The Slaters of Wolverhampton are plagued with Mrs. Slater's chronic debilitating asthma and her cooking limited to what comes in canned goods that she can heat in boiling water. Mr. Alan Slater is sick with worry and has a cantankerous personality. Nigel longs for a life that is more than a succession of canned-food dinners made from what can be heated in boiling water. When dinner is burnt, the standard substitute of toast is always served. He loves toast, with the crunchy outside giving way to buttery softness inside. Despite her infrequent forays into cooking meals from scratch, his mother's attempts to improve her cooking change nothing before or after her death. His father continues in widowhood with the same cooking style and frequent dinners of toast. The experience brings Nigel to conclude that he is not liked. Nigel learns from a friend that the way in which he could attempt a better relationship with his father is to cook a meal for him. His cooking efforts are thwarted by the new housekeeper, the married and "common" Mrs. Joan Potter, who seduces Alan with her apple pie and array of gourmet meals. The two start to spend time together: at one point, she exiting her council house through an upstairs window so as not to be found out by her husband. Without announcement, the Slaters move to the Herefordshire countryside along with Mrs. Potter. Nigel co-exists with her but never accepts her. She makes a competition of cooking when the teenaged Nigel's shows an emerging interest in developing his skills at school home economics class cookery lessons. Mrs. Potter's lemon meringue pie becomes Nigel's quest to learn the secret recipe. Alan's cantankerous nature returns with the endless eating that must be done with Mrs. Potter's excessive cooking, although he intends to marry her. The second Mrs. Slater makes every attempt to thwart Nigel's efforts at cooking by having him quit a Saturday job at a pub restaurant. His departing employment is not without benefit when a friendly walk with the pub owner's son, training at ballet school, stirs Nigel's sexual awareness with a kiss and encouragement to take a chance at the world despite being on his own. Nigel finds his father has died while he was at the pub, resolves to make off for London and bewilders Mrs. Potter when he declares that she has won and he wants her out of his life. At The Savoy Hotel, he is interviewed for a kitchen job by a toast snacking chef and hired, much to his disbelief. Nigel is reassured by the chef that he will make it, has him put on a chef's jacket embroidered with "Savoy London" and Nigel cracks a smile.
