Cooking Over The Years

My organic vegetable box was delivered yesterday and before I put it away, I removed everything in the vegetable drawer and discovered an excess of onions and potatoes. Today I am making onion soup (and later my sprout and chestnut recipe) with leek and potato and celery soups to follow at the weekend if not sooner.

Looking through my files for onion soup recipes set me thinking and remembering.

When I got married I could not cook; it had always been considered that my studies were more important, and to me were much more fun!

A small and somewhat insignificant wedding present came from the mother of a school friend: this was The Penguin Cookery Book by Bee Nilson. This became my cookery ‘bible’ as it covered absolutely everything from boiling an egg to baking cakes by way of vegetable cooking and choosing and cooking different cuts of meat. I still use it, although I had to buy a new one as the first one was falling apart at the seams.

To illustrate how little I knew, my toes still curl at the memory of a visit from my lovely mother - and father-in-law. We must have had roast chicken the day before because for this lunch I made my first ever chicken casserole. The meat was cooked, so all that now needed to cook was the vegetables (potatoes and carrots I think).

Now, we all know that potatoes need only to boil for 20 minutes to cook.

I think you might be ahead of me here.

I popped the casserole in the oven (and I can’t remember if I even preheated the oven) and left it to cook for 20 minutes.

I was probably green enough to set the oven temperature to boiling point.

This was in 1961, so I don’t think they would be cooked yet.

Exit one very red-faced Elaine.

I checked the recipe books after that until I had more, well-informed, confidence.

The next cookery book arose from the fact that we were entertaining a bit, so I bought The Robert Carrier Cookbook, a fat paperback. This is very 70s, full of rich food. I used it a great deal, so much so that it is falling apart. I don’t use it often now, but it is still there. Following on its heels was Robert Carrier’s Cooking for You, a hardback with two recipes to a page and a picture with each recipe. It is a bit like learning to read, a picture does help when learning to cook!

Next, of course, was the famous Delia, another well thumbed paperback.

Now I have a bookshelf of cookbooks on differing subjects, Indian, Italian to mention two. Over the years I have borrowed recipes and adapted recipes and kept them in a folder – they are now of course transferred to my computer, but are constantly being adapted and updated each time I make a recipe, and of course I am constantly borrowing.

Off to the onion soup now.