Tattie scones
Juliet’s gran had a killer touch in kitchen
I’M OFTEN ASKED what my favourite cookbook is. I’ve probably owned hundreds over the years but my most precious are two of my late grandmother’s notebooks where she kept her, mainly baking recipes from the 1920s, all handwritten in her beautiful cursive script.
I also inherited her jewellery collection and although Agnes Wilson (nee Lawrence) was no Liz Taylor she could certainly have given Mary Berry a run for her money. These books were well used during her life and seem to be preserved in a thin crust of flour dust. With three hard working men to feed, she would spend every Saturday baking an assortment of pies, cakes, scones and endless treats to keep the workforce going. These were stored in a marble shelved larder named The Morgue and I was well into my teenage years before realising that most morgues don’t tend to store baked goods and jams.
I was inspired to leaf through these tomes when I heard that Museums & Galleries Edinburgh are launching a “Cooking Up The Past” series of videos on YouTube, the first episode featuring the museum staff attempting Soda Scones from a 1932 edition of Plain Cookery Recipes from the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science. I’m not fortunate enough to possess such a glamorous guide to the kitchen, but I do have my Gran’s 1946 copy of the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute Cookery Book which features a “Mottoes” page including gems such as:
Ladies who wish to keep their spouses Content and happy in their houses, Must learn that food to be a blessing
Must not be ruined in the dressing. It’s very nice to be good looking, But that will not excuse bad cooking; And Men have got such funny natur’s, They’ll judge you by your beef and ‘taters; So if you want to rule and lead them, You’ll do it if you nicely feed them.
If you’d rather finish your husband off, you might turn to page 182 and whip up “A Fitless Cock”, which is a well boiled dumpling consisting of oatmeal, onion, egg, milk and suet. Guaranteed to make him croak or leave you. A “fry up” was a daily staple in the Wilson Household and Agnes would sometimes make my father two. The meal was not complete without several Potato Scones. She would pre-cook them on the hotplate of a Baby Belling before frying them in dripping. Before you think the Wilson clan began Scotland’s obesity crisis, think on. They dined like kings in the morning, princes at lunchtime and paupers in the evening, as was the custom of that place and time. Although well fed, none were overweight.