I LOVED "An Appetite for Violets" so much... â€� Martine Bailey Q&A

Laura asked Martine Bailey:

I LOVED "An Appetite for Violets" so much - thank you for writing it! The descriptive passages regarding the food were so amazing that I felt like I could actually smell and taste many of the recipes. I was wondering, since there is so much cooking in the book, do you enjoy cooking in your real life? Also, please tell us you're working on [many] more books! -Laura, TX

Martine Bailey Thank you so much for your comments about the book and Iâ€™m so glad you picked up on my love of cooking. I have always enjoyed baking, having taught myself from books when I was younger. I really started baking to save money and feed my son, by making local English specialities like Bakewell Tart, biscuits and cakes. Then I became fascinated by foreign food when I had more money to travel and eventually entered a Merchant Gourmet contest with a Spanish dish for A Smoky Asturian Stew. I won it and the prize was a French cookery course in Provence. So one thing led to another and I became fascinated with French food and then historical food. My inspiration to write An Appetite for Violets started with a collection of historic recipes at a local country house and thinking about how the cook might have felt if sheâ€™d been sent to some far-flung foreign places! Thanks to TV food historian Ivan Day Iâ€™ve learned a great deal about historic cookery, using forgotten techniques and attempting the truly amazing sugarwork skills that confectioners like Renzo developed in the 18th century. Of course I donâ€™t make extraordinary food all that often, but I do love to bake and Iâ€™m a keen member of the which has groups all around the world.
Iâ€™ve just been putting the final touches to a second book, The Penny Heart, a darker tale set in England, Australia and New Zealand in the 1790s, about a mistress and a sinister cook. It will be published in the UK in May 2015 and at some later date in the US. But Iâ€™m keen to start another novel soon, set in an English village and of course get down to some research.

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