They Can’t Ration These

'The Kitchen Companion', also by Vicomte de Mauduit

176pp
ISBN 9781903155448

This cookery book about 'food for free' suggests ways of escaping the tyranny of the supermarkets; thinking of ready-to eat food as being something we can find for ourselves, rather than in a tin; and using recipes which are both excellent and unusual. Vicomte de Mauduit, a Frenchman living in England who had already published four cookery books, wrote They Can't Ration These in 1940, in response to the outbreak of war – after which English cooks might have to rely completely on squirrels, trout, nettles, samphire, beetroot, blueberries and camomile tea; 'for them this book will be a delight' wrote the TLS about this perfect present for the ecologically-minded.

Endpaper

'October', a fabric design in potato prints and paint on sugar paper, was done at her kitchen table by Alma Ramsey-Hosking in c. 1940