A history lesson from my cookery book

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Primrose
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Dug out my Marguerite Pattern recipe book on preserving this morning, bought in 1966 to make some dill pickles to use up the last of my mini cucumber glut. It cost 2/6d in pre decimal currency).

The pages are brown with age and falling away from the binding. Even the sellotape I used to stick in recipes I,ve typed up over the years has gone brown and disintegrated with age. But the history bit was the brown photocopying paper used before modern day white paper photocopying was invented. I have this "greaseproof type photocopying" material stuck in the book which I,ve used to photocopy recipes . All the print has faded and is now completely illegible !!

I was reminded that I've read about various legal cases back in the sixties and seventies where vital legal information was photocopied on this medium and archived for posterity, only to find that it was needed for reference years later and when accessed, the print had faded beyond the point where it could be read, even though it hadn,t been exposed to daylight.

I was also reminded that none of the various recipes I've stuck in the book for oven dried herbed tomatoes in oil have worked as they've all ended up going mouldy on me, but that's another story. As is the fact that Sellotape is a highly unsuitable medium for sticking items in books if you want them to stand the test of time.
robo
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As I remember 1966 was a great year for myself I don't know why it just sticks in my memory when anyone mentions it , I'm a bit like your book primrose brown around the edges and bits falling off ,I was 18 in 66 and in my prime doing everything I should not have been doing including courting my wife on and off as well as a few others oooh what a year it was
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arthurnottheking
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Hello,

I remember I often used photocopying paper when I studied at college - yeah, I was a nerd. A couple of weeks ago I found the Post-war Kitchen by Marguerite Patten somewhere in the boxes. I cried like a baby just because I remembered my mother and how she liked it (it was she who taught me cooking actually) - I noticed that I grew so emotional with age (I'm 57 already, but I feel like a kid, whenever I find an old book on the attic).
Arthur
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Primrose
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I think many of us started our cooking activities with Marguerite Patten. No shame in admitting to being sentimental about old books. I still have my mother,s first cookery book, which she acquired in in 1937 when she got married. I think it was the only cookery book she ever owned. It was not the habit in those days, as it is now to acquire a shelf-full of cookery books written by all the popular tv chefs of the day as Tv hadn't even been invented.

What I love about the book is all her hand scribbled annotated notes and little scraps of paper wartime recipes and cookery hints which have been slipped in amongst the pages. The pages are falling away feom the binding now but it makes me realise how hard it must have been cooking for a family in wartime with so many ingredient either unavailable or on ration.

Where else would you learn to use mashed up ground almonds or semolina + almond essence to make mock marzipan for a relative's wedding cake or to substitute a portion of mashed potatoes for flour when making wartime pastry? Sadly the generation who taught us all these hints have now almost entirely passed away by their experiences are still left behind on the pages.
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I felt equivocal about disposing of all my late mother's cookery books. There is some sentimental attachment but no room for them, there is the desire to cook some of the things she did and which I loved but the despair in trying to find an individual recipe from a shelf full of books.
Not keeping them was the right decision, you can not keep everything and I have my own style, my own shelf of books and that will do.
Last edited by Stephen on Fri Dec 20, 2019 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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arthurnottheking
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arthurnottheking wrote:Hello,

I remember I often used photocopying paper when I studied at college - yeah, I was a nerd. A couple of weeks ago I found the Post-war Kitchen by Marguerite Patten somewhere in the boxes. I cried like a baby just because I remembered my mother and how she liked it (it was she who taught me cooking actually) - I noticed that I grew so emotional with age (I'm 57 already, but I feel like a kid, whenever I find an old book on the attic).
Arthur



I'm also looking for any pdf materials by Jeannette Ewin, nutritionist and PhD. I'd appreciate if someone could share those.
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arthurnottheking
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arthurnottheking wrote:
arthurnottheking wrote:Hello,

I remember I often used photocopying paper when I studied at college - yeah, I was a nerd. A couple of weeks ago I found the Post-war Kitchen by Marguerite Patten somewhere in the boxes. I cried like a baby just because I remembered my mother and how she liked it (it was she who taught me cooking actually) - I noticed that I grew so emotional with age (I'm 57 already, but I feel like a kid, whenever I find an old book on the attic).
Arthur

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/232810.Jeannette_Ewin_reviews_and_papers

I'm also looking for any pdf materials by Jeannette Ewin, nutritionist and PhD. I'd appreciate if someone could share those.



Update: I found the references to the Museum of English Rural Life: Papers of Jeannette Ewin (1937-2010). Perhaps I can send an official request or something.
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Give it a go! These are all so old they are under no protective patent or whatever it is called in book world! I personally have not heard of her so tell me more about her skills. I'm from a different continent but can assure witchery grubs taste better than they look - but only when cooked in the ashes - that's my excuse anyway! ;)
Westi
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