Against Food as a Benign Good with Lottie Hazell

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

This month: Piglet by Lottie Hazell.

I first came across Lottie’s writing when she contributed to the first Lecker zine I curated and published in 2019: Plum Jam, a piece of short fiction about a funeral, an underset blancmange and a broken tooth. I still remember how the piece unsettled me, placing complicated family relationships alongside difficult or reluctant pleasure derived from feeding others; or being fed by others. Her debut novel, Piglet, came out earlier this year and its writing is deeply rooted in what food can mean to us: physically, emotionally and socially.

I loved talking to Lottie about Piglet so much! As you’ll hear me tell her in the episode, it was such an interesting experience to encounter such luscious, detailed writing about food in a fictional setting, particularly set alongside scenes of such discomfort. The book made me squirm, in a really intriguing way and I loved how the dishes and tablescapes Piglet makes and consumes dressed the set of her home and work lives.

Heads up that if you haven’t read the book, we do talk about specific plot points in it so if you’d prefer to be spoiler free, go and read it first! And the book does touch on themes of body image, weight and some implied references to disordered eating, so if those topics are sensitive to you please take care.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Piglet is out now, published by Doubleday. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Buy a copy of either/both of the Lecker zines on BigCartel. You can also order print-on-demand merch at Teemill.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

I'm speaking at Interesting24 on 15th May at Conway Hall in London! Buy a ticket to come and watch me talk about kitchens.