Margaret Powell's Cookery Book

Additional Details

Description: In the national bestseller Below Stairs, Margaret Powell told readers what it was really like to work in the great houses of England. 

In Margaret Powell's Cookery Book, she gives readers a closer look at the world inside the vast kitchens of these great houses. It's an eye-opening and mouthwatering snapshot of that world. The upstairs dining room always demanded the best of Continental cuisine. Cooking in the downstairs kitchen, Margaret Powell always obliged. 

Her cookery book is a firsthand account of the way people cooked and dined in the early twentieth century when houses like those in Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey were fully staffed and running like clockwork.

Describing kitchen equipment such as the black ranges that had to be shined daily, die fancy molds that needed screen covers to keep out the flies, and the tubs of ice that were used instead of refrigerators, she tells readers just how big a job it was to keep the upstairs dining table abundantly filled. 

Giving away the secrets of the manor, she presents more than five hundred recipes, from the simple to the sophisticated. Divided into chapters such as Hors d'oeuvre, Soups, Fish, Entrees, Roasts and Meat Dishes, Savouries, Puddings, and others, she shows readers today what it was like to eat well, if you were a member of England's upper class. Classic but simple dishes such as Shepherd's Pie and Roast Chicken Stuffed with Herbs alternate with Compote of Snipe, Sardines a la Bombay, and Queen Mab Pudding. 

Widi her trademark wit and gimlet eye, she tells readers what it was like to cook for her "betters," but she also states one thing proudly -- "Food is more than just food. I like it to be prepared and cooked well, and I like trouble taken over it." Behind every well-fed family like the Crawleys of Downton Abbey or the Bellamys of Upstairs, Downstairs was a cook like Margaret Powell and today, she invites everyone to the feast. 

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Condition: Book boards are bent at corners. Further good condition.