Oh Lord Take Me Back Home Again: A Memory of Food from The Best Years

Oh Lord Take Me Back Home Again: A Memory of Food from The Best YearsThere are cookbooks out there ad nauseum, the bargain shelves in bookstores are lined with them and good ones too. I know, I have a bookcase full of them! So why would I do one? Well, it happened like this. I have two books published Boswells: Rom and In an English Pub, The Best Years, THE ABBEY and Im working on a third novel, Boswells: The Hat. Events have a way of changing your plans, the event in this case was the sale of our house, a place where

There are cookbooks out there ad nauseum, the bargain shelves in bookstores are lined with them - and good ones too. I know, I have a bookcase full of them! So why would I do one? Well, it happened like this. I have two books published - ‘Boswells: Rom’ and ‘In an English Pub, The Best Years, THE ABBEY’ - and I’m working on a third novel, ‘Boswells: The Hat.’ Events have a way of changing your plans, the event in this case was the sale of our house, a place where I have resided for the last forty years - I won’t trouble you with what went into this momentous decision. All the myriad details that go into effecting the sale (the paperwork - oh My Sainted Aunt!) made it impossible to immerse myself in the novel’s theme. Then something serendipitous happens, in clearing out the reams of old paperwork I come across an early attempt of mine at a cookbook that was never published and rather pretentiously and provocatively called ‘A Faggot is a Faggot or a Savory Duck? A Cooking Drama in Three Acts.’ You might think I am being a tad homophobic with such a title, but you will see the title’s roots inside this book. Most of the credit for the recipes go to my sister, June, who some years ago at my request for recipes that were used in the Abbey Inn painstakingly wrote them out and mailed them to me. I’ve just discovered those gems anew in my files and that is a major part of the impetus for this. Another factor is that folks liked, quite unexpectedly for me, my ‘Recipes Remembered’ in my memoir of the happy time spent in the Abbey Inn - these are reprised also. This did not require me to burrow deep into the realms of fantasy but somewhat satisfied the literary itch, but to create a look at the recipes largely used by my Mum and Grandmother, Nan Baker. Having said that, this intended ‘stopgap’ took on a life of its own. I found myself digging deeper into the background of what was intended to be completed in a relatively short period, for not only do I have a passion for writing, I am also a curious person by nature and could not resist the lure of delving into the origin and history of some of these recipes. I have attempted to preserve some of our old family recipes here with a little humor and history to boot. They are mostly simple, yet savory and pay scant regard to limiting the fat and cholesterol content - be warned! I decided that these had to be set down for posterity as I have seen many of my generation shuffle off this earthly coil and know I have a limited time to do this. My sister June is the major repository of Mum and Nan Baker’s cooking and that the memory of them and their ingenuity could be lost forever if no effort was made. A big thanks to my Sis for putting her memories on paper. The greatest tribute goes to Mum and her Mother (Nan Baker) whose cooking I took for granted all those years, naive was I in thinking all women did this naturally! They even kept a high standard during scarcity of WWII and the austerity and of the post-war years - what we had was often controlled by strict rationing and often limited the creation of these recipes. This high standard was aided by Dad and Frank ‘Crafty’ Russell’s prowess in the gardens. We had fresh fruits and vegetables in abundance with the flavor and nutrition that only they can endow. We were also fortunate in being a country pub, a supply of rabbits, birds and fish always seemed to be on hand.