Retro recipes and Delia

My lovely neighbour Jessie was doing a big clean out and kindly offered me some cookbooks, which I happily accepted. Today I was browsing through the succinctly named 'The Minced Meat Cookbook' and came across a number of recipes that made me guffaw with laughter at their retroness. When I checked the date of publication, expecting late '70s, perhaps early '80s I couldn't quite believe that it was first published in 1992! Crikey. What a long way we have come since 1992. Some gems from the afore mentioned gem-of-a cookbook...

Chili eggs with crispy coconut crust (brilliant alliteration)
Spicy coconut mince
Fruity meatloaf with tomato apple salsa
Prune and apple roll
Lamb and beetroot bake
Chicken, almond and mango pie
Chicken and fig bonbons
and my personal favourite, Sausage apple roll

I think I missed a clearly essential part of minces history during my life - pairing it with sweet fruits and/or coconut. Bizarre! But obviously extremely popular during the '90s.

Interestingly, Delia (Smith, hereafter only referred to as Delia) would probably still be cooking these, the saucy minx. Her 1998 classic television series "How to Cook" followed closely by "Delia's Summer/Winter Collection" and the all time snigger inducing "Delia's Christmas" - the final episode of which is titled the "The final 36 hours countdown to Christmas day" is one of my all time favourite cooking series. There's something about the sternness and unbending directiveness in her delivery that makes me feel secure that the recipe will work. But she's so stiff and serious that it makes also highly enjoyable viewing.

Classic Delia

Ah Delia, I salute you in all your matronly ways. You got an entire nation of women rushing out first thing to buy the ingredients of the dishes you prepared on their teles the night before. Not many women can claim to have sold supermarkets out of eggs. When Delia showed her devoted followers how to boil an egg it did indeed happen. Seriously. There's even a term coined for it: the Delia effect.

Next time: Erin and I are definitely going to make it to a Wellington on a Plate event this weekend. Location yet to be confirmed though we have narrowed it down to a shortlist of about 4. Watch this space....