Review: Sleep First by Dr. Jemma King

* Copy courtesy of Wiley *

It's been 10 months since I last read a book on sleep, so when I received an offer to review Sleep First - Sleep Smarter, Think Sharper, Feel Better by Dr. Jemma King I was quick to accept. The book was off to an excellent start and I was very pleased to see the author quoting from historian Roger Ekirch within the opening pages and the fact that he uncovered hundreds of references to 'first sleep' and second sleep' in pre-industrial era documents.

"You've probably heard the compelling story about how humans 'naturally' sleep in two distinct chunks during the night. According to this theory, before the Industrial Revolution ruined everything with electric lights and rigid schedules, people would go to sleep soon after dark, wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two of quiet activities (prayer, sex, contemplation, light chores), then drift back into a 'second sleep' until dawn. It's called biphasic sleep." Page 3

This is one of my favourite facts about sleep and it's one that isn't widely known. I wish more people knew about this natural phenomenon and that waking up at 3AM is entirely normal. Furthermore, acceptance of this ancient human biology will aid those feeling anxious about waking through the night, fearing they won't fall back to sleep and will feel tired as a consequence the following day.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter entitled 'Choosing the Fire: Special Forces and Elite Athletes' where the author outlines her experience working with the Australian Special Forces and the experiments she conducted during the Commando selection process.

Dr King provides a useful list of self talk and the harm it does and offers helpful alternatives you can try instead. Each one begins with a belief - like "I'm not tired yet" - and then encourages the reader to 'Try this instead' and explains 'Why it works'. This is effective, however the headings are around the wrong way. This proved confusing until I noticed the editing error and it's a shame because some of the suggestions are really great but their impact may be lost with the interrupted flow.

I haven't seen this in many of the books I've read before about sleep, but Dr King includes a chapter on sleep and technology, covering the pros and cons of wearable devices that can track sleep as well as other technology aids and devices that can aid in a good night's sleep. I was very interested in smart mattresses and rocking beds and plan to look into these a little more after writing this review.

My key takeaway after reading Sleep First - Sleep Smarter, Think Sharper, Feel Better by Dr. Jemma King is a consistent wake time. The time I go to bed and read is very consistent, but my wake time used to vary widely. Before reading this book I'd already started to trial a more consistent wake up / get up time regardless of the level of activity or pain experienced the day before. The author does an excellent job of explaining the importance and benefits of doing so and here's just one reason:

"Researchers have calculated that if everyone just adopted a sleep routine covering the same 7 hours each night, population-wide mental disorder rates could drop by 23 per cent through the simple low-cost act of going to bed and waking up at consistent times." Page 91

Sleep First - Sleep Smarter, Think Sharper, Feel Better by Dr. Jemma King is recommended for anyone wanting to improve their sleep quality. If you struggle to get to sleep or stay asleep, suffer from chronic tiredness or insomnia or you're just interested in learning more about sleep and maximising your quality of sleep - sleepmaxxing, it's a thing - then there's plenty to learn here. You can even read the first chapter for free. Oh, and did I mention she's Australian?

Sleep well tonight!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: And How Does That Make You Feel? by Joshua Fletcher

Joshua Fletcher became a Psychotherapist specialising in anxiety after struggling with anxiety in his early 20s and suffering from panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

In his book, And How Does That Make You Feel? Everything You (N)ever Wanted To Know About Therapy, Joshua Fletcher takes you into his therapy room and shares the therapeutic relationship he develops with four of his patients.

Part memoir, Fletcher is clear early on that finding the right modality of therapy is important, as is finding a therapist that feels right for you. I wasn't aware of all the modalities in this field and the author provides a brief overview of each one.

Unique to this book - at least to my knowledge - Fletcher uses a writing technique that incorporates his inner voices with the text of his book. He refers to them as 'characters at a big round thought table, each voice squabbling, debating and fighting for attention' in his mind. Fletcher has named each of his inner voices, and the ones that pop up throughout his therapy sessions include:

Analytical: seeing things from the perspective of counselling theory

Anxiety: the voice of worry that focusses on threats and unlikely catastrophes

Biology: hunger, fatigue, pain, discomfort, toileting, temperature etc.

Compassion: the willingness to understand and help

Critic: a judging voice

Detective: the voice that searches for clues and meaning

Empathy: trying to imagine and experience how they are feeling

Escapist: the voice encouraging me to avoid difficult feelings

Intuition: a nudge from the gut that goes beyond rationale and reason

Irreverence: bizarre and unexpected thoughts that creep into the therapy room

Saviour: the desire to 'save' a person outside the realms of professional duty

Trigger: jealousy, anxiety, anger, defensiveness and associated trauma

Volition: choosing to listen to a more appropriate voice than the one that initially arises

                                                                                            The Inner Voices of the Therapist

How this works is that he provides details of the session and shares the moment when these inner voices intervene, naming them as he goes. For example, in the case a patient mentions they have a secret they've been hiding for many years, his Detective inner voice will wonder what it is. It seems as though he's constantly receiving information from his inner voices and what emerges is a balancing act between his training, medical knowledge and the comments offered by these voices.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised we all have these to a certain extent but I never thought to name them. I certainly have Biology, Compassion, Critic, Detective, Empathy and Intuition for starters. This insight into a therapist's inner thoughts - or voices - gives the reader some idea of what a therapist is thinking while listening to their patients and it's heartening to know that therapists are often dealing with competing approaches.

Narrating the audiobook himself was a terrific choice and Fletcher changes the names of each of the patients so they can't be identified. One of the patients included was a very famous actress and I was desperate to know who she was. Referred to as Daphne, I understood why the author couldn't share her identity in the book yet it still felt incredibly frustrating not to know who she was. So much so, I found myself wondering if it would have been better to choose someone without a public profile that would keep the reader guessing. Or was that the point?

Another of the patients had an odd relationship with his wife in a scenario that was so unusual I wondered whether it was chosen because it was so strange. Given Fletcher's speciality in anxiety, maybe these four patients were an accurate representation of his patient list but at least two of them seemed to me to be outliers or extraordinary cases and it was hard to learn from their progress.

And How Does That Make You Feel? Everything You (N)ever Wanted To Know About Therapy by Joshua Fletcher will appeal to those considering therapy for the first time or readers curious to know what happens in the therapy room and what the therapist 'really' thinks.

For those who want to know more, Joshua Fletcher is known as Anxiety Josh on social media and has a new book out next month called Same Time Next Week? Living With Anxiety in the Modern World.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Morbidly Curious by Coltan Scrivner

Coltan Scrivner, PhD is a pioneer on the subject of morbid curiosity and in Morbidly Curious - A Scientist Explains Why We Can't Look Away, he endeavours to explain what it is. In the prologue Scrivner firstly explains what it isn't; it's not a pathological, abnormal or unhealthy curiosity. Instead, morbid curiosity is a curiosity about things that are threatening or potentially dangerous and usually falls into the following four categories:

- minds of dangerous people
- physical violence
- bodily injuries
- paranormal dangers

This might present as a fascination with true crime, watching gory medical procedures or playing violent computer games. It's also what drives that irresistible urge to look at a car accident and try to determine what happened from the carnage left behind on the road.

Scrivner is the leading expert on the science behind morbid curiosity and the creator of the Morbid Curiosity Scale. Scientists now use this scale to assess how morbidly curious a person is and where they fall with respect to these four categories. I completed the free Morbid Curiosity Test on the author's website after reading the book and scored an overall score of 4.63 out of 6.0, where the population average is 3.41. As for the four categories mentioned above, I scored highest in the 'Minds of Dangerous People' category which correlates with my interest in true crime and wanting to understand why people commit such terrible crimes.

While I wasn't surprised to learn that morbid curiosity has helped humans across history learn more about the dangers of daily life in order to avoid or survive them, I didn't expect to find that it can positively influence our psychological wellbeing as well.

The author explains how watching a horror movie can actually help someone when they're feeling anxious:

"Horror movies can provide a way for you to hack and redirect your vigilance system. They act as a lure for an anxious mind using a threat centric plot to capture and hold the viewer's attention." Chapter 10, Terrifying Therapy

Who knew watching a horror movie can provide a new and salient threat for your mind to latch on to and which in turn, can out compete other existing sources of anxiety. The author states that those who watch horror movies tend to have more - not less - empathy than the rest of the population. I know two people in particular who regularly watch horror movies and have tonnes of empathy as well as service related PTSD, and I think I better understand now what they're getting out of the experience.

Much of the content in this book is centred around horror movies, computer gaming and haunted houses of the entertainment nature as these were the perfect settings for Scrivner's scientific research. However, this did become a little dull as these aren't the areas of my own morbid curiosity. Along the way, the author sheds light on the fact there is no link between those who play first person shooter games and those who commit mass shootings in the way we've been led to believe. Computer games don't make murderers, but so many boys and men play them that it's likely that those guilty of these crimes also played them.

Ultimately, Scrivner believes:

"Morbid curiosity is an adaptive behaviour that is central to the success of our species."

Sounds to me like a solid reason to embrace our morbid curiosity. Morbidly Curious by Coltan Scrivner is narrated by the author and I'd love to know if you complete his Morbid Curiosity Test.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Sleep Hacks by Keith Barry

The latest audiobook in my never ending exploration of the topic of sleep is Sleep Hacks - Discover the Life-Changing Tranquility of Deep Sleep by Keith Barry. Interestingly, the author provides 21 hacks in 3 sections, advising the reader to choose 1 hack from each section in order to achieve a rejuvenating night's sleep. If for some reason you don't see any improvement in your sleep patterns, switch out one of the hacks for something else.

It seems simple enough but Barry is firm early on that this system won't help readers who aren't determined to apply the learnings and stick to the program. If you don't have the discipline, Barry essentially encourages the reader to come back another time which I respected. He's essentially advocating the success of his program based on the dedication and discipline from those who choose to apply it as intended.

My sleep has improved greatly over the years and I decided to read for interest without strictly implementing his program.

In Chapter 3 Feed Your Brain: Eat Well to Sleep Well, the author provides an interesting list of foods that have been scientifically proven to potentially aid sleep. These include: cherries, walnuts, almonds, pecans, oats, bananas, kiwi fruit, spinach, live yoghurt, turkey, salmon or other oily fish, passionfruit, dragon fruit, pumpkin seeds, cheese, prunes, whole grains and watermelon. The author then asks the reader to choose two food items to eat each day from this list. For those struggling with sleep, it couldn't hurt to try some of these foods, but I doubt they'll cure your insomnia if you don't make any of the other changes suggested in his program.

I believe it was Jade Wu who solidified the phenomenon of sleep arousal in my mind when I read Hello Sleep and I've never forgotten it. Coincidentally, my favourite part of Sleep Hacks wasn't a new concept or breakthrough, but a simple list of the types of thoughts that keep people awake (sleep arousal) as they attempt to sleep. This is from Chapter 7 Mind Wipe.

Did I lock the back door?
What if my alarm doesn't go off tomorrow?
I'm not ready for the big meeting on Friday
Why did I arrange to meet someone after work when I'd rather go home to my kids?
I think that person took what I said the wrong way
I keep buying clothes I don't need and my credit card bill is terrifying
What will I cook for dinner tomorrow?
Will my mother remember she has the kids after school?
Can I skip the gym tomorrow?
How can I quit my job?
Why is the pain in my shoulder getting worse?
The house is a tip and I don't have the energy to sort it out
I am so annoyed my boss called for a meeting at 4.30PM
Can polystyrene go in the recycling bin? I'd better check
How am I going to be able to afford a holiday this year?
I forgot to text my sister back, she's going to be annoyed

I loved these examples of self talk that go on in the minds of people in general, not just when it's time to sleep. My internal chatter sounds a lot like this, and the native Irish accent by narrator Brendan Dempsey was absolutely perfect for this section.

Sleep Hacks by Keith Barry was an enjoyable read on the topic of sleep and I have faith his program will work for those dedicated enough to apply and stick with it.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

Everything is Tuberculosis - The History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection by John Green is an in depth examination of tuberculosis (TB), it's causes, history, treatments and cures and why it is that so many people continue to die of the disease each and every year.

TB is an infection caused by bacteria and it's airborne, meaning anyone can catch it. According to the author, between 1/4 and 1/3 of all living humans have been infected with it but only a small percentage of those (up to 10%) will end up becoming sick with active TB. Malnutrition and a weakened immune system can trigger a dormant case of TB to become active, making it largely a disease of poverty.

The author of The Fault in Our Stars began to take a serious interest in the topic when he met a young boy with TB in Sierra Leone. Referring to Henry's case throughout the book enables him to put a face on the disease and Green sets the scene early on when he informs the reader just how many people have died from TB in the last 200 years.

"Just in the last two centuries, tuberculosis caused over a billion human deaths. One estimate, from Frank Ryan's Tuberculosis the Greatest Story Never Told, maintains that TB has killed around 1 in 7 people who've ever lived." Introduction

I remember learning this fact at some point in the last few years and it's precisely the reason I decided to read this book. Also known as consumption, and sometimes referred to as the white plague, tuberculosis is the oldest contagious disease and I wanted to know more about it.

The audiobook is narrated by the author himself and I was most interested in the history of TB and in particular the romanticisation of consumption in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At that time, it was believed TB was only acquired by people with great sensitivity and intelligence. If that wasn't bad enough, women with consumption were thought to become more beautiful, ethereal and wondrously pure. Ugh!

TB is a wasting disease and death was commonly a long and drawn out process during which sufferers became weakened and bed-bound. It's hard to believe now - until you recall the popularity of waif models and the heroin chic style from the 1990s - but this began to affect beauty standards of the time. Patients with active TB became thin and pale with wide sunken eyes and a rosy tint on their cheeks from fever and this beauty ideal became desirable and highly valued. (You can see this reflected in the art and literature of the time).

Green moves on to the science of TB and describes the various breakthroughs in medicine that led to TB eventually becoming treatable and then curable. In 2023, a million people died of TB and while Green acknowledges we can't eliminate TB completely, we can make sure nobody dies from it. So why haven't we?

The author explains that the drugs to treat TB aren't being produced and made available in the countries that need them most. Essentially, the drugs are where the disease is not and the disease is where the drugs are not.

A whole host of factors, including big pharma companies keep drug prices high; only a finite amount of aid sent to foreign countries is allocated to medicine and lack of access to basic medical facilities in poorer countries means that TB goes on to kill a million people unnecessarily each year. Learning TB is basically an expression of injustice and inequity was grim and depressing.

At the end of all this, there was no call to action, no website to donate to or petition to sign which was a lost opportunity in my opinion. Green is clearly calling for global healthcare reform, but provides little for the average reader to do with their frustration at the current situation.

For novels with consumptive characters, I can recommend:
- The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson by Belinda Lyons-Lee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Bone China by Laura Purcell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar by Kate Saunders ⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: History Stinks!: Wee, Snot and Slime Through Time by Suzie Edge

Throughout June and July I was finally tackling The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and needed a light audiobook to listen to in my downtime. History Stinks! Wee, Snot and Slime Through Time by Suzie Edge is the second in the History Stinks! series - the first being History Stinks! Poo Through the Ages - and is recommended for readers aged 7 years and over.

Published in April 2025, doctor and historian Suzie Edge turns back time to teach young readers about the history of urine, snot, pus, earwax, vomit, blood, sweat, tears and saliva. Tapping into the fact that kids of a certain age find bodily excretions gross and funny, the author combines her medical knowledge with her love of history to educate us further on this gooey subject matter.

We learn how urine was used by doctors to diagnose patients. 2,500 years ago the physician Hippocrates tasted a patient's urine in order to diagnose their condition. Now considered the father of medicine, Hippocrates was able to utilise this technique to spot conditions like diabetes if the urine was too sweet. He also tasted a patient's earwax; if it was bitter the patient was well, but if it was sweet, the patient was sick.

The chapter on earwax was enlightening as the author tells us medieval monks used earwax to help stick gold leaf to their illuminated manuscripts and to alter the consistency of their ink. Wow!

"Amazingly, earwax can tell us a lot about a person. Archaeologists who find bodies when they are digging in the ground sometimes find them with earwax still there. You can tell what someone liked to eat, the environment that they lived in and what pollutants they were exposed to." Chapter 5, Ewww! Earwax!

Presented in an easily digestible and accessible writing style, the content features regular jokes and info that will no doubt keep kids engaged.

History Stinks! Wee, Snot and Slime Through Time is perfect to listen to in the car with kids who want to know more about gross human bodily excretions and how our knowledge about them has changed over time.

Other books by Suzie Edge include:
Vital Organs - A History of the World's Most Famous Body Parts
Mortal Monarchs - 1,000 Years of Royal Deaths

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal

According to the blurb, Dr Ali Abdaal is the world's most-followed productivity expert and in Feel-Good Productivity - How to Do More of What Matters to You he shares his insights based on his study on the subject of productivity.

During medical school, the author became interested in the science of productivity in an effort to get more out of his day. While working as a Doctor for the NHS in the UK he reached a point of burn out and realised he needed to make some changes to his life.

This self help book is broken down into the following three components: Part 1 Energise, Part 2 Unblock and Part 3 Sustain. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Dr Abdaal's secret to positivity is joy. The essence of his advice is to find a way to experience positive emotions in your work which will enable you to generate more energy to give to work and the other areas of your life.

This isn't a book about time management, prioritising or to-do lists and there wasn't much new-to-me-content on offer, but more about that in a minute.

Most of us have heard the term SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Relevant, Time-related), but in the chapter entitled Seek Clarity, I did learn about NICE goals for the first time.

N - near-term goals (daily or weekly objectives) ensure we're not overwhelmed by the bigger picture and help us to concentrate on the immediate steps we need to take.

I - input-based goals emphasise the process not the outcome. For example, go for a 10 minute walk every day rather than lose 5kg this year.

C - controllable goals are those within our control, naturally. Keep it realistic.

E - energising goals consider a way to integrate play, power and people into each goal.

The side by side comparison between SMART goals (lose 5 kgs in the next three months) and NICE goals (exercise for 30 minutes every day and focus on activities that are enjoyable and manageable) was interesting and probably my main takeaway from the book.

Abdaal narrates the audiobook in a friendly and appealing tone and following along with a print copy from the library, I was struck by just how much his approach seemed to be an amalgamation of my own reading on the topic. Make a dull task fun by listening to music, attach goals to existing behaviours and habit stack in order to establish new positive habits, push through procrastination by deciding to spend 5 minutes on the task.

Even the author's anecdote about the writing habits of Brandon Sanderson has been mentioned in other books I've read. This is the first time I've used ChatGPT to write a review, but I was sure I'd read about Sanderson's progress tracking and the fact he doesn't stop writing until he's reached 2,000 words every day in other self help books. A quick search with the help of AI confirmed my suspicions and this example has appeared in Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. How I feel about the use of AI to fact check a book review is probably a topic to consider another day, but what do you think, is it cheating?

In summary, Feel-Good Productivity - How to Do More of What Matters to You by Dr Ali Abdaal is a good starting point for readers new to the topic of productivity or those disenchanted with their career or field of study. If you've read any - or a combination - of the titles below, you won't find anything vastly new here.

Still considering? Read a FREE extract of the book.

For more on the topic:
100 Ways to Motivate Yourself by Steve Chandler
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Fish! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen C. Lundin
What Makes Us Tick by Hugh Mackay
The Inner Self by Hugh Mackay
Just One Thing by Dr Michael Mosley
Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd

Dr Richard Shepherd is a Forensic Pathologist in the UK and has performed over 23,000 post mortems. In his memoir, Unnatural Causes - The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist he shares highlights from his early career until the time of publication in 2018.

Listening to the author narrate this memoir, his dedication and enthusiasm for the work definitely shines through. His early struggles to interact with the grieving loved ones of the deceased he looks after is also laid bare.

Shepherd worked on some well known cases but the one I was most surprised to read about was the Marchioness disaster.

In 1989, a party boat named the Marchioness was carrying 130 people along the Thames River in London when it collided with another vessel and a total of 51 people died. Identification of the remains at the time came down to fingerprints and dental records, however the bloating of some of the bodies that had taken longer to retrieve led officials to make one of the most horrific decisions in forensic pathology I've ever heard. Specialist equipment that could obtain fingerprints from waterlogged remains was available elsewhere in the country, but the logistics required to transport that many bodies at the time was prohibitive, so a decision was made to remove the hands of the deceased for testing. This was carried out without family approval and even typing these words I'm horrified this took place. However, it MIGHT have been deemed acceptable if those responsible for the process didn't make a complete mess of it. Bodies were given to the families without hands and some families were told they couldn't view the remains of their loved ones by undertakers causing untold additional grief and trauma.

Shepherd is clear that he wasn't responsible for making the decision to remove the hands and had no knowledge of the decision at the time. Understandably this element of the disaster still haunts him and the subsequent hearings and court cases ran for years. I remember reading about the case years ago and being utterly dumbstruck by the incompetence and lack of professionalism shown at the time. Reading Shepherd's involvement in the case, I couldn't help wondering if this memoir was a way for him to 'set the story straight' once and for all on this case and clear his name.

Several other cases the author chose to include were controversial and again I began to speculate that this might be the only avenue for a professional in his field to get his version on the record for the wider public; outside of legal testimony that is.

Some high profile cases - which will be recognised by UK readers - are included and the picture I began to see emerging is that Shepherd felt under valued and under utilised in some cases and unjustly criticised in others.

Interactions with his children and the slight overlap with his work made me uncomfortable and I wasn't surprised - and neither was he - when his marriage broke down. In fact, it reminded me quite a lot of the personal account of Peter Faulding in his memoir What Lies Beneath - My Life as a Forensic Search and Rescue Expert.

I deeply admire the work carried out by forensic pathologists, medical examiners, coroners and those who look after the dead and perhaps that's why I've read so many of their books.* While it's too soon for another just now, True Stories from the Morgue by John Merrick is on my TBR and likely to be the next one on the topic at some point in the future.

Unnatural Causes - The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist by Dr Richard Shepherd is recommended for readers with an interest in forensic medicine.

* Other memoirs like this you may want to explore:
- All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation Into the Death Trade by Hayley Campbell
- Personal Effects: What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me About Caring for the Living by Robert A. Jensen
- Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training by Tom Jokinen
- Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek MD & T.J. Mitchell

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Secret History of Food by Matt Siegel

The Secret History of Food - Strange But True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat by Matt Siegel is a book to tantalise the taste buds. Full of spiced and biting humour, it was an interesting read but certainly doesn't cover the origins of 'everything' we eat.

I was able to appreciate the author's punny sense of humour from the Table of Contents where I read Chapter 9 is entitled Forbidden Berries or Appetite for Distraction; a play on Appetite for Destruction, the title of an 1980s album by my favourite band Guns N' Roses.

Most illuminating was the section on corn, taking us through just how many products contain corn or corn products and how much of it is fed to livestock, making corn the most produced crop in the world.

A little more quote-worthy was the section about vanilla:

"Vanilla is second in price only to saffron, a kilo of which can sell for as much as $30,000 because harvesting it requires handpicking the stigmas of 150,000 to 200,000 flowers (at three stigmas per flower)." Page 93

Pollinated by hand, vanilla plants can take months to pollinate and then another six to nine months before the fruits are ready to harvest by hand.

"But at that point they don't have any flavour, so they need to be cured and conditioned through a process that involves hand massaging them, laying them in the sun to dry each morning, and wrapping them in blankets and tucking them in at night to sweat, which can take another nine months." Page 95

The author goes on to explain vanilla can be worth more than the price of silver, but that's with shrinkage and assuming you don't lose any of the crop from fungus, pests, disease or theft!

In medieval times, bread was baked once a week due to the labour required to mill the grain, make fire, wait for the dough to rise and the efficiency of baking larger loaves less frequently.

"And remember this was before modern preservatives, so six-day-old bread back then would have been much harder and staler (on average) than six-day-old bread today. In fact, there are accounts of peasant breads in France so hard that they had to be chopped with axes to slice them." Page 129

Sure makes me glad for the bread we enjoy today.

The chapter on feasting was full of fun historical facts. A helmeted cock involved crowning a roasted cock or hen with a helmet, tucking a silver or gold leaf lance under its wing and posing it on top of a roasted piglet so it looked like the bird was riding the pig into battle. In the same vein, a redressed swan was roasted and redressed in its skin and held upright with skewers as if it were still alive. Gross! The same thing was done with peacocks, however the finishing touch involved a ball of cloth soaked with alcohol in the peacock's mouth that was lit just before serving to make it look as though the peacock was breathing fire. Kind of makes the Bombay Alaska look a little tame doesn't it?

Loved the section on chilli:

"So eating a pepper isn't unlike, say, being stung by a bee, licking a nine-volt battery, or burning your tongue on scalding hot coffee - all sensations intended to warn the body of exposure to harm and if necessary trigger a series of protective reflexes to mitigate the effects and prevent further exposure." Page 165

Siegel outlines the body's physical reactions to spicy foods and what they're in aid of. The body sweats to flush your system, your nose runs to protect your nasal passages, your eyes water to protect your corneas, you salivate to purge your mouth and coughing and sneezing protects your airways.

I always wondered why cultures who live in hot and humid climates love hot and spicy food, but the author gives us the answer:

"...as chilies also happen to kill bacteria and mask the taste and odor of foods that aren't the freshest. This would explain why spicy foods tend to be more prevalent in hotter climates, where higher temperatures make food preservation more challenging, places like Central America, southern Asia, and Indonesia." Page 170

Siegel explains that chilies may have helped preserve food before the age of refrigeration, and the sweating that takes place when eating spicy foods has a cooling effect that helps regulate body temperature. Yeah, that doesn't work for me personally, but wow, I didn't know that.

While tidbits like this were interesting and informative, I wouldn't have said Siegel discloses many 'secrets' of food but the title is certainly more appetising than 'facts and history about some foods that you might not know'.

The Secret History of Food - Strange But True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat doesn't live up to title by containing the origins of everything we eat, but it does cover a lot of things we eat and was an informative read. It certainly made me hungry, although that's not hard!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★