Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White
merits are proved by the recipes selected from our greatest writers on food and cookery. I have given them instead of merely giving recipes of my own, because one of my aims has been to prove that England had formerly a complete collection of national food preparations — and none better.
Some people may smile at the simple elementary details and still simpler recipes given. But experience has taught me that it is the little things that matter: ‘A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a very great thing.’
Many of the recipes for dishes and cakes, etc., may have been introduced from other lands — we have always been adventurers willing to admire others and learn from them and deprecate our own, but those we liked have become naturalized and suited to our constitutions, and represent — as far as ‘receipts’ and recipes go — our national taste in food, English cookery at its best.
Our kitchen has more in common with America than with any other country. This is natural, as the foundations of both the English and American kitchens were the same up to 1620; England is proud of the national kitchen American women have developed on their own individual lines, and one of the great interests of this, the direct research, collated with the writings of authorities on which the present book is based, has been to come across continual evidence of our common family interests with our cousins across the Atlantic.
In a new and vast country far from Europe they have been able to preserve the integrity of their own kitchen far better than we have, and to develop it on individual lines. If we want to learn how to improve our own cookery — and we should want to do this — it is to America we should turn, not to France. French Cookery is of course very good, but there has always been a great sameness about it; its chief merit lies in its fixed, unchanging system; every French cook is splendidly trained on exactly the same lines, and can therefore serve in any kitchen controlled by a French chef. This also helps France to preserve the individuality of its own cuisine and advertise it as they have done with so much success. But it cannot be allowed to crush out our individual English kitchen or even to take credit for its many merits. The Scots kitchen owes more to France than does our English kitchen.
We can learn from the Commonwealth countries. They have the same advantage as America of developing the cookery of the Homeland in a new setting. We have much in common also with Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. According to a leader in The Times (December 12, 1931), ‘It is a common saying that a man is what he eats, and equally common that character is destiny, so that it seems logical that if we eat what our forefathers ate, we shall become like them and enjoy some of their good fortune.’ And we have Viking blood in our veins.
Anyhow, we must not become a weak inferior imitation of any other country, however great or friendly, or however much we may admire its people and their ways. Personally I love France, have lived in Paris for years, spent months in its provinces and spent all my spare time when in Paris at the School for Chefs. Some of my best and dearest friends have been great Frenchmen and their wives, who have loved England; but I could not love France as much as I do if I did not love England more. There is no reason why the famous French cuisine and our fine traditional English cookery should be bitter rivals. Both are absolutely distinctive, but equally good in their different ways, and there is plenty of scope in the world, even in England, for both.
The English Folk Cookery Association is not a commercial enterprise or associated with any commercial enterprise, but a learned society formed originally for purposes of research, with the firm intention of restoring and maintaining England’s former high standard of cookery.
FLORENCE WHITE.
London,
1932
[The English Folk Cookery Association appears to have lapsed on the death of the author in 1940.]
BRITISH AND AMERICAN
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
IN the United States of America only 16 fluid ounces go to the pint, whilst in Great Britain (by the Act of 1878) 20 fluid ounces make up one pint. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Channel Islands, and the Irish Free State, all use the same liquid measures as Great Britain.
In this book in recipes dated after 1878 20 fluid ounces go to the pint unless otherwise stated, but as it has been compiled as much for Americans who love England as for Britons who, along with its Editor, love Americans, when necessary the amount of liquid to be used is stated as so many liquid ounces instead of so many pints or half pints.
It is impossible in this book to include all weights and measures. Those interested will find about nine pages of up-to-date useful information on this subject in the current number of Whitaker’s Almanack.
WHAT IS ‘A CUP’?
This is a question frequently asked. A cup is such a handy measure; everyone does not possess scales; and in America they use the ‘cup’ measure in nearly all their recipes.
The American ‘cup’ measure used in American cookery books contains 8 fluid ounces which are marked off into 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and one cup; and into 1/3 and 2/3 of the cup. I have an aluminium one brought from America in 1924 and it is interesting and useful to know that when filled to the brim this cup holds exactly half a pint (or 10 ounces) English measure; the American half pint being marked on the cup two liquid ounces lower down.
An English ‘cup’ therefore should contain 10 liquid ounces.
An American ‘cup’ therefore should contain 8 liquid ounces.
But as the bulk of dry goods varies considerably, the contents of 1/2 an American pint or one cupful does not always weigh half a pound avoirdupois which is the weight used for many of the ingredients used in cookery.
As a rule the ordinary English weights and measures are used in this book with the necessary explanation, if required, in parentheses.
HOW CAN WE ACQUIRE A MEASURING CUP?
(1) One can be bought easily in America, and now in London.
(2) We can use an ordinary English breakfast cup that holds exactly half a pint (English measure) and keep it for a measuring cup for cookery.
The following tables will help us to find one that will serve our purpose.
1 fluid pint of 20 oz. = 1 lb. or 16 oz. solid measure.
A pinch of pepper = about 1/2 saltspoonful.
1 saltspoonful = 1/2 a teaspoonful or 1/2 a fluid dram or about 30 drops.
1 teaspoonful = 1 fluid dram or about 60 drops.
(A middling-size teaspoon will hold about 1 liquid dram; with this as a guide it should be easy to find how much any cup or glass will hold.)
2 teaspoons = 1 English dessertspoonful.
3 teaspoons = 1 American tablespoonful.
4 teaspoons = 1 English tablespoonful.
2 English dessert spoons = 1 English tablespoonful.
2 English tablespoonfuls = 1 English kitchen cooking spoon or table gravy spoon, and this is frequently the measure used in old English recipes when a spoonful is mentioned.
3 English tablespoonfuls or 12 English teaspoons = 1 sherry wineglass.
1 1/2 sherry wineglass or 18 teaspoons = 1 port wineglass or 1/2 a teacup.
3 sherry wineglasses or 32 teaspoons = 2 port wineglasses or 1 teacup.
2 teacups = 1 breakfast cup or 1 tumbler, or 1/2 English pint of 10 ounces.
2 breakfast cups or two tumblers = 1 pint, or 20 fluid ounces or 1 fluid pound.
1 fluid pound of 20 oz. = 1 lb. of 16 solid ounces.
It is not nearly so easy to measure solids, and