Hamlyn All-Colour Cook Book

Having spent a lovely day with our friends Janet and Ron in Devon, where the boys played golf and Janet and I went to Bickleigh Mill and Killerton, we repaired to their lovely home and had dinner together. Bickleigh Mill is an old water-mill which now houses a shopping area welling the most beautiful things, jewelry, glass, scarves, knick-knacks… lovely, lovely things and an equally lovely restaurant and tea-room. Killerton is an eighteenth-century house owned by the National Trust near Exeter in Devon.

For dinner we were joined by Janet’s sister and other half, and as we sat enjoying the delicious dinner Janet had cooked us, we began to talk about wonderful meals we had eaten… The Beaujolais in Manchester which served a whole Stilton with a spoon to help yourself, the restaurant in La Rochelle where someone accident ordered a whole lobster… and all the lovely meals we had shared over the years, many of which came from the Hamlyn All-Colour Cook Book.

Janet, her sister Anto  and I each had one and we reminisced about the recipes we had cooked over the years. Each of the three hundred and thirty-six recipes had a picture, the recipe itself was clearly written in easily followed stages and at the bottom there was usually a handy tip. it was divided into sections such as ‘main meals to cook ahead’, ‘favourite family cakes’, ‘continental favourites’, and ‘cooking with cream’. Some of the recipes may seem a little dated, asparagus wheel flan for example or plaice rolls, but I am sure all of them would still be enjoyed today… in fact for Janet, Anto and I, many are! Janet delighted us with a lime version of the chilled lemon flan this evening!

The recipes were by three cooks, Mary Berry, Ann Body and Audrey Ellis. Mary Berry is one of the two starring presenters of the very popular ‘Great British Bake-Off’ – forty years after the Hamlyn book was first published.

Many of the recipes reappear with the same pictures in new Hamlyn cookery books, but the actual All Collour Cook Book is no longer available  I know because I tried to buy one for my daughter when she went to Uni.