- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Press (2 May 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0593022084
- ISBN-13: 978-0593022085
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 488,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Food - meals eaten together in many different places and circumstances - is the common thread of this book whose underlying idea is that the family at the table is the source of its strength. The book recounts the Luard family's life in a cork-oak forest in southern Spain, a snow-bound farmhouse in Languedoc or a sheep-farm in Northamptonshire. Containing anecdote, humour and curious food-lore, this book is written by the author of "European Festival Food" and "The Barricaded Larder". Elizabeth Luard features in a TV series based upon her book "European Peasant Cookery".
From the Back Cover
Not everyone goes to school on a donkey, keeps an eagle owl in the spare bedroom cupboard, or plays chess for the French Foreign Legion. But for the four Luard children, all this was perfectly normal. As normal as taking the scrap bucket across the stream to feed the household pig, or knowing how to hitch up a mulecart.
Elisabeth Luard's not-so-simple tale captures the spirit of bringing up four children as they travel across Europe, their lives a series of old-fashioned adventures. Littered with anecdotes and a scattering of their favourite recipes, this book is a celebration of family life. But no family is immune from tragedy - still less one which lives life to the full. In Francesca, the eldest of the three daughters, we find a true heroine. Passionate, honest, perceptive, she tells her own story - until that moment when she can tell it no more. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Family Life tells of the author's years bringing up her family in England, Spain and France, and is a cross between autobiography and travel book with a few recipes thrown in. I found Luard's rather unconventional attitude to bringing up children refreshing compared to todays trend for wrapping them up in cotton wool - her son and three daughters certainly seemed to grow up fairly well-rounded anyway. The final chapters deal movingly with Luard's eldest daughter Francesca's illness and give a poignant account of how she and the rest of her family come to terms with it, and I must confess to shedding a few tears by the end of the book.I look forward to reading the next instalment - Still Life.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A thoroughly good read if you like food and dream of living the good life somewhere near the Mediterranean. Life is not a breeze for the Luard family, but mother Elizabeth lets us share the meals and the fun as well as the difficulties. The death of her daughter is a shock, but is lovingly and honestly described.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was given this book while living in England, and it came highly recommended. It is not heard of very much here, in Canada, where I now live. I read the first half whilst on holiday in Southern Spain, thinking it would be appropriate to read it while in the book's setting. I honestly found it rather slow at first, though very well-written, and a dry wit which pervades until the very last chapter, which becomes more tragedy than comedy. By the second half of the book, I was enamoured, and loved the description of family life in Spain, the titillating recipes from Spain and France, and the in-depth look into a Spanish psyche, from flamenco to food...as it is a biography of the Luard family, the last chapter is the factual tragedy of the death of their daughter, and I was reading and weeping late at night to finish it...I would highly recommend the book!! I will look for more Elizabeth Luard titles.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
NOURISHMENT FOR BODY AND SOUL
I challenge any reader to remain unmoved by the last chapters of this little book. I felt nourished spiritually and physically throughout, it has become a favourite and I return... Read more
Published 15 months ago by avid ravid
Not your average Family Life!
I must admit that I've never heard of Elisabeth Luard and I certainly wouldn't have been likely to read this if it hadn't been put forward as a Bookworms choice - but I'm glad it... Read more
Published on 12 Sep 2009 by J. Sutton
This is an utterly wonderful book!
Although only aged 20, I have read this three times, and still pick it up all the time to glance through again. Read more
Published on 17 Nov 1999
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