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Question

Compare how the two writers convey their attitudes towards food and the people they are visiting.

In your answer you could:

• compare their different attitudes
• compare the methods they use to convey their attitudes
• support your ideas with references to both texts

Both of these pieces depict a writer’s first hand experience of visiting an establishment where food is served. In the cookery book extract from the 19th century, Soyer visits a house in a poor area of town. He has not been there before and admits early on that he has ‘little confidence’ in the quality of food he might be served. His initial attitude to his hosts is patronising; he intends ‘giving them a lesson’ in how to prepare coffee. In contrast, the reviewer visiting the restaurant books her table ‘three months’ in advance to ensure she gets ‘a table at all’. Unlike Soyer, the reviewer expects high quality.

Both writers describe their surroundings with a sense of wonder and delight. Soyer tells us of a ‘little parlour’ that is clean and ‘ornamented…with wall flowers from the neighbouring garden’. The reviewer is similarly impressed by the restaurant’s ‘very own walled-garden’ where the food for the restaurant is grown. She claims this proximity of garden to restaurant ‘makes the flavours more intense’. Her use of positive adjectives amplifies the sense of her enjoyment. Soyer is also impressed by the produce of the neighbouring garden (Covent Garden) and is delighted with the way the wall flowers are ‘generously dispensing their perfume’.

Whereas Soyer visits the house in St Giles alone, the reviewer brings a companion and shows us her friend’s reactions to her first visit to the restaurant. This use of a second person validates the reviewer’s opinions, confirming that the restaurant and its surroundings are pleasing. The companion is ‘wowed’ and ‘impressed’ by the views. These verbs reinforce the reviewer’s positive attitude to the place. Likewise Soyer is received ‘generously’, ‘cordially’ and he works ‘cheerfully’. These adverbs reveal his amicable attitude to the people he meets.

In terms of the food, Soyer is delighted to be met by ‘pyramids of muffins and crumpets’. Care has been taken in arranging the food and we feel that he is pleased by this. The reviewer is also pleased by the spectacle of food growing in the walled-garden. She is ‘admiring’ of the vegetables and uses lush language to describe them. The Cavolo Nero is ‘velvety’, the carrots are ‘feathered’ the beetroots are ‘earthy globes’. This visual language creates a positive and enticing image and reveals a positive attitude to the food and the restaurant.

Feedback - even better

This answer:

• moves smoothly from one text to another throughout using comparative linking words and phrases such as ‘both’, ‘whereas’ and ‘in contrast’
• considers the attitudes of the writers, as well as the language employed
• shows both the similarities and the differences between the texts
• uses plenty of quotations, which are embedded into sentences
• includes points about the text that are developed and linked to other points