MRS BEETON IN TROUBLE

Evening Star, Issue 23908, 11 June 1941, Page 11

MRS BEETON IN TROUBLE

(London Correspondent.) Irate suburban chatelaines are turning on Mrs Beeton just now and metaphorically rending that good lady in their own kitchens. The trouble arises, of course, from the utter impossibility of reconciling Mrs Beeton’s recipes with the blitzkrieg larder supplies. Take a few examples.' To make a seed cake: “ Beat lib of sugar, weigh lib of eggs, whisk well together,” etc. Or, to make a sponge biscuit, “ Cast nine eggs until they froth, pound and sift lib of fine sugar, then beat up with the eggs.” These directions nowadays are enough in their wartime naivety to make even the most unemotional cook “ wild with all regret.” Nor is the situation, from Mrs Beeton’s point of view, at all improved when it comes to such concoctions as savoury stews. One lady assured me in agitated tones that, even if she sold her old car at a £SO profit, which is now quite a possible feat, she could not possibly buy all the onions that she would need to make a decent casserole. It is high time someone invented an efficient ersatz onion. To think of the days when, at Twickenham on a Wales v. England occasion, they actually threw leeks about and fastened bunches on goalposts!