Editor’s letter
When I raised the idea of looking back through 1,200 issues of Good Housekeeping to find our best heritage recipes, I had no idea quite how fascinating (or how much hard work!) it would be. But I was determined to showcase the fact that, while our tastes may have changed over the past 100 years, the quality of Good Housekeeping’s recipes has never wavered. I’ve worked in the cookery team on this magazine for 14 years and, even in that time, have seen how much our tastes have moved on, so I knew that trawling our vast archives would uncover some real gems – as well as food we wouldn’t dream of eating now (Cauliflower, Date and Banana Salad, anyone?). I was looking for decade-typical recipes that, with a slight tweak to suit modern palates, could still be served with pride today.
So, what did we discover on our culinary journey through time and taste? Initially it was hard to see beyond some of the more obscure (and often hilarious) food photography (I’m looking at you, Lasagne in a straw bag, page 31), but, slowly, the flavours started to reveal themselves and this collection took shape.
One thing that surprised me was how much of an insight the research gave into the history of food in this country and some of its biggest
social and cultural changes. Since our launch issue in March 1922, with a print run of 150,000 copies (which sold out), our editors have championed women and promoted individual choice – a legacy of which I feel extremely proud. Naturally, we shared inventive ideas on how to cook and bake during and after the war years, when food rationing was in place, offering alternative options for ingredients that were hard to come by (or indeed, when they spoiled – see Susan’s Afternoon Chocolate Cake, page 10, which originally used soured milk). We were also one of the first lifestyle magazines to publish a curry recipe, as far back as the 1930s, and very delicious it is, too (see Khitchree, page 14). Decades of homely cooking and impressively advanced patisserie followed, but only after the boom in cheaper foreign travel did we see an explosion in Mediterranean-inspired recipes on our pages, followed by food from every corner of the globe, as horizons expanded. After weeks of work, the team had a shortlist of around five dishes we felt best summed up each decade. Some choices were obvious – nothing says 1970s more than a classic Prawn Cocktail (page 29) – others more surprising. Overall, I was impressed by how much more accomplished we used to be in the kitchen. Recipes were shorter 50-plus years ago and many called for skills (such as, ‘make a choux pastry’) without explanation. The recipes have all been rewritten for use today and imperial measures converted to metric quantities, but we have remained as true as possible to the original methods, ingredients and flavours. I can’t say the same for the portion sizes, specifically of sweet recipes, which have become noticeably larger over time, so we scaled up here and there or reduced the number of people they serve.
Once we had our favourites (mine being the 1930s Strawberry Cream Jelly, page 15), my highly capable team, Emma, Alice, Grace and Georgie, and I started our stringent Triple-testing, to make sure each recipe had guaranteed results. Only one heritage recipe fell down at this stage – a Gâteau St Honoré from 1957 – leaving us with 36 recipes to share with you.
I hope you enjoy making them as much as we did, and that they continue to be shared and loved for many more decades to come.