An enjoyable read but although amusing at times I didn't find it as hilarious as described. I found the first half, stories of her growing up in a tyoical northern working class home more engaging than the rest of the book. Maybe because it brought back memories of my childhood.

Grace Dent is one of my favorite judges on MasterChef UK - that's how I came to know about her, and reading this memoir just felt like getting closer to the person she is. Irreverent and slightly sarcastic like she herself is on the screen, this was a really rollicking read that evoked feelings and a sense of belonging and nodding along. Heart got absolutely broken reading about her parents, reading it all on the page and though 'knowing' what she went through, you still at the same time don't have a clue if you haven't been there... Only reason this one isn't getting 5 stars from me is I was expecting a lot more about actual food in there, along the lines penned in the blurb. Mind, it's a great journey with Grace through the years, but it is hardly about food or food-centric

Confession: I don’t really know Dent for what she is most well-known for - being a food writer and critic, alongside her various television appearances. Instead, I know her as the author of a book series I loved from the ages of 9 to say 12: Diary of a Chav. I loved that series so much. I wad quite advanced for my age, reading about a 16-year-olds struggles and social life on a council estate in Essex, but I was so charmed by it and felt a certain connection to it, even though I hadn’t grown up in quite the same environment as the main character Shiraz Bailey Wood.

Anyway, I digress! That’s the reason I picked up this book (thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy). ‘Hungry’ is a Dent’s memoir which naturally revolved around food. From the ‘sketty’ she used to make with her father as a child, to the emergence of the ASDA superstories, to moving to London and refining her palette. It’s a swift read, and incredibly engrossing. Dent has a tender way with words, and certainly doesn’t mince them. She is nostalgic without being too rose-tinted, and I am glad she is honest about how she acted once she had moved to London and began to move up in the media ranks. I can imagine it is a lifestyle somewhat hard to adjust to. Dent’s book not only makes you nostalgic for home-cooked, gravy-soaked meals but (because of current times) also hunkering for a barely-there plate of a main course from London’s hottest new restaurant. The book also recounts her father’s struggles with Dementia in a very honest and sensitive way, once again weaving in how food has been a huge part of the process of remembering and bringing a family together despite difficulties.

Whether you’re foodie, love Dent’s work already, or just like to nosy into people’s lives, this is an engrossing read which (genuinely, I hate being so cliche) will have you both laughing and crying.

Hungry
‘Grace & Flavour’ was the first page that I turned to every week in London’s Evening Standard magazine. Where would the elegant Ms Dent be tip-toeing off in her high heels this week? A new Hoxton chippy, the launch of a new restaurant destined to close two weeks later or a brand new start-up where your food may be delivered in a paper bag to your table and be a dubious fusion of several cuisines? Grace’s sparkling wit as she valiantly sallied forth to explore the capital’s culinary delights never failed to impress and now with ‘Hungry’ we are treated to how Grace became the brilliant journalist that she is.
Childhood food. How it brings back memories. I have fond memories of bath chaps (anyone else remember them?) and other ‘70’s foods that you don’t see now. Smells and tastes can take you right back and I share the author’s delight at Heinz treacle sponge puddings – your teeth probably won’t thank you though. But tastes do come around – my dad was always keen on pigs trotters which seemed to making a comeback and I remember watching my gran using offal far more than we do now. Food was a huge part of Grace’s early life as she watched her father preparing ‘sketty’ or spaghetti and teaches her to read by using flashcards created from cereal packets. School dinners and the coming of Asda and how it changed their eating and shopping habits. With microwave meals everyone in the family could eat at different times so the communal meals began to vanish.
I loved her description of her gran’s handbag as ‘being a rudimentary version of the internet’ as it was so stuffed with family bits and pieces. I always wore that my mum’s handbag was the portal to another dimension as, if you put your hand in it, you would undoubtedly be sucked in and never seen again.
Growing up in a busy, noisy family Grace surveyed her life choices with a wryly humourous air. Mam wanted a vestibule in her house but Grace wanted the world. She begins her career in journalism as a teenager by writing letters to the NME. Then she’s off to uni and then manages to blag her way onto a glossy magazine where I sensed slight overtones of ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ She moved up within the ‘90’s magazine scene which has now been consigned to oblivion.
Grace becomes a restaurant critic after being inspired by film director Michael Winner’s restaurant column called appropriately enough ‘Winner’s Dinners’. It’s not long before she’s sitting down to such dodgy culinary delights as a spun sugar replica of a used condom on a bed of sherbet which was intended to be a political comment on AIDS in Asia. I did wonder what the other dishes and confections in this 5 hour tasting extravaganza might have been. But then perhaps it’s better not to know. Meals served on washing lines or in tool boxes were to follow amongst many others.
However the book changes tone in the last section as Grace takes on caring responsibilities. Mam develops cancer and Dad has dementia. The scene where she has to leave him in a room at a care home in tears is heart breaking. But Grace carries on by becoming the Guardian’s restaurant critic, part of Masterchef and dressing up a Christmas pudding for a magazine cover. She is just unsinkable.
‘Hungry’ is a really entertaining book which I thoroughly enjoyed. Lots of witty anecdotes and it explored the relationship that we all have with food. We eat because of hunger, for comfort, to entertain or impress or see it as the enemy when we’re trying control calories. Grace’s dad always associates purple with Cadburys and I have fond memories of the wall of chocolate in Woolworths at Easter. Perhaps too fond.
My thanks to HarperCollins and Netgaley for an ARC.

I read this book in one sitting. Just wonderful!

It took me right back to my childhood from the first page.

Grace Dent is a talented, honest writer, I've not read any of her other book but I have heard they are excellent.

I've always enjoyed Grace Dent's writing, and this autobiography was a real treat. Warm and engaging and just as funny and irreverent as you'd expect. The parts with her family, especially her dad, and really touching, and there is something very wholesome about it.

Food critic Grave Dent’s memoir took me far down a culinary memory lane and reminded me of what we considered to be ‘good’ food when I was growing up. The author writes in a self deprecating , conversational style , the book is certainly not just about food however but is instead a moving portrait of family life and the difficulties that having ageing parents brings. An enjoyable read that has left me craving chip butties and Findus crispy pancakes!

This is a brilliant memoir written in the down to earth manner that Grace Dent is known for. I really enjoyed this book about Grace's northern roots and how food shaped her family life.

I am so happy to be able to review this book. While we may not have grown up in the same part of the country, I realise having read this autobiography that our lives have been very similar growing up. Now, I'm not an award winning food critic, but so much of her childhood resonates with me, and we have probably been to a few of the same parties, restaurants and places in London.

At first the book has you laughing out loud at the picture Grace paints of her house, her road and her neighbourhood. As we approach present day her life becomes harder with a failed marriage and the ailments of her parents. But this book never strays too far from food; the fabulous memories of childhood treats; school dinners; chain pubs and finally fine dining as a restaurant critic and regular on Masterchef.

I love Grace's irreverent tone, she's not afraid to poke fun at herself. Yet this book clearly comes from the heart. It's been on my shelf for far too many months, when I finally started it I DEVOURED it in three days. Thoroughly recommended.

This is a terrific book. Grace Dent delivers a witty and heartfelt love letter to her family via her memories of shared northern working class food that we can all identify with.

An absolute treat all round and a perfect read in these strange pandemic eat at home days. .

Many thanks to Mudlark publishers, to Ms Dent and to NetGalley for letting me read and review this wonderful book.

One suspects that 'Hungry' by Grace Dent was written in an attempt to get her memories captured in the face of her father's increasing dementia. Dent tells the reader about her childhood in the 1970s-80s, her father's complexity and increasing ill-health, her career in journalism and as a food critic. You never know whether a celebrities memoir is accurate, but it appears that she speaks with a self deprecating honesty, and if aspects of this is false, she does it wonderfully.

I loved 'Hungry'. Born in 1979 I can relate to many of Dent's childhood memories and I remember the advent of convenience foods in my families kitchen. I found the parts about her dad, sad and heart felt. I loved her tales from her time in journalism, often told from an outsiders perspective, even though Dent admits that on occasion she became too much of an insider to the detriment of some relationships. I also appreciated her candid discussions about her weight and its fluctuations, alongside her sense that at least some of her father's difficulties are due to the high sugar/high fat foods found so freely available. I suspect when I next see Dent on television, I will greet her with a rye nod and a smile.

Like much of grace’s writing this is smart and funny, but also unexpectedly emotional with much nostalgia .

This is a superb, funny and heartfelt memoir abut Grace Dent’s life, from her working-class childhood in Cumbria, through to being a doyenne of food-writing in the UK. Dent’s writing is sharp, humorous and extremely relatable, particularly if you grew up on Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, like I did.

Dent has a great skill of incorporating food writing into her memoir, whilst informing and entertaining readers about her life. Towards the end, the focus is more on her father, afflicted with vascular dementia, and her mother, who has cancer. If, like me, your widowed mother has Alzheimer’s and is in a care home, the stories here might resonate even more. Regardless, this is a really enjoyable book and has made me want to seek out more of Dent’s writing.

Grace Dent is iconic. We think we know her from her reviews and TV appearances. This book dug below that into the more human side.
It's a great book, beautifully written, as you'd expect., of course. It's also deeply personal and seems very honest. The way she talked about her childhood, the trips to Asda, playing out in the street, her family were very familiar to me. I loved the way she spoke about that time with affection. Her clear love of that place and her family and then the equal love of being in London and all the excitement that brought.
Also, the story of her dad was so sweet and heartbreaking. Any of us around that stage in our lives will recognise that situation in some way.
I get the impression there was a lot she left out of the book so hopefully there will be another.

Wha a fascinating book. Having seen Grace Dent on Masterchef I thought I know what to expect. But there are so many layers in this book, so many glimpses of her personality and background.
A very readable book. Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this.

Loved this!
this has got to be my favourite non fiction read of the year. The synopsis leads you to believe that the book focuses solely on food memories but it is so much more, its also a memoir about family, ambition and grief.
I guess I may be slightly bias towards this book as not only did I grow up in the same era but also in the same area so for me at times it was a trip down memory lane .
I loved reading about her climb up the career ladder and the struggles along the way and the differences between growing up in cumbria and living a celebrity life in London .
It's everything you could want from a memoir, funny, witty yet sad and touching in parts. I do think that if you grew up eating the similar foods that are mentioned you will love it and will be a trip down memory lane for you. I would love to see Grace write a fiction book or even this adapted to the screen would be great!

My thanks to HarperCollins U.K. Nonfiction/Mudlark for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Hungry: a Memoir of Wanting More’ by Grace Dent in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very readable memoir that traces Grace’s life from a girl growing up in Currock, Carlisle, to her desire to work in journalism, to eventually finding success and becoming a leading and much loved voice on the British food scene.

Within its pages Grace charts the changes in how food has been appreciated in Britain over the past forty years. She writes of the joys of apple crumble with custard and the chip butty covered in vinegar and too much salt in the school canteen. Yum! She explores the changes brought about by the arrival of the large supermarkets that provided inexpensive processed food as well as expanding choices.

Later on Grace lands a plum job as restaurant critic and starts eating at very posh restaurants with at times quite inexplicable menus.

Also, important to the memoir is her relationship with her family and especially her parents. In the later sections she enters more serious territory as she relates her mother’s battle with cancer and her father’s slow decline due to vascular dementia. These clearly were difficult subjects, especially in contrast to the lighthearted humour in other parts. I applaud her courage in sharing these more serious aspects of her life with her readers.

Over the years I have enjoyed Grace Dent’s articles and appreciated her down-to-earth approach to food. So this was a delight from start to finish.

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Reviews by Gemsiek
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“Heartwarming and heartbreaking”
Hardback edition

Hungry (Hardback) by Grace Dent
I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this book from HarperCollins for review.

As a regular reader of Dent's column in The Guardian I've come to learn little snippets about her personal life - she's from the North, her mum lives alone, and she didn't grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth.

This book is almost one of two halves; the story of how a young girl growing up on a housing estate in Carlisle came to be a well respected (and in some cases feared) food critic, combined with a moving portrayal the devastating effects vascular dementia can have on a family.

It's certainly a book about food, and Dent has a brilliant way of describing her childhood meals that makes all those memories of potato waffles, crispy pancakes, and the joys of your mum returning from a big shop come flooding back to life.

Dent deals openly and honestly with her father's vascular dementia and these parts of the book, although devastating, are told in a way that doesn't feel exploitative - it's an insight into the devastating effects of this disease, and the power of family, memory and comfort food to help us through difficult times.

5th November 2020

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have always enjoyed watching Grace Dent both as a food critic on MasterChef, she is my favourite critic, I always think her opinions are honest, and she is naturally funny, someone I would love to go out for dinner with, I think she would be great company. I also like watching her critiquing other types of programmes . Even though we are not exactly the same generation, I am a Baby Boomer, and she is Generation X ,although to be truthful I don't know what any of that means really, but anyway slightly different generations or not, this book was still a trip down memory lane for me, with the brand names and descriptions taking me back in time. I thought the book was very honest, especially the descriptions of her relationship with her parents. As a former social worker I can relate to a great deal she has and is experiencing, and also as the daughter of an elderly mother myself.. I thought this was a really good and interesting, entertaining and honest insight into her life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to other readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the complimentary advance review copy of this book.  

Having become familiar with Grace's work as a food critic for the Evening Standard a few years ago, I was really excited to read her new novel "Hungry". The book charters her journey, from a young woman growing up in Northern England, through to her teenage and student years, and then documents her rise as a budding journalist in London - and her rich career to date. The book focuses on her family, relationships, career, and of course - her love of food.
The book is warm, funny, and rich in her classic sense of humour. She reminds me a little of Caitlin Moran, who I also love. It's hard hitting in parts, particularly when she talks about her parents. It's a wonderful read, and I devoured it in just a few days.