Alice Fleck's Recipes for Disaster: research notes

Want to explore Alice’s world of culinary history? Here are just some of the articles, books and podcasts I devoured while researching this novel.

The Planet Money podcast taught me how to cook a peacock.

Atlas Obscura introduced me to Victorian obsessions with kaleidoscopes, ferns and taxidermy.

The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria by Annie Grey told me everything I could ever want to know about Queen Victoria’s dining habits.

What Miss Mitchell Saw by Hayley Barrett and Diana Sudyka is a gorgeous picture book about Maria Mitchell, America’s first professional female astronomer.

Check out The Sherlock Holmes School of Self-Defence to learn more about Bartitsu. If you’re lucky, you might even find a course near you.

Here are just a few fascinating and wacky Victorian inventions.

Then there’s Marie-Antoine Carème, arguably the world’s first celebrity chef.

And if you get hooked on culinary history and want even more podcasts, try Gastropod, Taste of the Past, The Feast and Food Nonfiction.