude of real heritage and imagined tradition behind them. Enjoy.
— Dr Annie Gray, food historian‘Regula – who is Belgian – has an obsession with Britain, not just its food but its literature, landscape and architecture, and we’re lucky to have such an enthusiast looking in from the outside. As well as recipes, she writes about the connections between bakes and ingredients – it’s often difficult to unravel the threads that link foods – and tells stories. A book to read as well as to cook from and an absolute gift for the curious baker.’
— Diana HenryThis stunning ode to British baking went semi-viral earlier this year, when the Tokyo-based writer Kat Bee tweeted a page from the book in which the author, Ysewijn, acknowledges the inextricable role of slavery, particularly in the Caribbean, in the development of British sweets: “Sugar has a cost, and that cost was paid by those in bondage.” This clear-eyed perspective on the line between the past and the present runs throughout the book, which threads together Cornish pasties, treacle tarts, seed cake, and all the other greats of the British baking canon.
–Helen Rosner, The New Yorker“Regula Ysewijn blends history and recipes in the most delectable way, with traditional cakes, buns, pies, and tarts. A British baking bible.”
— Tom Parker Bowles, The Daily Mail
Virtual Book Tour!
As the Covid19 Pandemic hit right in the week of my book launch we had to cancel all events in the UK and the US and do as much virtually as we could. Here is a great selection of podcasts and interviews!
BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour – Last guest that episode, find it here >
Olive Magazine Podcast – find it here >
Tea & Tattle Podcast – find it here >
Cooking with an Italian Accent podcast – find it here >
Borough Market‘s Borough talks – find it here >
Sunday Post interview – find it here >
At the Sauce Podcast – Find it here >
Good Food Hour – KSRO Radio Sonoma County US – Find it here >
Milk Street podcast – Boston – Find it here >
Further listening:
Gastro Podcast, The Great Pudding Off (2019) – Find it here >
Book reviews that could be helpful:
Nigella Lawson’s Cookbook Corner >
Article on Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) >
Try a few recipes
Belgian Buns over on the Telegraph >
Carrot cake with cashew topping on the Telegraph >
Chelsea Buns over on The Sunday Times >
3 recipes on the Otago Daily Times NZ >
COVID19 measures: Large outlets will send even outside the UK, for local delivery the independent book stores mentioned below have stock and are happy to send to you.
For sale at
Amazon UK and Waterstones UK
And Indie bookstores with in particular the following stores:
In the UK
Cookbookbake in Brighton (also shipping to you)
Warwick Books in Warwick (also shipping to you)
Toppings & Company in Edinburgh, Ely and Bath (also shipping to you)
Browsers Bookshop in Woodbury (delivers locally)
In Australia
In United States
’Oats in the North, Wheat from the South’ Published with Murdoch books in Britain, Australia and New Zealand in April and the US later this year (with a different title: ‘The British Baking Book” and cover) with Weldon Owen.
San Fransisco: Omnivore Books @OmnivoreBooks
Los Angeles: Now Serving @nowservingla
Barnes & Noble
Lebanon
Papercup bookstore, Beirut
Selling the Dutch edition in Belgium
Luddites, Antwerpen (selling both EN and NL)
Boekhandel Novelle, Kortrijk
Paard Van Troje, Gent
Standaard Boekhandel
Fnac
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UPDATE 2021 – Belgian Café Culture is getting a 5 year anniversary edition with a new cover! I am so very pleased! Publication date in early November!
A week after the launch of Pride And Pudding, exactly one year ago, I started working on a new book, a passion project…
This book ‘Belgian Café Culture / Authentieke Belgische Cafés (in English and Dutch) is a plea to carefully handle the fragile café heritage of Belgium. For too long have we taken these little cafés for granted. Not enough have we stopped to think about their history and their relevance in our culture. They are part of our social and cultural patrimony in Belgium. When I walk the streets, everywhere I look I see forgotten and lost cafés.
When I read in the papers that a much-loved café was going to close down I went to visit it, to talk to the people there who were about to lose their local. I was probably one of the last to document it. Nothing could be done; the owners of the building wanted to renovate the café and there is wind of a more hipster implementation. For this reason alone a lot of authentic cafés have had to go.
But the need for modernisation is not the only reason why so many old Belgian cafés disappear. The ones that have been in the family for generations often disappear because there are no children who want to take over, or because no-one dares to take over an old-fashioned café. The cafés that have been closing in the last 5 years mostly become residential dwellings. All that remains are the memories of those who used to drink there.
A café can be the centre of a community, where people laugh and cry together over a glass of ale. Where disagreements are settled with words and sometimes with the fist. But where people often help those who are in need. Listen to those who would otherwise only have silence as a reply. Births and weddings are celebrated, but so are the dead.
Clubs meet at cafés and in the past they also doubled as village or theatre halls. Cafés often had a small shop, a smithy, a hairdresser or a butcher’s shop. This was very common before the 1980s. Today there’s only one café shop left and you can count the café hairdressers on one hand.
In the larger cities the cafés were also where people waited to be given work from the factories or the docks. It was also where they were paid at night. A café landlady from Antwerp remembers the drama well when men spent their entire wages on beer and went home without a dime. There was a café on every street corner in those days…
This book is dedicated to the landlords and ladies who have been running these cafés for generations or have been preserving the original interiors purely out of understanding of their importance. This book is not about me, it is about them and their livelihoods. Our Belgian Café.
Belgian Café Culture or Authentieke Belgische Cafés is a bilingual edition English/Dutch. Published by LUSTER, 272 pages and hardback finish.
Written, photographed and designed by your truly. The cover is by my husband Bruno Vergauwen.
If you’d like a signed copy (25 euro plus shipping), or a signed copy with a signed photo print (50 euro plus shipping), please get in contact. There is a Dutch and an English cover.
Alternatively you can also contact the publisher directly or go to your local bookstore (in Belgium) or order online at the usual places (Amazon, or Waterstones to name two)
I will be sharing the limited edition version soon, this will contain a signed book, signed photoprint, and a ‘Zageman’ a kinetic toy used in Belgian Cafés in the past (why you’ll read in the book where I explain the folkloristic customs). This edition will be limited to 10 only, and will be available for 99 euro plus shipping, or 150 euro for a painted ‘Zageman’ kinetic toy. More info and pictures soon, we’re making the ‘Zageman’ as we speak. (See the video here for a preview >)
My husband created these amazing kinetic toys which were traditionally used in Belgian cafés! Available for sale, just a few of them 
For press get in touch by emailing me.
Because I want to share this book as much as I can to tell people about this fading heritage, I’m giving away 2 copies of the book. I’ll pick from the comments below, just tell me why you think this is important to be documented, or tell me about fading heritage in your country or region. Or another story! Post! Let’s get this conversation going!!
Update: The winners are Gabriela Athayde and Rossella Di Bidino. Please get in touch with your address! (see my email on the contact page!)
Some Reviews
In Dutch:
English
French
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When Florentine arrived on my doorstep, I decided not to read bits here and there and save it for a moment when I could really tuck in with greed. When I did, on a spring-like winter morning with the cats warming my feet and purring silently out of utter bliss, I read it cover to cover.
Other than the fact that Florentine is a good book, it was also written by a close friend. Emiko Davies was born in Australia but grew up in China, and after her studies in Amerika she ended up in Florence where she lost her heart to a city and a Florentine man.
Quickly she fell in love with the food on offer in la pasticceria (pastry shops), la trattoria (small eatery), il forno (bakery) and food vans in the street selling Lampredotto (tripe) for which Florence is famous. Therefore it is not surprising that the recipes of her book are divided into these chapters, adding il mercato (the market) and il maccellaio (the butcher).
It is refreshing to see a cookbook divided up differently. Too long have chapters been divided into starters, sides, mains and desserts. Florentine’s chapters tell part of the story as do Emiko’s beautiful photo’s of the city that transport you to the streets yourself and make you long for a coffee and a Sfogliatine or Bonboloncini on a white paper napkin in an old fashioned bar.
A few recipes
Cecina in the Il Forno chapter is definitely a must try, although not originally a Florentine dish, it is very good and therefore I employ you to give it a go. Basically this chickpea cake are somewhere between pancakes and flatbreads. I don’t know about you but I always have half open bags of chickpea flour and this recipe puts them to a splendid use. Emiko tells us the Cecina which is also called Torta di ceci, is most popular in Tuscan seaside towns. We visited the coastal town of Livorno together with Emiko and a couple other friends a few years ago, there we visited a small eatery with a wood fired oven where Cecina is served between bread and called Cinque e cinque. The Cecina is crisp and with a healthy dose of black pepper and the addition of grilled aubergine or ham, it is incredibly satisfying.
Fagioli all’Uccelleto, or white beans cooked in tomato sauce, are a favourite breakfast dish for me – think posh English baked beans on toast – but in Italy they are one of the accompaniments to steak or roast meat. It is also prepared adding Tuscan pork and fennel sausages making it a firm favourite of my husband Bruno.
Another traditional and favourite is the Crostone con salsiccia e Stracchino – or crostone with sausage meat and stracchino cheese – which Emiko used to eat at her favourite wine bar. It was introduced to me years ago by Giulia, a mutual friend and fellow food writer of Emiko and me. When I went back home, I carried sausages and stracchino cheese in my hand luggage and made the crostono for Bruno that same evening. The beauty of this dish is how simple it is, just mixing raw sausage meat with a soft young cheese, and then grilled in a got oven. Make sure you have enough of everything in your fridge because you will be wanting seconds, or the same the next day.
The ravioli di pera e ricotta is one on my list to make as I often enjoy the dish at our favourite Italian eatery where the chef is Tuscan. Emiko’s recipe serves the ravioli with a sage and butter while our Italian restaurant chooses a green pepper sauce. I never thought of sage and pear, but now I can not wait to try it.
The Papardelle all’Anatra – or papardelle with duck sauce – makes me want to ring around poultry sellers and farms for a free range duck. It is one of those dishes that just scream comfort in the company of a good full-bodied red wine. Emiko writes that it is now made with duck legs while it used to be made with a whole duck and that papardelle is a favourite pasta shape from the Florentines.
There is something good for everyone in this book, rice gelato, cornetti and Pandiramerino for those with a sweet tooth, meaty sauces and braises for the carnivore, and plenty of vegetable dishes. The book is also beautiful, with food photography by Laura Bamford and photo’s of Florence by the author Emiko. Emiko takes you on a journey through Florence like no other book on Florence has ever done, although I admit I haven’t read any others I’m sure it must be true. It is definitely the first book which looks at Florentine food primarily. Recipes are easy to follow and well explained. I might be biased because Emiko is a good friend, but that also gives me the insight knowledge that she worked very hard on this book.
Florentine: The true Cuisine of Florence is published by Hardie Grant Books March 2016 and available in English in bookstores and online.
Our dinner tonight, made to a recipe from Florentine
You might also enjoy these books on Italian food:
I love Toscana from aforenamed Giulia Scarpaleggia, a book about authentic Tuscan food with beautiful glimpses into her life in the Tuscan countryside where she lives with her family. The recipes are rustic, real and traditional, and have been cooked in my kitchen many times.
Five quarters by Rachel Roddy is a newly published book about Roman food. Rachel lives in Rome and tells us about her life there. With charming stories from the market and beautiful images taken in her Roman flat, it is a book with good home cooking and satisfying flavours.
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