Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White

      GENERAL INTRODUCTION

      THIS book is an attempt to capture the charm of England’s cookery before it is completely crushed out of existence. It is an everyday book. The recipes are simple and practical, and arranged for the convenient use of beginners as well as a speedy reference for ‘the accomplisht cook.’

      Many collections of English recipes have been made — chiefly from books — and some gastronomic histories have been compiled by careful study of contemporary documents; but these are more or less ‘museum pieces.’ Men and women still living have come forward and helped to compile the present collection. They have written of good things they remember eating in days gone by, and of things made in their own homes to-day from recipes that have been in their families for over a century. These are so many and so varied that the present volume is merely a small instalment of our kitchen and stillroom riches. England does not know her wealth.

      They have written of good things — amusing things too! — they enjoyed in schooldays and have never met since, throughout sixty or seventy years, in spite of frequent enquiries. Famous housekeepers, now grandmothers and great-grandmothers, have told stories of seeing oatcakes baked on the ‘bak’ ston’ ’ in the West Riding of Yorkshire by men whose grandsons are making and baking them in much the same way to-day. Old ladies’ eyes have brightened at the memory of girlhood days when pies and stews were made of lambs’ tails in various ways; these are still used in similar fashion in country places.

      A practical cook trained in historical research has travelled from county to county, talking to every one who appeared interested, stirring up their memories, and inspiring them to hunt up written and printed records. Articles have been written to defray the expenses of this direct research; letters have been published in The Times and advertisements inserted; some money prizes have been offered. It was delightful to see how everyone was interested when once the veneer of fashion for foreign cookery and modern fads was chipped. At first some simple country folk would be shy or apologetic: ‘we must go with the times, those things are out cf date.’ But always there was found a genuine love of the good old English dishes, when it was realized that these had once more come into their own and were now ‘the vogue.’

      This is natural. All food is inevitably linked up with home or places visited with our nearest and dearest, whether family, friends, or lovers. We delight to offer the best we have in the way of entertainment and these ‘good things’ colour our memories.

      ‘Stands the church clock at ten to three?

      And is there honey still for tea?’

      asks Rupert Brooke in his idyll of ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.’

      ‘Are there no mutton pies made now in Oxford?’ asked one of the members of the English Folk Cookery Association who, in January 1931, searched throughout the city for the successor of Ben Tyrrell the noted Oxford Pieman of 1760. Small raised mutton pies were one of the glories of the English kitchen. The recipe for this delicacy as served in 1805 in the Marquess of Buckingham’s country house in Essex will be found in its proper place with something of its story. Yes, a whole book could be written on ‘The Pies of Old England’ and many treasured recipes have been given up to join this small collection, which is but a small selection from the mass of English traditional recipes.

      Melton Mowbray makes its contribution. So do Coventry, Grasmere, Ambleside, Cheshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Devon, Cornwall, Somersetshire, Kent, Sussex, Yorkshire — almost every county and many a town has its special pie or other delicacy.

      ‘Where,’ asks Mr. Lucas pathetically, ‘where are certain simple delicacies of yesteryear? Where is that ancient nocturnal amenity the devilled bone? — and, indeed, where are the bones fit to devil?’

      Only waiting, Mr. Lucas, for English cooks to cook them, and English men and women to enjoy them! The recipes (or receipts as they used to be called) are here. Not only directions for devilling bones, but also for serving marrow bones; not to mention marrow served on toast as Queen Victoria enjoyed it, or made into a pudding as they still serve it on the Border.

      Many of these good things for which we give recipes have been contributed by cooks who love their job. ‘Will your book be printed?’ asks one. ‘It would be worth while saving up every penny to buy it.’ Masters and mistresses of stately homes that can no longer be maintained have sent others, amongst them some delectable drinks; but only those have been chosen that are within the scope of modern economics.

      A recipe for making Clotted or Scalded Cream comes from one who as a girl learnt to make it in the dairy of the Home Farm belonging to Knightshayes Court, near Tiverton.

      The recipe is here also for the White Hunting Stew always provided at Stoodleigh Rectory in the days when the Devon and Somerset Staghounds met near by. At that same rectory, with its wonderful gardens, its delightful soldier gardener, John, and above all its much loved ‘maister’ and mistress — God rest their souls! — the ‘Sunday Pudding’ made during the week and the Stone Cream made on the Saturday (the recipes are given) — were regular features of the midday dinner or of its unique Sunday supper, consisting of tea, cold meat, beetroot, potatoes (baked in their skin) in the winter, or salad in the summer, and boiled new-laid eggs all the year round. You could have what you liked — but you must not use more than one plate, because it was Sunday and the servants must not have too much ‘washing o’ dishes.’ Then after supper the Rector — the dear ‘Maister’ — read out Keble’s Christian Year for the day, the beloved mistress went to the piano, the servants trooped in and the whole household sang favourite hymns. This was Victorian England. . . .

      But you must turn over the leaves and find recipes also for the delicacies enjoyed in the reigns of Queen Anne and Queen Elizabeth and even earlier, all suited to modern customs, modern tables and modern appetites. And all characteristic of our own country and our own people. No nation’s cookery is so peculiarly its own; and one of our aims should be to preserve its individuality and not allow our proximity to the Continent to destroy