Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book (Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook)

Product Information

For the very many women like her who worked in the home, busting themselves to make things lovely for the rest of us, the Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book was all they needed. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. My mother’s version of it had a thin, beige sauce that pooled on the plate, glistening with chicken fat, the double cream slightly split.

The book seems hideously kitsch now, but there was something heart-breakingly earnest and aspirational on those pages.She cooked it on the rare occasions she had people round for dinner, when she got out the Tyrone crystal hock glasses and red candles. I also have four box files stuffed with recipes ripped from newspapers and magazines, and several butter-smeared notebooks of hand-written notes and menus. My mother cooked her way through everything life threw at her, from Christmases and birthday parties to the Ulster Worker’s Council strike, from a single book. There were tips on how to cut corners and save time and money, on how to substitute ingredients that were scarce or unavailable.

A swallow of Canada Dry from the bottom of a can, or pink, maggoty prawns from a teacup in the fridge. In the absence of aubergines, for example, my mother made a decent if robust moussaka with sliced potatoes. Most of them are on a teak bookcase in my kitchen, but there are some in the shed, the bedroom, the living room, the utility room and the roof space.Everything is round or swirly; pineapple rings, fish mousse shaped like a life buoy, concentric circles of tiny cream rosettes. Published in 1970 and written by Mary Berry and two women I’ve never heard of since, (a similar fate befell the two women who worked with Julia Child on Mastering the Art of French Cookery) it boasts “over 300 quick and easy recipes all illustrated in full colour”.