Reading Ireland 2024: Love Lies A Loss by Theodora Fitzgibbon
Theodora Fitzgibbon is probably best remembered today for her food writing and cookery books, the first of which, Cosmopolitan Cookery in an English Kitchen , was commissioned in 1952. Twenty-five more books (and a novel) followed, including the popular series of 'Taste Ofs' - A Taste of Ireland, A Taste of Paris, A Taste of the Sea (and many more.) I still have her Traditional Scottish Cookery on my shelf today. And yet Theodora had a much more exciting life than those books might suggest. Like Alice B Toklas, she only started to write them at all to make money. By 1950 her tempestuous marriage to the Irish American writer Constantine Fitzgibbon was falling apart and the couple were living an impecunious, and to some extent profligate, life, largely relying on handouts from their families and many wealthy friends. In 1952 Theodora was already 36. She had previously been an actress and a model, She had been educated partly in Bruges, and had travelled all over the world with