The Trough

The book is about the same hight as my mobile phone

What a title! This book from 1852, is filled with some joyful and simple recipies from how to cook rice to baked cod’s head and toast water.  It takes many aspects of a healthy diet into consideration, including cost and the social value of making something a little more special that normal.

It has instructions on how to make a back pudding with details you’d expect to find around Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, ‘When the pig is killed, the blood should be caught in a pan, a little salt must be stirred in with it while yet warm, to prevent its coagulation.’ The copy here was re-issued but google seem to have an even later copy if you want to take a look.

Home Preservation by Her Majesty's Stationers

Along the lines of public cookery knowledge, for Christmas I also got a copy of the ‘Home preserving of fruit and vegetables’ produced by the Minisitry of Agriculture and fisheries and food’ first on our shelves back in 1929.

What a book -  it has some great diagrams to explain tools and preparation. My aunt gave it to me, who is an expert preserve, chutney and jelly maker thanks to this book. There is every sort of preservation technique used before freezers existed, tinning, drying, salting and storage recomendations. There is even a special chapter on preserving with chemicals, which will be great fun i’m sure when I hit it. The most commonly used pages are spattered with vinegar, sauce and i’m guessing the apple chutney. I am trying to find out what happened to HMSO, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, it seems it was quite useful. It’s been replaced by a hard to decifer office of public sector information…

I have been thinking of a contemporary examples of these ‘educational’ books. Who would use priced ingredients from the market and make wholesome meals that fit our life styles and avaliable technology? Delia sprang to mind using what is mainly avaliable, mainly processed foods, to ‘Cheat’ at cooking. I watched it once – the recipies seemed quite expensive and time consuming, Better to start from scratch I would think. There is of course that food revolutionary, Jamie Oliver, causing havock in school kitchens across the country and desperately trying to get people to cook and eat properly. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be books – we have computer games telling us what we should (or could) eat.

searching for something to eat

This entry was posted by Gallus bankiva on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 1:12 pm. It is filed under cooking and has these tags: books, cookery, delia, preserving, working class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.