Laura Mason (1957–2021) was a British food historian based in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

. She studied home economics and food technology and published several books on cookery and its history.

Early life and education

Mason was born in

Ilkley Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within the ...

on 7 August 1957 and attended

Ilkley Grammar School Ilkley Grammar School (IGS) is a co-educational, state comprehensive secondary school in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, that specialises in humanities and sciences. In 2011 it gained academy status. History Early years The earliest recor ...

. Her father was a farmer and her mother a local historian. She took a foundation course at

Bradford College of Art Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a p ...

and a degree in home economics and a further degree in food technology at

Leeds Polytechnic Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The unive ...

Career

In 1997 Mason co-authored ''The Taste of Britain'' with Catherine Brown, published by

Harper-Collins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp ...

with a foreword by

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Hugh Christopher Edmund Fearnley-Whittingstall (born 14 January 1965) is an English celebrity chef, television personality, journalist, food writer, and campaigner on food and environmental issues. Fearnley-Whittingstall hosted the ''River Cot ...

. She published ''Sugar-Plums and Sherbert: a Prehistory of Sweets'' in 1998. As Alan Davidson's research assistant she wrote many of the articles in ''

The Oxford Companion to Food ''The Oxford Companion to Food'' is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name ''The Penguin Companion to Food''. The second and th ...

'' (1999). She wrote several books for the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

: ''Farmhouse Cookery'' in 2005, and ''Book of

Crumble A crumble is a dish that can be made in a sweet or savoury version. Crumbles became popular in Britain during World War II, when the topping was an economical alternative to pies due to shortages of pastry ingredients as the result of rationi ...

s'' and ''Book of

Afternoon Tea Tea (in reference to food, rather than the drink) has long been used as an umbrella term for several different meals. English writer Isabella Beeton, whose books on home economics were widely read in the 19th century, describes meals of var ...

'' both in 2018, and ''

Roast Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization ...

s'' in 2019. Her other publications included ''Sweets and

Candy Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...

'' (2019) and ''Pine'', about

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

trees, in 2013.

Personal life

Mason lived in

after moving there in 1976. She married Ian Tomlin, who died in 1982, and in 2012 married Derek Johnson. She died of cancer on 2 February 2021.

Selected publications

References

1957 births 2021 deaths Food historians British women historians People from Ilkley People from York People educated at Ilkley Grammar School {{UK-historian-stub