Bicycles, Bloomers and Great War Rationing Recipes: The Life and Times of Dorothy Peel OBE

by Vicky Straker

Overview

The remarkable life and culinary career of the Martha Stewart of World War–era Britain.
 
Dorothy Peel played a key role in creating wartime recipes for householders and was awarded an OBE in 1918 for services to the Ministry of Food. In this fascinating book, Vicky Straker explores the social history and cultural background behind Dorothy’s creations, and the effect of rationing during the First World War. Using extracts from her autobiography, and many other books, we are given a unique insight into the life of Dorothy Peel and a new perspective on the period. Her witty, poignant, and informative comments reveal a woman with a genuine social conscience, who was in many ways ahead of her time.
 
Written in a light and accessible style, Bicycles, Bloomers and Great War Rationing Recipes reveals how society changed during the First World War, when rationing put a strain on every kitchen in the country. Many of Dorothy’s recipes are featured in their original form, such as the long forgotten Devilled Bananas and wartime Potato Gateau. Other mouth-watering recipes include Chicken en Casserole, Cheese Pufflets, and some delicious tea-time treats such as Feather Tart and Candied Pears. Vicky Straker has tried and tested recipes from Dorothy’s cookery books, and where appropriate amended them to suit modern tastes.
 
“Superb biography, and some really interesting recipes to try!” —Books Monthly
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473848122
Publisher:	Pen & Sword Books Limited
Publication date:	02/20/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	124,255
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Vicky Straker has a varied background, reading law at university, working for the European Children’s Trust, and teaching refugees to speak English. In 2004 she took a diploma at Leiths School of Food and Wine. Vicky then made handmade chocolates and gave cookery demonstrations before discovering that her great-great grandmother was Dorothy Peel OBE, which inspired her to start working on this book.  Vicky lives in Dorset with her husband and two children.

Table of Contents

Foreword 6

Preface 8

Acknowledgements 11

Part 1 Introducing Dorothy 13

Chapter 1 Visiting, Parties and Royal Encounters 19

Chapter 2 Victorian Food 28

Chapter 3 Servants 31

Chapter 4 Admirers, Marriage and Intrigue 37

Chapter 5 Bicycles and Bloomers 45

Chapter 6 The Treatment of Animals 49

Chapter 7 Charity and Compassion 52

Chapter 8 Fashion 56

Chapter 9 The Suffrage Movement 66

Chapter 10 The First World War and Rationing 71

To Conclude 109

Glossary 110

Part 2

Chapter 11 Rationing and Recipes 112

Chapter 12 Recipes Before and After the Great War 179

Conversion Tables 263

Notes 265

Editorial Reviews

"Vicky Straker introduces us to the Mary Berry of the Great War years - for me, by far the most fascinating part of the book is the recipes, but this is also a hugely entertaining and thoroughly absorbing study of a woman who could have been forgotten were it not for the excellent researches of Vicky. Superb biography, and some really interesting recipes to try!"

Books Monthly

Dorothy Peel was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1918 by the Ministry of Food to recognize her creation of wartime recipes for householders. Peel’s great granddaughter wrote this book after finding Granny Dot’s cookery book on an attic shelf. Straker assembled more than 150 pages of recipes supported by color photographs and a table of measurement conversions.

Summer 2018 World War One Illustrated

"There is so much that I really like about the book that it is very hard to pick out just a few items, but I particularly liked mention of The Daily Mail newspaper’s revised fashion headline as the war continued of “What Women Can Do” to help the war effort. Also Vicky’s explanations of Dorothy’s philosophy on life and her down-to-earth, no-nonsense, sympathetic attitude to everything from the way people wore their hair to the trial and death of Oscar Wilde. Had she been alive today, Dorothy would make a wonderful Member of Parliament and a brilliant Prime Minister. I love this book - it will be read and re-read - and I look forward to trying out all the recipes."

Fascinating Facts of WW1 Blog