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Cookery books

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Re: Cookery books

Postby miss mouse » Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:46 pm

PatsyMFagan wrote: I have so many, I would have a job getting them there anyway :roll:



People are putting things out on their front walls here, I got rid of some stuff that way.

A kind neighbour has just given me 7 JO books. Are any worth a particular look?

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Badger's Mate » Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:24 pm

Looking at books on eBay... An example: Delia's Vegetarian. £3.99 with free postage. How do they make a profit? It would cost that, I think, to send it in the post. So time taken to package up, packaging etc. not covered, let alone the product. Book sellers don't have that big a mark up, I think. Something not quite right there.


I often wonder about the economics of online selling. I bought a growing lamp, LED thing, which had a screw thread rather than the bayonet I had hoped for. I'd misread the description, so ordered an adapter from a well-known large river. It came from China and cost 89p inclusive of p&p. The postage from the port of entry in the UK to here would be more than that, never mind making, packing, despatching and transporting it.

MM, I've got a couple of JO books, the third one 'Happy Days' and the first 'Italy' one. Both are really useful. He can be a bit annoying but his recipes work. I'm sure there will be some gems in each of the volumes.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby miss mouse » Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:29 pm

Badger's Mate wrote:MM, I've got a couple of JO books, the third one 'Happy Days' and the first 'Italy' one. Both are really useful. He can be a bit annoying but his recipes work. I'm sure there will be some gems in each of the volumes.


Thanks BM. I know Gordon Ramsey is not much liked but his earlier books the recipes work.

The mechanics of P&P are a mystery, I am shocked every time I put something in the post.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Pepper Pig » Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:58 pm

A new book out. Recipes from grannies.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2021 ... rfu-dishes

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Pampy » Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:57 pm

That sea bream recipe sounds tremendous - it's making me drool!

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Pepper Pig » Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:09 am

Jay turns his attention to Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World. I no longer own this and am not tempted to re-acquire. :lol:

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/a ... rt-carrier

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Earthmaiden » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:48 am

I doubt many of us cook so lavishly very often nowadays - but I'd certainly eat it if offered!

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Re: Cookery books

Postby miss mouse » Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:03 am

Pepper Pig wrote:Jay turns his attention to Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World. I no longer own this and am not tempted to re-acquire. :lol:

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/a ... rt-carrier


I have it somewhere in paperback. I can't remember cooking anything from it though. Published 1963 so very exotic fare for the times. I seem to remember 1/4 lb (four ounces) of mushrooms was considered an extravagance. Soon after came the end of Retail Price Maintenance, how ripped off we were.

A nice read, Jay R writes well.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:02 pm

I remember Carrier in the Sunday Times, and I once ate in his restaurant, even then I found his food too rich - and I was a greedy 20 something

I think Shaun Hill was in the kitchen then, I didn’t know him but remember him being around

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Re: Cookery books

Postby cherrytree » Sun Apr 04, 2021 4:42 pm

I’ve. Written about this in the Guardian comments. I’ve still got my first edition. I couldn’t part with it for anything. In fact when the family are all allowed round for a great reunion meal, Creole Jambalaya will be the meal I’ll cook.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Pepper Pig » Sun Apr 11, 2021 9:23 am

Personal cookbooks! I don't add to mine any more but it dates back to the year I left home - 1975. Although everything has been transferred to computer files I can't quite bring myself to throw it. I still open it when I make marmalade or boiled fruit cake.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/a ... es-recipes

Edited to correct link. I hope. Thanks Scully,
Last edited by Pepper Pig on Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby scullion » Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:02 am

the link doesn't work, pepper pig.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby liketocook » Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:54 am

Pepper Pig wrote:Personal cookbooks! I don't add to mine any more but it dates back to the year I left home - 1975. Although everything has been transferred to computer files I can't quite bring myself to throw it. I still open it when I make marmalade or boiled fruit cake.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/a ... es-recipes

Edited to correct link. I hope. Thanks Scully,

Snap PP, mine was started in the early 1980s when I left home and does still get added to from time to time. When my boys were leaving home I started one each for them with some of their favourite home made meals along with some more traditional recipes from my Mum & Grans. They both still use and add to them.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Earthmaiden » Sun Apr 11, 2021 12:56 pm

I've been thinking of starting a thread about this. Computers are killing the cookery notebook in the same way they killed handwritten letters and I think it's worth much consideration of how to pass down the family social history of recipes without bequeathing teams of paperwork to future generations. The thing is that it's the writing, notes and old pictures that make such things special.

I had a cull of my folder recently. I used to cut out all kinds of recipes in the 70s whilst dreaming of giving dinner parties. Most remained untried and looked pretty awful so they went but I've still a good few left - and use them.

Oh, I always print off online recipes when I'm going to use them too so I've got loads stuffed in the folder!

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Pampy » Sun Apr 11, 2021 1:08 pm

I still have my grandma's handwritten cook book which she started when she was married just before WW1. I've made some things from it but there are a few ingredients that I can't find at all now. I think she used to get some of the ingredients from a chemist. I'd love to be able to find burnt sugar as it's one of the ingredients of her ginger wine which I absolutely loved.
I've got my mum's book, which she started when she married in 1947 and also have her copy of the Good Housekeeping book from the late 1940s.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby scullion » Sun Apr 11, 2021 4:38 pm

like jr i have the blue 'challenger' ledger - pasted up with more 'sweet stuff' and bread recipes, cut from magazines since the seventies, than i would possibly be able to make (or want to) during the rest of my life. i had a similar ledger for the savoury stuff but never got round to pasting those in - i have, just recently been going through those cuttings - and using them to light the fire!
i have an old, thick letts desk diary from 1977 that has a load of recipes written in and an old, cloth bound recipe book - the type you put in your own recipes under headings of your choice, that i picked out of the pile at a 'paper mountain' in truro during the early eighties, that i also use for favoured recipes. the ones that i write in there are the ones pre digital and those from my digital recipe file that i use quite often.

one recipe i've lost (really annoyingly) was for a mandarin gateaux, given to me by a girl i worked with. it was really lovely and possibly disappeared from the meagre shelf of cookery books owned by my mother on a 'rationalising' stint. it used the packs of three large, thin, sponge cakes that used to be available and a really soft buttercream made with raw egg. i should have written that in the diary.

my mother didn't have a book of collected recipes - she was more of an experimental cook - more's the pity.
i'm sure my grandmother would have had one but i assume one of my aunts has that.

i have a friend who has a family one that goes back to the early 1800s.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:27 pm

Sadly my mother collected a load of recipes, but being basically allergic to filing, they were all on loose scraps tucked into the backs of books and were culled when she and dad downsized

I still have those I copied out into a loose leaf book when bored in an early 70s school holiday

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Re: Cookery books

Postby herbidacious » Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:03 pm

I have a few folders of stuff too. And my grandma's 1950s notebook of recipes which my mother (when she could remember things) thought might have been connected to a cookery course she did. Some really weird stuff in it, including a curry with sultanas and grilled stuffed grapefruit. Probably seemed awfully exotic and modern then. I only remember her doing roasts and cakes and desserts. She had perfected the art of custard tarts and vanilla slices. I have her recipe for the latter and for her lemon curd.
There used to be a recipe for buns (to use the northern term for little sponge cakes) that my maternal Grandmother (not a good cook according to my mother, but my mother's formative years were during the war) made and which my my mother named after her Nancy Spicy Buns. It is now lost.

I have never written down my own recipes. I am not sure I have any. If I do, they would be mainly variations on a theme or my own way of doing certain things. But there is no reason to without children.

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Re: Cookery books

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:27 pm

I write down a few recipes I picked up from flatmates, especially those not English

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Re: Cookery books

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:01 pm

I know we have had some discussions about Claudia Roden's Jewish cookery book. I just downloaded it as it on Kindle for 99p today - the history text is fine, and entirely readable the way it is laid out, but I haven't managed to find any sort of useful recipe index and I'm wondering if that is also the case in the book itself. One of you who has it, please do tell me!

Obviously with a book, it's much easier, even more enjoyable, browsing and picking interesting recipes out, but it really doesn't work like that on Kindle!

They've also got a couple of Sabrina Ghayour's books, Simply, and Persiana.

I realise that Kindle isn't the best format for cook books :lol:

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