A note of thanks to our readers with observations on our fourth anniversary.

This month marks our fourth anniversary. That represents an accomplishment of sorts. We have weathered tight deadlines, a shifting cast of contributing writers (every one of them appreciated to an extent none of them can imagine), the financial bust, weather itself (although, as we disclosed, Sandy did delay our November 2012 Number) and of course the skepticism, not to say derision, that greets our chosen subject in the United States.

We did, however, choose the subject of British foodways, and no whining about the response to our choice should be countenanced. Nonetheless, britishfoodinamerica is nothing if not the paradigm of a niche, perhaps even microniche, website.

That is why we are so grateful to the people who visit the site. Nothing written exists, at least in existential terms, without its readers, and we cannot be accused of failing to appreciate ours.

It is gratifying to report that this September we recorded the most unique visitors, visits overall and pages read by those visitors in our history by a considerable margin.

A lot remains to do. Our manifesto requires updating, typographical errors of mysterious origin continue to infiltrate the site and we tend to neglect the ‘Pizza Delivery’ column. We have yet to address any number of significant and interesting topics, including the cuisines of the Raj and other imperial points east, the Scottish culinary canon, the history of dining out in Britain and much, much more.

While we are proud of our content, we confess that the amount of it fluctuates with the Editor’s other responsibilities, and hope to keep posting large numbers of essays, reviews and recipes. That includes our longer essays, like the ones on early northern and southern American foodways, Barbadian food, oysters and Elizabeth David. Conventional wisdom warns that internet users refuse to read material of their length, but our own readers have proven that wisdom wrong; the essays just listed are among our most popular articles.

So bowler hats and pith helmets off to you all.