Life at Jarrolds

NANCY SPAIN COLOUR COOKERY BOOK: 1963

THE NANCY SPAIN Colour Cookery Book, a work which does indeed merit the title ‘exotic’, is, judging by the illustrations, a mouth-watering compendium of dishes ranging from the well-known and friendly Irish stew to the mysterious Pojasky à la Smitane.

My cooking efforts are confined to the boiled egg, though I note from Miss Nancy Spain’s book that even the humble egg has its correct techniques. I do, however, find it possible to appreciate such dicta as “Almost any soup is improved by a tablespoon of sherry”, except that I would tend to qualify the soup out of existence.

The girls of the inspection bench, and Nancy Spain.

Miss Spain offers one tip, which I feel almost obliged to pass on. To stop boiling cabbage from smelling, put, as Miss Spain’s great grandmother did, a piece of stale bread into the saucepan.

One remark, which must be quoted, concerns Mr Peter Finch the actor, who once told Miss Spain that although “He’d trained exclusively on potatoes and on whisky to get his normally ascetic cheekbones to the right state of soggy unfitness for the part of Oscar Wilde, you must truly believe it was the whisky which held the calories, not the spuds”.

Miss Nancy Spain clearly has very decided views on English (British?) cooking. “The trouble with potatoes in England is that nobody seems to know how to boil them”, she says, and: “There’s no trouble with veg at all, in my opinion, except that British housewives use far too much water and boil everything far too long!”

From left to right: Alfred Cook and Sidney Barker, both of Jarrolds, with Nancy Spain and Lionel Cordell of World Distributors, the publishers.

Whilst being perfectly prepared to go along with Miss Spain on this I cannot really accept her contention that “Gone are the days when one took a hardboiled egg and a tomato and chopped them in half and hurled them into a bowl with some chunks of nervous beetroot”. This is still how I prepare salad. And although Miss Spain is very, very convincing, I cannot bring myself to believe that prunes can be made edible.

This extract comes from the Jarrold Magazine, 1963.