Over-cooked

Starting with Lemprière’s Dictionary — an unexpected worldwide hit in the early 1990s — Lawrence Norfolk has never been a man for the slim novella. Complicated of plot and huge of cast, his books generally serve up a combination of almost obsessively researched history and somewhat arcane mythology. Now, 12 years since his last one, comes John Saturnall’s Feast —  a novel, I think it’s fair to say, that doesn’t mark a radical change of direction.

The year is 1625, and in the Oxfordshire village of Buckland the puritans are on the march. For 11-year-old John Saturnall, this is particularly worrying, because his mother Susan is widely (and, it would seem, accurately) regarded as the local witch. Eventually the two are driven into the woods, where she gives young John a crash course in herbs, spices and pre-Christian belief-systems — with particular reference to the story of Saturnus’s great feast when all people enjoyed the fruits of the earth together.

But once winter comes, Susan dies of the cold, leaving John to take his chances at nearby Buckland Manor. Luckily, his mum’s teachings have made him an unusually good cook and he’s soon doing well in the kitchens. Less luckily, he falls for the lord of the manor’s daughter, the impeccably haughty Lucretia.

Still, there’s always cooking to fall back on — and fall back on it John certainly does. Over several chapters, in fact, the novel seems to consist mostly of lengthy and lyrical descriptions of meals being prepared, meals being served and meals being eaten. For students of 17th-century English cuisine, this will presumably be an invaluable resource. For the rest of us, the law of diminishing returns can’t help but set in, as we’re force-fed yet another passage beginning, say, ‘To make cabbage cream he let the thick liquid clot, lifted off the top layer, folded it then repeated the process until the cabbage was sprinkled with rose water and dusted with sugar, ginger and nutmeg.’