How Times Change in the Kitchen

Have you ever noticed that nearly all the big name TV chefs seem to be men? Did you also notice that the majority of them seem to be British? Compare that with this introduction from a British cookery book from the 1950s:

Unless a woman is a natural-born cook, and enjoys experimenting with new dishes, it is easy for her cooking to get into a rut. She is apt to look through her cookery book, pick out the recipes that look simplest, and having learned how to carry them out serve these dishes again and again ...

But here is a cookery book to lure every woman out of such a rut, and to prevent others from getting into it...

Make a friend in need and an adviser of your cookery book... Its advice is sound, practical, and money-saving.

Those words were written by the book's author - a woman. How times change. The traditional role of the "housewife" is rapidly receding into the history books.

Same thing goes for old-fashioned cooking instructions and measurements (pop the dish into a "quick oven" - I inquired at the appliance store who advised me they stock slow ovens but had never heard of a quick oven).

"Mix the ingredients with a gill of cold milk"? A "gill" is officially defined as a quarter of a pint but apparently some people use the term to describe the one-third of a pint milk bottles provided free to British schoolchildren.

I have thousands of old British recipes and it is immense fun to translate them into modern interpretations.

Every week I publish a recipe by email to subscribers of Blighty's British Recipes Newsletter. Several people have told me how much they enjoy these recipes - it is nice to know they are appreciated.

You too can subscribe to Blighty's British Recipes Newsletter and, of course, it's entirely free. I would be even more pleased to receive your traditional British recipes. Click on "comments" just below this post to tell me what you have to share.