Cookbook Envy, Time-Life Cookbooks & Quince Jelly

Food writer John Lethlean's column in 'The Age' (Melbourne's broadsheet) yesterday (07/06) was enough to make my eyes water. He had, he wrote, recently acquired several hundred kilograms of collectable quality cookbooks from a generous reader. Lethlean acquired some real classics (all of which I have or have had on the shelves at various times): Elizabeth David's English Bread & Yeast Cookery; Nico Ladenis's My Gastronomy; Richard Olney's Simple French Food - thus my cookbook envy. I have visions of some of the other classics there must be in the collection and am quietly green!

Among the collection were an almost complete set of the Time-Life Good Cook series and 17 of the Time-Life 'Foods of the World' series (between them probably accounting for 50kg!).


These two series are both very collectible and The Good Cook series in particular has become something of a bible for professional and skilled home cooks alike. What set both series apart was that they were written, compiled, edited or in some way contributed to by some of the most famous food writers of the 20th century: among them MFK Fisher, Richard Olney, Jane Grigson, Waverley Root, Adrian Bailey, Michael Field, Craig Claiborne, James Beard, Margaret Costa, Jacques Pepin - a veritable who's who. For those who are interested, I've included a link here to a list of the complete series of each. (You can also search our stock of Time-Life cookbooks via our webpage www.vintagecookbooks.com.au to see what we have available) You'll see that in the American edition 'The Good Cook' series has some different names and additional titles (including the obvious - Cookies instead of Biscuits - but also the peculiar 'Variety Meats' instead of 'Offal'). I can highly recommend The Good Cook to anyone who hasn't yet encountered it - its clear, detailed step-by-step photographs, explanation of methods and ingredients make it a must-have but one of the real beauties of the series is that each volume contains 200 plus recipes culled from cookbooks both ancient and modern.

Here for example is a page on making a layered terrine from the excellent volume Terrines, Pates and Galantines:

QUINCE TIME!

In the Southern Hemisphere, it's Autumn and time for Quinces - that bulbous, ugly and ancient fruit with the heavenly, heady but delicate smell. They are inedible raw but turn the most beautiful pink when cooked, usually in jellies and pastes. According to Mrs Beeton "the ancients preserved the fruit by placing it, with its branches and leaves in a vessel filled with honey or sweet wine" but warns that "this fruit has the remarkable peculiarity of exhaling an agreeable odour, taken singly; but when in any quantity, or when they are stowed away in a drawer or close room, the pleasant aroma becomes an intolerable stench."

Here are two recipes, one for a very easy quince jelly taken from the classic CWA Esk Valley cookbook (my personal favourite) which has the advantage of leaving you with delicious quinces to eat, and also doesn't involve chopping and straining:

EASY QUINCE JELLY
(adapted from the CWA Esk Valley Cookbook, 1966)

8 large quinces
8 pints (5l) water
4 1/2lb (2kg) sugar
Juice of 2 lemons


Thoroughly rub fluff from quinces. Place whole quinces into large saucepan with water, sugar and lemon juice. Boil together for 4 hours, removing any scum occasionally. When small bubbles cover the surface, drop a teaspoon of the liquid onto a cold plate (from the fridge). If the liquid sets to jelly on the plate, turn hotplate off. Remove whole quinces from jelly and set aside. Pour jelly into hot, sterilised screw-top jars and seal immediately. The leftover whole quinces are delicious hot with cream, ice-cream or custard, or slice them into a dish and top with a simple crumble mixture and bake. You can also chop the flesh finely and serve it heated over ice-cream.

The second is for a Quince Paste recipe taken from the 1939 Woman's Tested Recipes, a cookbook issued by a magazine called "Woman's". It's a fascinating glimpse into our past with each recipe accredited to a reader - often with their full address appended.

QUINCE PASTE

(from Woman's Tested Recipes, 1939)

Ingredients - 2 pounds quinces, 2 pounds sugar

Method. - Clean quinces with a soft cloth, cut in slices and boil in water until soft. Press through a fine sieve, add sugar and boil together stirring constantly until thick. Care must be taken to prevent it from burning. When cooked, turn on to a china dish and leave to cool, then cut into little figures or letters with a knife. Roll in sugar and put away to dry. Will keep for weeks.

- Miss Nanette Kuehn, 242 Pitt St, Sydney.

Miss Kuehn's recipe is typical of many in these old cookbooks, they presume a lot and don't give very detailed instructions! I've tried the above and adapted it somewhat!

1kg quinces, peeled, cored and chopped. Boil in a minimum of water (around 11/2 cups) and the juice of 1 lemon until soft - around 30 minutes. Allow to cool and push through a sieve or liquidise in a food processor. Measure the pulp and add 1 cup of sugar to each cup of pulp. Return to saucepan, cook over medium heat, stirring regularly until the paste becomes rosy pink and stiff ( this can take 3-4 hours). Pour into a greased lamington tray and dry in a warm place.

Everylady's Cookery Book by Miss Drake, late cookery expert

I've been thinking of starting a blog ever since I opened my shopfront in February 2008. Every day new and interesting people and books come through my door and I think to myself, 'you know I should write that down!' What finally inspired me to start was the discovery yesterday of a couple of little gems at a newly discovered bookshop.

Every couple of weeks I go book-hunting: trawling through bookshops, op-shops and second-hand shops, attending auctions. It's one of the best parts of my job. Usually I cover a certain area of Melbourne, or spend a couple of days in the country. Well yesterday I took a wrong turn, saw the magic words "second-hand books", found a park and walked into an Aladdin's Cave: thousands of books on the shelves and amongst them some real gems.

So here they are: the first is Miss Drake's Everylady's Cookery Book, 2nd edition 1926, in very sad condition I know, but don't you just love that odd cover - who draws a toddler with a very large, very sharp knife?

In the early part of the 20th century there was a small army of 'cookery instructors' (always Miss's) in Australia's major cities, training young ladies to become proficient cooks. Many, like Lucy Drake, were trained in England and many, like Miss Drake, produced cookery books for the general public. Lucy Drake, a graduate of the National Training School of Cookery in London, was for many years Head of Cookery at Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne. This book, was commissioned by the women's magazine "Everylady's Journal", in the early 1920s.

I had often seen Miss Drake refered to as "Late Cookery Expert, Swinburne Technical College" and presumed the 'late' meant she had retired from teaching. This book however revealed a very sad story: a long note from the publisher headed "A cook-book with a romance behind it" (in this case romance not being what we think of today) tells of how Miss Drake diligently completed her cookery book while on holiday in Tasmania, but within a week or two of delivering her copy, "was suddenly taken ill and passed quietly away in the prime of her life." Her recipes and words of wisdom live on:

• Men, especially, consider a dinner quite incomplete without a Savoury....In simple households where the mistress does all or some of the cooking, Savouries are often used as the main item in the luncheon meal or for tea...the "daintiness of serving" should be just as carfeully atended to.


• Though vegetables have no great nourishing properties, they contain sonething just as important, mineral salts and vitamines (sic) which purify the blood, harden bone, teeth, nails.
  
• Few things worry the average housekeeper more than the daily ordering of a suitable family pudding.
  
• "Hustle!" should be the keynote with scones. Scone Law:- To every rounded breakfast cup (about 70z) of self-raising flour allow (same cup) half-filled with milk, 1/4 tsp of salt and a rounded dessertspoon of lard or butter.

For a great bio on Miss Drake, check out Christopher Akehurst's excellent article which you can find at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-95445829.html

Gem no 2 is simple: a 1966 menu from The Caravan Coffee Shop and Dining Room at the Oasis Hotel in Cache Creek, British Columbia. I have quite a few menus in stock, lovely gilt productions from famous restaurants, Qantas menus with Pro Hart reproductions, menus from the great ocean liners, but this simple menu is so evocative of a time and place I couldn't resist it: