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By Anna, 23 March, 2010 12:16 pm

Ian’s Aunt – Jane – cleared out her attic. I have, therefore, inherited her entire series of Cordon Bleu cookery magazines from the 70s.

So, I’m flicking through them, expecting to laugh, snort and chortle at the antiquity of the style, presentation and structure of the recipes, but no. Oh no, no, no.

Yes, there are some recipes that are utterly outdated and some that look downright unpleasant (not that that’s the sole domain of older cookery publications – plenty of contemporary recipe books have made me turn my lip in the classic ‘bleeeech’ pose). There are some frankly, unnecessary things to do with gelatine and some equally odd uses of rabbit blood, but there is also good, solid cookery information and clever, thoughtful responses to desperate correspondence.
As I’m reading through them, my Mum informs me that she too had these publications, but when they were bound together as themed books. Reading through the recipes brought memories flooding back for her.
She even found the pigeon recipe she made the night that, on bringing the plates to the table, she tripped over the cat, threw the dinner all over the floor, put her back out and then made us all eat hairy, tepid bird. That was a fantastic night as you can imagine. Full of light-hearted, glass-half-full conversation. Not.

There are some very, very inspiring recipes too.

This is one of them. Bizarrely, it’s titled ‘pains de seigle’. Now that’s just silly, because that means ‘rye bread’ and this recipe no more resembles rye bread than a jug of rabbit’s blood, but I’m thinking they thought it needed a French name and Friday afternoon came so quickly that someone signed it off so they could rush home to whip up an Apple Charlotte.

I too have been struggling with an English name for it, so I’m beginning to get why they just went with the generic smear of French…
Anyway, these are like a chewy macaroon – a delicious, sweet, nutty, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (Armadillo!) cookie, moreish to the point of obsession and wonderful with anything. Make them. This recipe deserves to be made, because it works. I’m tiring of recipes that are crap – despite their protestations that they have been tested for a domestic setting – they are crap and they don’t work.

This one isn’t like that. It’s a darling; a darling joy to make.

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