Читать книгу A Spoonful of Sugar - Liz Fraser - Страница 50

You don’t need to be a genius to cook for a family. People get so frightened about it, but anyone who can read a cookery book can produce something edible. You just have to have a go!

I am beginning to feel more than slightly inferior now. The last time I baked was only about a fortnight ago, but I’m fairly sure that was under duress because I had someone else’s children round for tea so I was just showing off, and not because I particularly wanted to have a big family cookathon with my kids.

I still want to find some imperfection in this picture of family bliss. Something naughty. Something you and I do on a regular basis.

What about takeaways, I ask? And eating out? Could she put her hand on her heart and tell me that they never treated themselves to the 1950s equivalent of a cheeky Friday night curry, a Sunday pub lunch or a chip butty on the way home from school? Here, at last, I find a chink of reassuring sloppiness.

‘Oh, no, we had our treats! We had a fish supper every Saturday.’ (A ‘fish supper’ is what those of us hailing from South of Quite Far North would call fish ’n’ chips, incidentally.) ‘It was a weekly treat, and there was certainly no worry about it being bad for us, or making the kids fat or unhealthy. Everything else they had was home made or natural, so having fish and chips once a week was absolutely fine. They needed the extra fat to keep warm and growing – it’s cold up here you know, young lady!’

GRANNY’S COOKING MEMORIES

‘I learned to cook at Brownie camp where we cooked over a fire. We made liver and bacon, and little scones. In the 1920s and 30s, we had little indulgences like Rice Crispies and Cornflakes [my, my, they have been around a long time!] but there was no “snack” foods or “junk” foods at all – eating between meals just didn’t happen. Crisps were virtually unheard of, and chocolate bars were either too expensive or too hard to come by when my children were growing up. There were simple biscuits, and snacks by then were a buttery or an apple. Everything else was made by hand, at home. From the scones themselves to the jam that went on them, food was simpler – we’d added salt ourselves, which is frowned upon today, but it didn’t matter because there was no salt hidden in everything from bread to beans. And my children were happy, healthy and enjoying life to the full.’

At this moment I suddenly realise that the house we’re sitting in is a good deal colder than it probably should be for an elderly lady with no circulation in one leg to be sitting in. Having cleared the soup bowls to the kitchen, I go to fetch some more logs from the wood shed to stoke the lounge fire. When I return, Granny is sitting in her favourite chair, surrounded by a year’s supply of newspaper supplements and with a large ginger cat on her lap.