I picked up a little booklet in a second-hand bookshop, ‘Cakes, Scones and Fancies for Afternoon Teas’ thinking it was just exactly what the title suggests, a collection of ‘new recipes’ first published in1953. It was written by Bridget Amies, who described herself as ‘lecturer-demonstrator to leading training colleges and schools of cookery. I just glanced through the recipes and there were lots of old favourites but also lots of different recipes too.
Looking at it again it seems that Ms Ames was writing recipes based on something called Food Reform – ‘with special concern for the many who are becoming “health food conscious”‘. It makes me think of the same that there’s nothing new under the sun, because everywhere you look there are food programmes, recipe books, magazines about eating in a more sustainable and healthy way. MS Ames also published two books ‘Fruit and Vegetable Juices’ which was about ‘juice therapy’ – the proper application of which knowledge could apparently prevent illness and result in a fitter body and more alert mind, and ‘Sixty-three Meatless Meals’..
At the back of the book I have, there are a few recipes for ‘unfired foods’, in other words, raw. Here;’s one:
Violets and prunes
- ¼ lb prunes
- 1 tbsp clear honey
- rind and juice of one lemon
- 2 cupfuls of ground almonds
- crystallized violets
- soak the prunes overnight
- remove the stones and crack to obtain the kernels, grind these with the almonds
- warm the honey in a bowl
- add the lemon rind and juice and the ground nuts
- stuff the prunes with this mixture
- put a whole crystallised violet on top
- serve in sweet papers
Lois Elsden 