Good fare

Originally published in 1941, this delightful little book is in fact the precursor to Good Eating, published in 1944 and recently reissued by Macmillan to great acclaim. Packed with practical, nutritious and frequently delicious recipes by the Daily Telegraph's Home Cook, this is both a charming piece of nostalgia and a riveting insight into how Britain really ate in wartime. More than that, though, it is almost a kitchen manifesto for the twenty-first century, with its emphasis on cooking without wasting food, fuel or time. The recipes are specifically geared to making the most of home-grown fruit and vegetables, of making a little meat go a long way, or of making unfamiliar cuts and methods fresh and appealing. There is also a special section offering readers' own recipes. As the Foreword says, 'There can be no better basis of cookery than that provided by generations of housewives who have brought homely fare to epicurean perfection.' With the motto, 'Simple but Better Fare is the aim of the New Cookery' we, too, can waste not want not and make do and mend just as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did.