By Laura Shapiro. 

Dorothy Wordsworth believed that feeding her poet brother, William, gooseberry tarts was her part to play in a literary movement.
Cockney chef Rosa Lewis became a favourite of King Edward VII, who loved her signature dish of whole truffles boiled in Champagne.
Eleanor Roosevelt dished up Eggs Mexican – a concoction of rice, fried eggs, and bananas – in the White House.
Eva Braun treated herself to Champagne and cake in the bunker before killing herself, alongside Adolf Hitler.
Barbara Pym's novels overflow with enjoyment of everyday meals – of frozen fish fingers and Chablis – in midcentury England.
Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's idea of "having it all" meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin. In the irresistible What She Ate, Laura Shapiro examines the plates, recipe books and shopping trolleys of these six extraordinary women, casting a new light on each of their lives – revealing love and rage, desire and denial, need and pleasure.
 

Paperback, 320 pages.

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