I always thought gruel was a slightly thinner version of porridge.
But I found this recipe in the “Essex Cookery Book” of 1930 by K. A. Willson and Margaret Hussey, and it turns out it’s almost homeopathic porridge, so tiny is the quantity of oatmeal – 1 tablespoon to a pint of water or milk.
It’s featured here as invalid cookery, which admittedly sounds like a perfectly fine use for it. But those having to actually survive on versions of this were pretty hard done by. No wonder Oliver Twist wanted more.
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
(As a side note, you may be interested to learn that the tradition survives these days in the form of the old favourite Horlicks which is technically gruel – http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruel)
This is the almost unfortunately-named Mrs Dora Rea’s Cookery Book, from 1910.
Mrs Rea’s Cookery Book, 1910.
This is a lovely cookbook, very sensible and everyday, and largely lacking in Victorian and Edwardian aspic-y froufrou. Full of recipes that are easily followed today.
A few cookery quirks of the time were the emphasis on “nitrogenous” foods (what we’d call protein now) and “invalid cookery”, sickroom cooking being taken very seriously before the advent of Heinz Tomato Soup.
It also turns out that there was good reason that British cooking was derided for its treatment of vegetables. Here’s a recipe instructing how to cook carrots:
It seems like a lot of effort to go to, when the end result is still a head. All that removing of snout bone, tongue and brains. Shudder.
Mrs Rea’s Cookery Book: Boiling a calf’s head
But there are loads of great things in here. I’m as mad about cooking as I am about history and I love testing out old recipes. This is “Potato Surprise”, a 100% delicious concoction that I make with the leftovers from yesterday’s sausage and mash (I have to make extra especially so there’s enough for leftovers, of course).
Mrs Rea’s Potato Surprises
1/2 pound of cooked sausages
1 1/2 pounds mashed potato
Salt and pepper
1/2 ounce butter
(Unmentioned – an egg, breadcrumbs and oil)
Melt the butter and mix with the potatoes, also seasoning.
Divide sausages into small pieces.
Cover each with potato, make into a ball, brush with egg, cover with breadcrumbs.
Fry in hot fat.
Mrs Rea’s Cookery Book, Potato Surprises
My potato surprises
Nb. Love the old spelling d’oyley. Makes it infinitely posher-sounding.
It’s not all Victoriana and Chomondley-Warners around these parts.
I love a recipe in any form, and I find this 1986 TV Times All Star Cookery by Jill Cox fascinating. Apart from the too many pictures of a breakfast-tellying Richard Keys. It purports to let you into the food secrets of the TV stars but, for the most part, the celebrities recipes are tailored to the theme of their current TV programme.
TV Times All Star Cookbook, 1986
Therefore, Cilla Black with “Surprise, Surprise!” has a selection of vaguely “surprising” recipes, like “Gosh! Pots” which are, in fact, stuffed peppers. Gian Sammarco, TV’s Adrian Mole, has lunchbox ideas, and some reason Benny Hill is the master of kids cooking. Stan Boardman has a selection of German recipes and Derek Jameson has a load of food named after the newspaper industry.
There are a few show-offy types who parade their actual recipes on show – Michael and Cheryl Barrymore are wearing their fanciest 80s jumpers (it is pretty much a book demonstrating patterned jumpers in many ways) and demonstrating what they’d make for a dinner party.
Bobby Davro is the resident diet expert, with his “year of the body”. And by the way he describes how “the ounces creep on” (ounces!) I’m guessing it wasn’t a serious weight problem he had.
Bobby Davro’s diet recipes, TV Times All Star Cookbook
This book got dusted off again by me fairly recently when my small son became quite the scarecrow nerd. We watched endless episodes of Worzel Gummidge (still brilliant) and I remembered the Worzel-themed recipes in here. Hence this pic of Jon Pertwee looking rather dashing and a collection of scarecrow recipes that he definitely used to eat all the time.
(And “Aunt Sally Colly” is the maddest way to cook cauliflower ever)
Jon Pertwee in the TV Times All Star Cookbook
Added for Gallifrey Base – the missing Pertwee recipe page:
TV Times All Star Cookbook, 1986, first Jon Pertwee page.
Well, this is hardly obscure as it’s from one of the best selling cookery books of all time, “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book”, 1954.
Alice B Toklas Cook Book, 1954
The most bohemian cook book ever written, it’s also part memoir of her time hanging round with her partner Gertrude Stein and numerous artists in France during the first half of the last century.
The most famous recipe is very definitely this one, for Haschich Fudge. She might be known for it, but the amusing wording of the recipe itself is perhaps less well known, so here it is.
In honour of my 40th birthday celebrations last night, I offer the cocktail and the cure, both from the 1938 edition of The Weekend Book.
Mr Sutton’s Gin-blind (“to be drunk with discretion”) is, I imagine, a kind of pre-war Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
To be followed by this massively hardcore hangover cure, that sounds like something an alchemist might brew up in a cauldron. I think I’ll stick with tea and toast.
