A few tucked away in the corner above the toaster
And a few more nestled in behind the slow cooker and the scales
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I owned one lonely recipe book. The Good Housekeeping Vegetarian Collection was gifted to me one Christmas by my Grandmother. It was quite a symbolic moment actually, what with my Gran being somewhat in denial about the actual existence of a people who call themselves vegetarian (‘But you eat chicken don’t you? Of course you eat chicken. Go on have a bit of beef. Do you good.’)
And then came the naked chef. With his Duffer clothing and his bloody mockney accent (you’re from Essex mate, deal with it) and his pukka this and pukka that. But I bought the book. Come on, we all bought the book, didn’t we?
And well, you can’t have just one of Jamie’s books. You need to line them all up and gaze adoringly at their spines every morning while you boil the kettle for your first cuppa of the day.
Because a good recipe book makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s so full of promise, the promise of a delicious meal, a full belly and happy diners.
Of course, I can’t resist Nigella.
I rarely cook anything from How To Eat (although her original advice on catering children’s parties has proven invaluable over the years, I do her cheese stars every year without fail) but I find it such a pleasure to read that I often pull if off the shelf and flick through it over a cup of tea.
I’d be lost without How To Be A Domestic Goddess. If you take any pleasure from baking at all you really should buy this book, it contains some of the best cakes you’ll ever bake.
When it comes to cupcakes, I rate The Primrose Bakery over The Hummingbird Bakery. I find the recipes easier to follow and the photography that little bit more saliva-inducing.
I always have a stack of the Sainsbury’s magazine in rotation. There is always a handful of recipes I want to try and I love Nigel Slater’s features each month. I actually get a little spring in my step when I spy a new issue waiting for me at the till point. Every now and then I go through them, rip out all the gems and transfer them to my beloved recipe file from Paperchase.
Which brings me to my absolute favourite, the pinnacle of my recipe book collection if you will…
This humble looking notebook belonged to my mother. The spine has all but disintegrated and the pages are yellowed and speckled with the remnants of food preparation. But it contains such kitchen essentials as the recipe for my paternal Grandmother’s prized Christmas pud.
Can you believe my Mum was going to throw this away? She upgraded to something a little more contemporary, with fancy pockets and dividers and the like. But I rescued it.
I remember it lying on the kitchen counter while she prepared food for dinner parties (of which there were many). I was always in charge of laying the table and folding the napkins as prettily as I could. My only responsibility beyond that was to stay upstairs in bed and not bother the dinner guests. But I used to wrap myself up in my duvet and sneak onto the upstairs landing to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to all the talking and laughing, the sound of glasses clinking and cutlery clattering on plates.
The thing I love most about this book is that its final pages are devoted to recording the menus of the various dinner parties my parents hosted throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. This is social history right here people…
I tell you something, they sure did eat a lot of fondue in the 80s! And watercress soup it seems.
I love this book, it really is one of my most prized possessions. I mean, when was the last time you or I served a proper 3 course meal (and the M&S meal for a tenner doesn’t count), with napkins and everything!?
I’ve followed suit and started recording my dinner party (!) menus at the back of my recipe file. Maybe one day it will bring one of my children as much pleasure as this brings me.
Of course, that’s assuming they turn out to be sentimental old fools just like their mother.
Loveaudrey xxx
Loved this post! So far, I only have a couple cookbooks in my collection, but last month, inspired by your posts, I decided to purchase two second hand Nigellas, the Express and Nigella Bites. I’ll have to look into Jamie’s books as well… Cookbooks are addictive! x
lovely post – I love cookery books we always manage to add a few new ones every year – your right it’s a real history a simple recipe can take us right the way back to our childhood – with me it’s sage and onion stuffing and welsh cakes both bring back happy memories of people no longer with me x
I love a good recipe book! My most prized possession is my 1965 copy of Maguerite Patten’s Cookery in Colour, in its printed in Czechoslovakia Technicolour. It has the best rock bun and Victoria Sponge recipe in it (although yet to be tried in my new oven – it was the only one that would work in the old one!) and amazing post war recipes.
Wow thats a lot of cookbooks, I only own a grand total of 4 and 3 of them were very recent gifts this year!
The doll on fashion
what a lovely post – love your mums recipe book, and that description exactly reminded me of being little and listening to my parents dinner parties at the top of the stairs! my boyf & i have just bought ‘The River Cottage Meat Book’ by Hugh F-W, it looks amazing but I am a little scared to cook him things from it as I’m not very good at roasts or steaks. I have all the Jamies and Nigellas looking pretty on my shelves, but still often use a battered copy of Waterstones ‘The Student Cookbook’ which was my first purchase on moving out at 17 🙂 it actually has really good staple recipies in it…and every single page is splotched with bolognaise sauce which I find quite funny, I made it about three times a week when I was that age! xxx
ps: I am very sorry to hear about your great aunt, I only just saw the post.x
i’m a bit addicted to cook books too. Your coment made we laugh – i am veggie. My nan always used to say ‘ i’m vegetarian too’. She wasn’t as she ate chicken and fish!!
Recording dinner party menus is a fab idea! How wonderful that you can look back and see what they had 🙂 that’s lovely!
Just to let you know, I gave you a blog award –
Much love, Joanna xxx
OH I always plan imaginary dinner parties in my head, I can’t wait to get to the point where I can throw them on a regular basis.
There’s so many lovely things I find going through all my grandparents and parents old things that we just don’t do any more because we use txt,internet and computers instead these days, not that a blog isn’t a lovely way to document things.
When we went travelling in all my diary entries I noted down what we ate, it’s a great trigger for all those wonderful memories. You never forget a great meal (or a bad one for that matter).
I also have that same paperchase recipe binder!
x
What I wouldn’t do for a rumage through those shelves 🙂
I LOVE your recipe book, what a fantastic piece of history and such a lovely thing to have! I was thinking the other day I must buy a proper book to write/stick all my recipes in, to collect over the years!
My Mum has a notepad with the pages all falling out and splattered with cooking juices, but it’s so brilliant 🙂
that journal of recipes is totally awesome!! my mom has something similar, but she’s only recently been putting it together (it’s not old school like that one). what a great (potential) heirloom!!
also, i like your little shelf of cookbooks. very cute!! 🙂
@Rocaille Ooooo I love both those Nigella books. I really rate the new Jamie book, I think it’s my favourite of his. I’ll have to try and post a few of his recipes so you can get a feel for the kinds of food he does.
@Louise I know what you mean about adding to the collection, I always have about 5 on my amazon wish list!! Mmmmm… sage and onion stuffing sounds yummy!
@m4dSwine I think I need to see this book you speak of and taste these cakes honey 🙂
@The doll on fashion I said it was an addiction!! Besides, you can never have too many cookbooks 😉
@Sophie Rosalind Hugh lives near my parent’s place in dorset. I love his family cookbook (you can see it in the first pic). It’s great if you like cooking with little ones but some of the recipes are yummy in their own right, I do a lamb pie from their which is divine! Hehe… I like the sound of this student cookbook! You can’t beat a good bolognaise can you?!
@LissyLou It’s funny isn’t it! I have to admit my Gran was very smug when my vegetarianism lapsed after nearly 13 years. I always tell her that I’m still not a comitted meat eater, just a poor excuse for a vegetarian.
@JustBecause I know what you mean, sometimes I worry that I always upload pics to facebook but never get round to printing them and putting them in real albums. i plan to recrify this after my MA. It will be a mission, over 5 years worth of pics to sort!
Such a good idea noting down meals, I always photograph food when we’re abroad. I have so many happy memeories of amazing meals in thailand and bali.
@Lila Loves thank you so much for the award honey, really means alot to me, as do all your lovely comments on here. I’ll do my best to pass it on but I have to admit I’m awful at these posts, I always forget!
@Laura You’re more than welcome to come and rummage whenever you want sweetie! I have a spare recipe file (duplicate gift), I will send it to you because you are lovely 🙂
@RMb You should start a file now for your little one, by the time she’s as old as me, it will be really old school!! As you say, it’s a great heirloom.
xxx
Absolutely love this post. You have without doubt been one of the main inspirations for me to get back cooking. I used to cook a lot and then we had no kitchen for a year and lived on Marks and Spencer convenience food and I kind of stopped creating. But not I’m really back into the swing of things. xxx