Crazy for cider

Cider Country: How an Ancient Craft Became a Way of Life

James Crowden

(Harper Collins, £18.99)

JAMES CROWDEN is a poet, shepherd and total cider nut. In this, at least his third book on the subject, there is no other drink but that it suffers from his passion for cider, apple brandy and cider’s delicate, sweet sister, perry—and almost no moment in English history that is not defined by its relationship to cider. The Norman Conquest may have put England under a feudal yoke, but it also saw the reintroduction of cider-making equipment akin to the Roman olive press. Apples, like olives, need to be crushed before they’re pressed and Mr Crowden has seen circular apple mills, sometimes horse-driven, at work in Cornwall that would not raise a Roman’s eyebrow.

The Normans