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This short book (110 pp) by Wilson Midgely reached our family in the early '50s - a gift for an elder brother. As a young teenager, I was caught by the conspiratorial larder-raiding and 'we can do it better than them', but what stayed with me are its chapter-headings: 'If you go to the larder and find ...' (IYGTTLAF...)- the call to use 'what is there' creatively.

It is steeped in the transitions of the late '40s. It is printed on cheap, rough, paper, but is highly imaginative. It is a precursor of 'quick meal' and 'student' cook-books, but has stories of house-maids making wonderful sauces. It is very critical of men who can't cook and don't help at home, with an all-women acknowledgement section - yet is steeped in eye-widening male chauvinism. It looks forward to the simple cooking devices of bed-sitter-dom by looking backwards to the 'hay-box' and the 'Dutch oven' - a biscuit box and drip tray in front of a fire. It has sections on washing-up and using scissors, but also on tripe and how to skin a rabbit, on how to make toast, boil potatoes and poach eggs, but also on whale meat and mock crab, war-time frying and tinned fish - and on bouquet garni, sour milk and 'Swiss mush'.