Food, Glorious, Easter Food!

Posted on by kathryn

If you cannot wait for the Easter Bunny to come, here are some tastes from the archives to keep you going until Sunday.

A folded out pamphlet, page 1 shows a colourful illustration of brightly coloured food, with the barrows logo and an illustration of a chef with a large white hat. Page 2 lists Great International Dishes "while Inidan and Chinese cookery is now well-known other traditions from all over the world are constantly finding their way to our tables" the list includes Kangaroo Steaks, Italian Pizza, Paprika Goulash, Jalapeno Bean Dip as well as Indian and Chinese Cookery. Page 3 is titled Aids for Good Cooks and lists unusual vegetables, herbs and seasonings, sauces and pickles and pasta and rice.
Barrows Stores Limited. Corporation Street, Birmingham. Bundle 3 item 36. International Cookery. Ref: LS 10/B/55/1-36 Barrows

Barrow’s stores would have had everything you need to prepare a special dinner. Above is one of their leaflets adverting some international cookery and ingredients.

a close up of a piece of aged paper with folds and tears on the edge with delicate old fashioned handwriting. The transcript is in the body of the article
Letter from Hannah Galton (Bristol) to Susannah Abrahams (Bromsgrove), 31 July 1752. Ref: MS3101/C/A/1/6/3

Perhaps you are planning a party? Would you like it to be ‘not large’, ‘very gentle’ and with ‘sillybubs?’ If so, you could try emulating Hannah Galton’s sister’s wedding fair:

‘the diner was not large but very Gentle, we had but one cours besides the desert, Except a Remove of the Top & bottom dishes which was Fish, for Venson & ducks, the desert lookd Extreamly pretty, in the midle of the Table was a Large dish of cheescakes & Tarts above & below that was 8 chenia Fruite dishes with cherries straburys Rasburys and Appricots the latter was mix’d with the cherries, on Each side was 12 chenia plates, with Jellys & Wipp Sillybubs 3 on a plate a plate of Jellys, & plate of Sillybubs was placed oposite Each other down the Table with cream intermix’d’

Aged paper with old-fashioned handwriting which reads "Rev. Sydney Smith's Recipe for Salad Two large potatoes passed through a kitchen sieve, Unwanted softness to the salad give; of mordent mustard and a single spoon, distrust the condiment which bites so soon, But deem it not thou many of herbs a fault, to add a double quantity of salt, Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca clown and once with vinegar procured from town. True flavour needs it, and you pact begs The pounded yellow of two well boiled eggs..."
Extracts from Rev. Sydney Smith’s recipe for salad dressing. Ref: MS 3597/116/13 [Hutton and Beale]

If party food is not what you are after, how about a nice salad…poem? Rev. Sydney Smith has just the thing. His recipe has several ingredients, including potatoes, mustard, salt, essence of anchovy and, err, rhyme? Or, if you read the reverse, he puts the directions in ‘plain prose’ too.

Printed text which reads Economical Haggis 1/2 lb oatmeal 3 or 4 ozs suet or beef dripping Rub into meal 1 onion chopped up Small piece of liver chopped Pepper and salt Mix all together, put into basin, cover and steam for about three hours.
Carrs Lane Chapel cookery book. Compiled in aid of the London Missionary Society. With a foreword by Mrs Leyton Richards. (Gloucester) 1934. Edited by NEWMAN (Mrs W.F.) Ref: L18.1/415777

Or maybe a dish from the Carrs Lane Chapel cookery book? This fund-raising cookbook has a good list of ‘tried and tested’ recipes. Here is the recipe for ‘Economical Haggis’ (I wonder what immoderate haggis would additionally have in?)

Bright yellow flyer with printed text set in a lively way "Alkazar Club and Restaurant, 20 Holyhead Road, Handsworth and Tastees Bakeries Ltd Authentic Caribbean Bakers & Confectioners
Two leaflets for take aways and a bakery in Birmingham. MS 2192/C/C/2/1, n.d. [1980s – 1990s]

If you are not in the mood to cook, how about some delicious takeout? These leaflets are from a file of similar items, collected by Birmingham photographer Vanley Burke in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Whatever treats you partake of this week, Happy Easter from Archives & Collections