76 New Zealand Woman’s Weekly
MANin the house
COLIN HOGG
TASTES
COLIN’S NEW RECIPE BOOKS GIVE
HIM SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHTI
’ve come into a bit of an unusual
inheritance. This one doesn’t
involve anything as frivolous as
money. No, this is an inheritance of
real value. It’s my mother’s old recipe
books. She doesn’t need them now
that her cooking days are behind
her, so they’ve come to me.
There’s a whole box of them in
storage down in Christchurch where
she lives. I brought a couple back
home to Wellington with me, just
for a taste. Though, having had a
look through them, I’m not sure
I want to cook many of the recipes.
These old cookbooks aren’t at
all like modern-day ones, which are
generally the size of sinks and about
half as useful. These inherited ones
are humble volumes, one of them
is hand-typed and stapled inside a
faded cardboard cover announcing
it’s the Mornington Presbyterian
Church’s Family Favourites.
It was probably my grandmother’s
and dates back maybe to the 1950s.
On its opening page is a poem that
rhymes “curries” with “worries”.
Inside, there’s not too much to worry
about. My grandmother has marked
her favourites. Gingerbread 2 (there
are three gingerbread recipes) gets
a tick in its margin, as does the
Salmon au Fromage. Unmarked and,
I hope, untried, is a Pizza Pie recipe
involving stiff scone dough, tomato
sauce, cream corn, peas and cheese.
The other ancient recipe book
I brought home is a much more
worrying read, though it’s under
the seemingly comforting title of
Recipes My Mother Taught Me.
This one was put together by
the Presbyterian Social Service
Association and features celebrity
recipes from some of the top ladiesof the time, including the wives of
the Prime Minister and the Leader
of the Opposition. There’s Mrs
R. Muldoon’s Peach Celestial and
Mrs W. Rowling’s Sweet Chicken,
for instance. Those two seem
relatively harmless alongside
some of the other recipes on offer.
I don’t much like the sound of
Mrs H. Muff’s Drip Steak with Parsley
Dumplings or Mrs F.D. Fraser’s Cold
Meat Shape, and it’s a little odd how
between the recipes for Cauliflower
Cheese Savoury and Pineapple
Snow Pudding there’s a recipe
for oven cleaning.
I am tempted by Mrs C. Green’s
Economical Plum Pudding for Two
and I can imagine my grandmother
may have tried that one out for her
and Grandad back in the 1960s,
but it’s got suet in it. And there’s
a Tomato Soup Fruit Cake (Mrs F.
Mehrtens, Hokitika), but of course
that has tomato soup in it.
Anyway, I’ve got my own ideas
about cooking, though if I’m ever
moved to make a square, I might
reach for Mrs M. Carter’s Chocolate
Rough, which is just two pages away
from perhaps the best recipe in
Recipes My Mother Taught Me,
which is so sweet and of another
time it might bring a tear to the eye.
It’s called A Recipe for Preserving
Children and goes like this: “Take
one grass field, half a dozen children,
two or three small dogs, a pinch
of brook and some pebbles. Mix
children and dogs well together, put
them in the field, stirring constantly.
“Pour brook over pebbles and
sprinkle field with flowers. Spread
over all a deep blue sky, bake in
the hot sunshine and, when well
browned, remove to the bath tub.”Vintage