Kitchen nostalgia?

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I have a handwritten recipe book which my nana wrote copying out her mum's recipes (so my great grans really). The problem is my GG had 13 children so the quantities are rather large. My mum always told how she decided to make the Christmas Bread one year and finished up mixing it a huge enamel bowl usually used as the baby bath.

I also have the Stork book 'The Art of Home Cooking'. Still use many of the recipes despite having it since 1967. Good straightforward recipes. When the cover came off DH had it recovered with a hard cover for me.

I have one that my gran had (I don't think she intended me to have it - I'm not sure how I ended up with it) - the cover has come off, but I believe it's a Good Housekeeping one from the 60's. It has such delights as boiled calves head - complete with picture - not great viewing for a veggie. It also has adverts at the back of the book, don't think I have used any of the recipes, a lot of them seem to contain aspic and the cakes have angelica as the main decorations.... hmmmmm very appertising.

"The Pauper's Cookbook" by Jocasta Innes.

Not only did she give lots of very exciting recipes, but she had such an exotic name! We ate like princes...

It has to be the Bero Cookbook...my Mother had two versions of it, my daughter has them now, still in use.

I still use the cookery book that came with my Mother's brand spanking new Jackson Cooker in 1963...before that she always cooked on a 'range'.

I have " A Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium" given to me by my Mum and Dad for Christmas 1958. It is in use nearly all the time and was invaluable as it has pictures, black and white, of what your finished dish should look like. The most recent one is not a patch on my old one. I also have a Stork book, " The Art of Home Cooking", falling to pieces, but carefully taped together. I won it whilst at school, probably around 1955/6.
My Hamlyn " All Colour Cook Book" , circa 1970, is another used regularly, and I only realised fairly recently that Mary Berry was a co-author. I live cookery books, and they come and go, but these three are favourites.

I use the Good Housekeeping cookery book - it covers everything. Sometimes I wonder why I ever got another cookery book. Having said that, I still have a large number of Family Circle magazines with some really useful recipes in, and a little leaflet I got as a freebie when I got married which was published by Moulinex, to promote their gadgets, but the recipes were from Good Housekeeping -all very delicious.

Not all cookery books are good. I was given one as a wedding present called "Cooking on a shoestring". Not one of the recipes was any good, and some were downright disgusting - I chucked the book away in the end.

Our first cookery book was The Evening Standard Cook book by Delia Smith, which we bought in 1975 when we married. It finally fell to bits. She is still our favourite along with Nigel Slater. Never a dud recipe from either of them.

A Good Housekeeping book which has lost its front cover so I can't remember its proper title-possibly "How to cook". It covers every possible foodstuff and includes light menus for invalids. I still look up things in it. Favourite recipe with a much stained page is the Christmas Pudding.

Another Be-ro fan here and Katie Stewart and Elizabeth David and the Paupers cook book by Jocasta Innes but folders and files galore of cuttings from magazines.

Marguerite Patten's Cookery in Colour was the first cookery book I ever had and I still have it. Looking through it now it seems very old hat, but I relied heavily on it when I started out my married life in the Far East and ringing up mother to ask how to cook something was simply not possible. I also had, and still have, the Be-ro book, which I also use on a regular basis.

Oh yes the Dairy Book of Home Cookery. When I got engaged, my mum bought me a copy, also from the milkman

Complete set of Cordon Bleu books, every book written by Elizabeth David, The Times Cookery Book by Katie Stewart, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (hardback ed from 1973).

I have both of those too! Excellent books with many favourite recipes used over and over again.

I have both of those too Grandma60

I had the Dairy Book of Home Cookery and also the Dairy Book of Household Management. Both sold by the milkman in the early 70s.

MamaCaz I have both of those too

I have the good Housekeeping Compendium Cookery Book. Its by Waverly Press around 1950. My father gave it to my mother. It has the most beautiful plates in it and recipes that never fail.

I also have a "Trex" cookery Book given to me by my husbands grandmother when I was a young girl of all but 21 and a McDougals flower recipe book ( from the same old lady).

I bought myself a reprint of wartime recipes a few years ago.

All have classic recipes. I use them all the time.

I still go back to Poor Cook by Caroline Conran (I think!) It was published in the 70's and is fullof economical recipes for meals that were quite exotic then, Greek Meatballs and Semolina Gnocchi for example.

My go - to book still is a Cumberland and Westmorland WI book from the early 1980's. I have made practically everything in it, with the exception of the home made wine! Those old farmer's wives knew how to cook. My DH is very nostalgic about his mother's cooking.

As a young furiner in the UK, I was absolutely amazed to discover Fanny Cradock!!! I still have the whole series of 'Cordon Bleu' cookery books that were the rage in the 70s- and of course several versions of the Be-Ro book.
And one of the early Mary Berry books.

The one that holds most memories for me was little Sainsbury's book called, I think, Cooking for Two.
However, what's been most used is my six-volume collection of Good Cooking, collected in my mid teens and which I still regularly consult if I want to make something timeless, like jams or breads.

Graham Kerr!!! favourite was Keith Floyd though - what a bad boy - great chef!

I had a Good Housekeeping book and all the Delia's of and of course Marguerite Patten. On Tv was Phillip Harben, The Galloping Gourmet - Graham someone and of course Fanny and Jonny (Dh still asks if he can be Jonny to my Fanny).