Rachel has just recently finished reading Sarah Benjamin's fantastic biography of Janet Ross, an amazingly well-connected nineteenth-century lady/traveller/farmer/food-writer. Janet lived the early part of her life in Egypt but after the collapse of her husband's banking business they both moved to Florence and then into the Tuscan countryside. Here, Janet set herself up single-handedly as the manageress of a large estate. She wrote several influential cookery books which aimed to introduce Italian food and ways of eating to a British audience. And all of this in 1903! (Jamie who...?) Her best-known was brilliantly titled: 'Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen or How to Cook Vegetables' and it's still being published:
Anyway the biography includes a choice selection of recipes. We're working our way through these now but we can recommend the delicious meatballs with white beans; this picture just doesn't do it justice:
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