Wartime heroine who was the first celeb chef — without the ego!
SHE reached 99 years and seven months without putting a foot wrong. Perfectly mannered, Marguerite Patten, was the longest-lived celebrity chef but one without a smidgen of ego — she absolutely hated the title, preferring to be called a home economist.
But her no-nonsense cookery was a huge influence on generation after generation — from wartime housewives to the cookery giants of today.
She was the first TV chef, sharing her slot with Philip Harben, several years ahead of Fanny Craddock who she admired and yet disliked, describing her as a bully. Marguerite wrote more than 170 books, with one, her Everyday Cookbook in Colour, published by Hamlyn, selling more than a million copies.
In total, she sold 17 million cookery books, though you would never have known it. She was simply too modest. Almost every celebrity chef and cookery writer is influenced by her, including Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver who would regularly visit her in Brighton and who sought her help as he grappled with reforming school dinners.
She taught without preaching and looked for the good in everything, never wasting a moment, let alone leftovers. You can say the same for her as for her practical, economic recipes: they just don’t make them like that any more.
Most importantly, she fought against notions that it was patronising to teach parents how to feed their families — if only we had listened to her more.
When I last saw Marguerite she was 90 and still touring Britain giving talks and cookery demonstrations. ‘I am sure I am the one who invented the term: “Here’s one I made earlier,” ’ she laughed.
We sat in her kitchen at the Brighton bungalow she and her husband Bob built in 1961. I admired the ‘retro chic’ of her kitchen cabinets, the originals installed at the time.
She once tried to replace them, she told me, but failed. ‘We ordered modern pine units. But when they arrived, Bob and I looked at each other and decided to keep the old ones . . . look, every drawer works beautifully; the glass doors slide without any trouble — so we sent all the new ones back.’
One can imagine the fitters rolling their eyes as they drove away, but Marguerite knew when it was right to fix something and when not to. But she could not fix everything, and for decades too much of her down-to-earth, level-headed, matterof-fact wisdom was ignored.
She believed fervently in ‘ food education’ for everyone, or what would have in her day been called domestic science and taught only to girls. She wanted people not only to know how to cook proper food, but how to shop frugally and not waste a thing.
She was sure that the loss of these skills led to many sociological problems, including the late 20th-century obesity epidemic. HILDA Elsie Marguerite Brown was born in Bath in 1915, one of three children in a family ‘stiff with teachers’. Her father died when she was 12. There is an oftrepeated myth that she took over the cooking in the household to help her bereaved mother. Horrified, Marguerite set the record straight in an interview.
‘This is a terrible exaggeration. I helped a little bit in the holidays. I remember making a rabbit pie — Mother must have skinned it for me. And there was always lots to do in the garden — pick and bottle and jam. But otherwise not a bit of it. Homework came first.’
She took a cookery course on leaving school, then got a job as a home economist developing recipes and demonstrating them. After a spell with the Eastern Electricity Board she toyed with being an actress, as she loved to perform.
She abandoned this when a job came up with Frigidaire as a cookery demonstrator. She loved her job and would show off her cooking skills, travelling all over the country first class and staying in the best hotels. ‘It was a wonderful life,’ she said.
When war broke out, she was hired by the newly created Minister of Food, Lord Woolton. He had responsibility for the sale of all food in Britain, initiating rationing, but also had to guarantee adequate nutrition for everyone.
Marguerite’s job was to educate women to show them how to make the most out of their family’s rations. She gave talks and demonstrated to rapt audiences in London and the East of England. Her recipes using Spam and powdered eggs, rabbit and even whale meat were broadcast by the BBC in a show called Kitchen Front.
She met her husband Bob, a gunner on Lancaster bombers, in Lincoln after a night of heavy bombing. They ended up sharing a lift — he proposed before they got into the car. It was a great romance, but, typically, Marguerite played down the moment.
She was once asked if the airman was handsome. ‘Not particularly. But everything about him was so joyous. And we needed that.’
I recall her telling me how glad she was that she worked so hard during the war, when Bob was on a mission. ‘I couldn’t bear to listen to the planes overhead, worrying about him.’
But Bob survived 84 missions, even though he was shot down three times. The couple lived happily until his death in 1997. Her one attempt to retire, so they could spend more time together, failed because she couldn’t bear the coffee mornings. The couple had one child, a daughter, Judith. The family said Marguerite died on June 4 ‘from an illness stoically borne’.
Her ideas may have been rooted in the past, but they were never out of date. Quite the opposite. When we last met she had just completed work on a TV series in which a secondary school was fed typical Fifties food. ‘Suet dumplings, stews, offal and cottage pie, plenty of root vegetables and greens, a helping of afters — basic food,’ she said.
‘But you know, at the end of six weeks the children were so surprised: the ones that were underweight grew; the plump ones lost weight and all the sporty types said they’d never had so much energy.’
I had the feeling that, all along, this is what she’d expected to happen. YET while Jamie Oliver harangues his audience, demanding they change their ways, Marguerite knew that if you want to lure people over to your way of thinking, you must not criticise them, just find ways to tempt them. ‘I know life is difficult, but find the good things, find the rainbow.’
She did not like ready meals but understood why people ate them for convenience. And while she utterly supported the waste-not-want-not ideals of her wartime work, she loathed nostalgia for romanticised wartime life. ‘What a load of nonsense. Who wants to go back to six months without a fresh tomato? Not me.’
Over that long, long career she had her wilderness years while fast-food took over and everyone abandoned using up leftovers and eating offal. But we all now know she was right, and we should have listened.
We are listening again, however, so all is not lost.