Between blotch and blok

I was going to save noting this book's use and interest until I'd produced something from every decade--it's not going to happen! Here goes anyway.

Having amassed a small but select half shelf of cookery books (think medieval, think herbs, think tea) adding another odd sounding title was automatic, especially as it expanded the range of "historical" options. I've been enough of a long-time listener to Woman's Hour to be familiar with the, after all, exceedingly famous author. I expected (it was ordered sight-unseen from a book club) reasonably plain fare and intended to use it as a supplement to my disintegrating GH cookery book. It's more than that.

Design-wise it's a very modern volume: clear, neat typography, pretty line drawings in white on coloured backgrounds between the sections.The photographs amongst the recipes look like the dishes described: if they're tarted up for the camera, it's unobtrusive. The other, historical, illustrations are usefully apt.

Organised by decade, each chapter describes cookery in its social context, with concomitant changes in social structure and society in general. Changes in meals, available equipment and ingredients are described. The structure is such that it's possible to read the same topic through the decades and get a basic idea of how, say, kitchen equipment has changed. It's not exactly inspiring writing and tends to generalize, but MP's own anecdotes liven things up.

Following the historical narrative are the recipes, arranged course by course. Those recipes I've tried work and I've yet to find a serious error (quantities incorrectly stated, ingredients mentioned in the instructions that weren't listed at the head of the recipe). The results are good too: not difficult to achieve, not elaborate, generally satisfying. She's not afraid of using the original ingrediants, but offers alternatives for those, for example, who wouldn't use suet. The modern twists and variations add to the possibilities. I've had fun trying MP's versions of Thai and Chinese cookery: the green chicken curry's not bad, the sweet and sour pork excellent. They're now regulars on the menu around here.

What came as a shock was becoming reacquainted with my own food heritage. Having learned only how to make decent cakes, good shortcrust pastry, and rice pudding the right way before I left home, I've now learned the rest. And with it made the big discovery:

I'm a war baby.

Well, I'm not (tho' I guess the year I was born was not entirely conflict free). But my food experiences as a child were shaped by my mother's cooking, which she learned from her mother. My mother was born just before the outbreak of WWII in a working class household and she learned about food and cooking accordingly. My father, born a year earlier, claims he taught my mother to cook, but his early culinary experiences, tho' maybe a little less deprived, were similar. Little had changed when I was a child. We might have added spaghetti bolognaise in the seventies or used the odd kiwi fruit in the eighties. But the same dishes that were listed for the forties and fifties in the book, the rationing limited recipes, are the ones I grew up with. It's like coming home. I may choose not to make shepherd's pie (I have bad memories of it) but mince beef stew and fruit crumble are back on the menu too. The recipe for lemon meringue pie looks as if it'd produce a result I'd recognise. I'll be trying it out sometime.

The earlier recipes, from the turn of the century to WWII hold little practical attraction. The reminder about that apparently forgotten period of rationing and austerity during WW1, with its raft of helpful recipes, is illuminating. I remember reading about that in Vera Brittan's Testament of Youth but rarely anywhere else. The more recent ones are either part of the culinary landscape or defining clichés of past decades. It's tempting to do themed meals: a seventies revival or an eighties one.

Oh, and it's published by Grub Street. Nice