Already a subscriber? Log in
There’s a terrific chapter on the servant problem, which was not only the well-known difficulties of getting and keeping them but of managing untrained, drunken and overworked labour in unventilated kitchens: ‘the dirty, dowdy maid-of-all-work who often ruled … bachelors with a rod of iron’. One replies to a complaint, ‘Lawk sir, do you call these hands dirty? You should see my feet.’ Then there’s the odd and unpleasant things subversive cooks put in stews.
The gradual disappearance of the servants leads to the advice columns instructing the housewife on how to cook and manage. Piles of fun to be had here laughing at the tone of the advisers and the incompetence of the advised. Yet the author shows she is well aware that modern Britons are in no position to laugh. Today’s teenagers not only cannot boil an egg, they will not listen when Delia tells them how to do it. The housewives after the first world war were told not just how to boil eggs but how to organise complicated meals, sometimes with improbable recipes. Prunes stuffed with haddock and reheated ham with macaroons were two suggestions. And the housewife of not so long ago had real work to do. Washing up in the Thirties was a nightmare: no efficient detergents, hard brown soap and soda, boiling kettles of water, the overuse of the restricted supply of water leaving the washing-up water ‘a foul soup’.
There are extracts on food and health. Well, ‘health’ may not be quite the right word for the 1930s film star’s slimming diet, salads dressed with liquid paraffin. There are fascinating bits and pieces on the dangers of being poisoned by cooking vessels and of adulteration. And, what is quite different from today’s how-to-get-away-with-the-least-effort-and-still-impress columns, there’s plenty of morality: ‘Forgetfulness is, in the majority of instances, another word for indifference since it is notorious that persons always continue to remember matters, however indefinite or remote, where self-interest is concerned.’ The morality is the key because England’s appalling record and continued poor attitude and behaviour about food are a moral matter. Alice Thomas Ellis does not explain this record nor does she explain why the Latin countries do not share it, but she copiously illustrates it.
Super book, silly title. And, Alice, by the way, do try the kidneys again, this time pre-soaked in milk to remove the urine and douse the woodcock guts in brandy. Give the cat the smelly milk.
Also in Book Reviews
Also by Digby Anderson
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in