Mrs Beeton's

"All About Cookery"

By Julia Revitt Photography

September 30^th, 2014

I recently inherited this old book, tattered and worn and smelling of smoke. It's pages are brown with fingerprints, dust and grime and the spine has faded from years of being on a shelf. Stains accompany the various recipes and are a testament to old favourites. It fascinates me as it's full of history, sentiment and memories.

It's an unusual book as it contains advertisements from various sources such as 'Chivers Jam' with the charming phrase 'I'm following your advice, mother. I always buy CHIVERS JAM' to 'Modern Mothercraft - a guide to the management of children, their feeding, education and training'. Containing advice for all household matters, this is not just a recipe book. It's innocently sexist with comments such as this in the 'The Cook' section, 'When at work dress suitably; wear short dresses... as you will never be comfortable in long dresses, small aprons and slipshod shoes'.

Be very particular in cleansing all vegetables free from grit. Nothing is so unpleasant, and nothing so easily avoided with common care.

From 'How to Make Pastry' to a rather stomach turning 'Calf's Feet' recipe and everything in between this book is a sign of the times. But what time though? I've had the book dated from the 1900s to the 1970s but there is no published date in the book itself. I think the book was published in the 1950s but originally written in 1861 (thanks to this lovely article) but please let me know if you know differently.

Mrs Beeton was an amazing woman. Born in 1836 she died just 28 short years later a week after the birth of her fourth child. I can't imagine what her life would have been like and I wonder if being married to a book publisher made the books easier to publish or harder. Her legacy lives on in this book. I will cherish it and keep it safe but more importantly I will keep it alive through this article, photographs and by using the recipes.

It's been a really nice project to get this book out of retirement and give it life again. I've tried to do it justice - it is dirty and smelly but I like it just like that - I hope I've conveyed this in the photographs.