Cooking in the post war years (Post-War Kitchen: Nostalgic Food and Facts from 1945-1954 - Marguerite Patten)

Member Name: mumsymary

Product:	Post-War Kitchen: Nostalgic Food and Facts from 1945-1954 - Marguerite Patten
Date:	28/04/08 (279 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting

Disadvantages: none

My mother born in 1920 was a young woman in the Second World War years. She worked "in service" for a family cleaning fetching carrying she worked in the kitchen helping the cook. She also drove a large milk truck which picked up milk from the farms. . Sadly she died 43 years ago. My Father died just after Christmas this year and while clearing their house I found a book of my mothers Post war kitchen by Marguerite Patten O B E. This book was published in 2001. I expect it was bought for her as a present .The food and facts in it are post war from 1945 -1954. She was nostalgic for those times when she was a young wife and mothers my sister born 1950 myself 1954.

Marguerite Pattern for those young things who have only heard of cooks such as Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver was more than just a cook. Marguerite Pattern worked for the ministry of food in the war. Ashe took charge of the ministry of food Bureau at Harrods. Her role was to help families provide nutritious and appetizing food with rationing and food shortage that continued after the war.

This book is a soft back with 111 pages.
This book is not purely a cookery book it has a page or two of information about each year between 1945 and 1955. for example about 1948. "The ministry of food published a specialty economy Christmas cake with mock marzipan"
Throughout the book there are advertisements of the time. Advertisements for foods such as weetabix, spry millers baling powder, and information adverts for example one about bread crusts , "no scrap is too small to waste " adverts from the ministry of transport" do you know what traffic is " an advert about considering others on the road, moving swiftly but safely .

There are several articles about the royal family, some full page pictures.
The recipes in this book are varied from breakfast recipes potato cakes, kippers, bacon fritters, eggy bread
Recipes for soups, How to make chicken broth, how to cook a chicken, rabbit or pigeon. A recipe for good old staple steak and kidney pudding. Bread biscuit and cake recipes. I find a recipe for mock cream using corn flour thickened milk, adding butter or margarine sugar or icing sugar and beating it hard for a long time. Apparently this was very acceptable.
Recipes include dried pea soup, mock marzipan, pigeon ragout, salmon dip, lemon barley water, uncooked chocolate cake

The names of a lot of these dishes are ones I remember ones my mother cooked when I was little. . The ingredients used not exotic ones.
I think this book interesting to anyone interested in food from that time. I shall keep it to use a recipe or two from when we are doing a topic about that time in history at school
I doubt if I shall use it as an everyday or special occasion cookery book. I might do into this book occasionally when I am in a cooking mood to try some of the cake or biscuit recipes, I might even try a recipe economical with meat.

I think this book quite a good one well written and laid out. I have seen this book available from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Post-war-Kitchen-Nostalgic -Facts- 1945-1954/dp/0600602559/ref=pd_ts_b_23?ie=UTF8& ;s=books for £2.50 upwards.

I think this book would be worth having if you were interested in food and cooking in the post war era.

Summary: A cookery book by Marguerite Pattern ,The first cookery star.