Cookery Illustrated and Household Management
Edited by Elizabeth Craig
London
Odhams Press Limited, Long Acre, Lonfon W.C.2
1936

Rating: EXCELLENT

We were searching for a traditional British recipe for Christmas pudding.

Instead of searching online, my daughter and I decided to look through my cookery books. I had completely forgotten COOKERY ILLUSTRATED and HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, a wonderful book compiled and edited by Elizabeth Craig.

About The Author

Elizabeth Josephine Craig was born in West Lothian, Scotland in 1883. She was a prolific British food writer accredited with close to 70 books during her lifetime. Although she had little formal training, her love of cookery kept her writing until 1980, when she authored The Scottish Cookery Book. She died in June of that year.

About The Book

The foreward by Ms Craig says it all,

“Many cookery books fail in taking for granted that the housewife knows more than she does about cookery.”

(1) Energy producing foods which give adequate food value cheaply

Perhaps a spirtual descendent of Mrs Beeton (1836 - 1865), Elizabeth Craig assumes that housewives in the 1930s knew nothing about cookery. She has sought out and compiled detailed advice about everything from the processes of cookery, through making the most of left-overs, recipes galore, the preservation of food, invalid cookery, entertaining without a maid, and hints on first-aid, health, and beauty.

“Keeping Down Household Bills” has some wonderful advice we should heed today. Although, I’m not sure where I could purchase two semi-circular or a set of four triangular pans which can all be used on one burner or hot plate. We found a recipe for Christmas pudding. It involves a lot of boiling. In fact, many of the recipes involve boiling.

(2) Expensive foods with no more energy values than the cheaper ones

All the recipes include a list of indredients, required utensils, the number of people the recipe will feed, and detailed instructions. Perhaps the expansive written descriptions are required because there are only 20 illustrations in the 760 page tome. Of the 20, four are in full color. The book loses nothing because of this lack of visual stimulus. The words say it all.

The Household Hints section is written as an alphabetical glossary. It starts with ALMONDS, To Salt: and ends with WHOOPING COUGH, Remedy for: so you can see the breadth of topics covered. As a mother or three, I particularly liked:

NURSING BABY, Hints on:

Ointment for Quite Young Babies when the parts become inflamed.–Put some zinc ointment into a small pot or an egg cup, add sufficient castor oil to make it about the consistency of cream.

At this point, the book’s usual tendency for elaborate detail is not apparent. The text does not indicate what you should do with the cream. Unlike Ms Craig’s opening thoughts on housewives’ lack of cookery knowledge, these same housewives are assumed to have a knowledge of child care that can, indeed, be taken for granted.

Read it and weep!

The Brit

Posted under Book Reviews