‘I REALLY BELIEVE THAT COOKING CAN TURN AROUND A DIFFICULT DAY’

original owner is. But I’m pretty sure she must have been at cookery school. There’s a note on one page that says, ‘New course with Mrs Warrelow’. And who makes a bûche de noël (yule log) on 24 January? On some of the pages, she’s jotted down a phone number or name. Whenever I find something, I add it to my spreadsheet of clues; I feel a bit like a detective.

I imagine her serving up her dishes to a new husband, while I share them with my flatmate. Our lives are probably very different: by my age –

I’m 30 – she may have had a family to feed. But I can tell she and I share the same passion for cooking. There is a love of food in the pages.

With each recipe, I like to research what was happening on that day in 1968. What films were in the cinema? Who was number one in the charts? I’ve created a Spotify playlist with all the songs from the era that I listen to as I’m cooking: The Beatles’ ‘Hello Goodbye’, The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’, The Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’.

It’s taken me more than a year to get through a month of recipes. My Instagram following has become a lovely online community. If I can’t decipher the handwriting, I pop it on Instagram and my followers help me figure it out. There was an ingredient – angelica – that I needed to decorate some Viennese biscuits, and I didn’t know what it was. One of my followers explained it’s the candied stem of a plant called Angelica archangelica. It’s hardly ever used in recipes now, but they’d tracked down an online stockist.

When we went into lockdown, the project became even more important to me: it’s been so nice to have that connection to others. I’ve gained a lot more followers since then – people say it’s exactly what they need to take their mind off the pandemic. I really believe that cooking can turn around a difficult day.

I’m still hopeful I can find the owner and reunite her with her book. All I need is one person to see it and recognise it. I like to think if we ever met she’d be impressed with my cooking!

After hearing about Forgotten Delights on the radio, a woman called in to say she’d discovered a similar recipe book from 1969. It belonged to her late mother, and she’s started cooking the recipes to feel closer to her. I hope it encourages more people to dig out old family recipe books and enjoy that connection to the past. Forgotten Delights has brought me so much joy. If I can inspire someone to do something similar, that would be amazing.

Follow Georgie’s progress on Instagram @forgottendelights