Books: The Chalet Girl Cookbook
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#1: Books: The Chalet Girl Cookbook Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:12 am
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This title is difficult to obtain, but is available on the transcripts site. Basically, the Quartette are quarentined for the mumps, and in between paper games they decide to while away away the time by writing a cookbook. The book is a combination of their conversations and the resulting recipes.

So, for those who have checked this one out, what do you think? Does it work as a Chalet story, and does it work as a cookbook? Have you tried any of the recipes? Are you amused by the idea of Joey the completely undomesticated writing a cookbook?

#2:  Author: CarolineLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:24 pm
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I find the whole thing unintentionally hilarious.

It's not a great CS book and the writing seems stilted to me, and rather than trying to shoehorn recipes into a story, EBD seems to have tried to surround a recipe book with a story.

The recipes are a mixed bunch - I'm assuming most are accurate in and of themselves, but they do seem very dated - and some are frankly bizarre.

I'm glad I have a copy of it, though - it's certainly a curiosity, and it makes me laugh. Jo is no Nigella Lawson / domestic goddess, though - and there's more evidence in Joey Goes to the Oberland - those strange sandwich fillings!

#3:  Author: JennieLocation: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:30 pm
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I read this on the Transcripts site, and found it very dull. Cookery has moved on a lot since then.

It's not one I'd want to own uless I got it very very cheaply and only then to sell it for a vast sum on e-bay.

#4:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:34 pm
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Has anyone ever made any of the recipes? That would be fun. Although tbh most of them seemed like common sense and there wasn't enough cakes/sweet things for my liking!

#5:  Author: RosalinLocation: Swansea PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:34 pm
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I read it on the transcripts site (skipping over the actual recipes) and I wasn't convinced. In order to make them all know lots of recipes and have cooking anecdotes to share EBD has them rather OOC.

More a gimmick using characters that the readers like than a worthwhile book IMO.

#6:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:24 am
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Yes, Joey is blindly ignorant of cooking when the series starts, and has very little time outside of cookery class to practice. I would expect the others to have more experience, being good continental girls, but still, they've spent ages 12-18 in full time boarding school with once a week cooking lessons starting at age 15.

Some of the recipes are very odd by my modern standards - Lobster cutlets sound like a vile thing to do to an innocent lobster.

On the other hand, it did tell me what beef tea and kippers really were.

Others have obviously changed - mac and cheese is listed as a neapolitan dish, rather than classically american (but their recipe is almost identical to the one I use when cooking from scratch). The foreign cooking is really foreign Shocked I'm really sure soy sauce is *not* bechamel made with soy bean flour, and the curry recipe bears no resemblance to anything ever served in India.

The instructions are oddly informal. I could follow the recipes, but I know how to cook well already. I think a teenager reading the recipes would be pretty lost.

As an aside, if you ever find a copy of the Little House cookbook, snap it up. It's a cookbook accompanyment to the Little House on the Prarie books, and is really interesting from both a cookbook and historical perspective. There are some fairly recent editions - I bought it pretty cheap on eBay.

#7:  Author: ArielLocation: Hither Green, London PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:23 am
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The recipes are somewhat similar in style and content to my mother's school cookery book from the late 50s.

I was confused and disturbed by the following:

Quote:
ROYAL ICING

ONE LB. FINELY SIEVED ICING SUGAR
WHITES OF THREE EGGS
A FEW GRAINS SCRAPED FROM THE WASHING-BLUE
HALF TEASPOONFUL OF ACETIC ACID


*boggling*

#8:  Author: JennieLocation: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:33 am
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The washing blue would be mixed in very well to keep the icing brilliantly white.

If you've never heard of washing blue, it was used in the final rinsing water for white clothes and household linen to give it good blue-white appearance. This was when soap powders/ laundry soap were used before many people had washing machines, and help was needed to stop clothes and shets discolouring.

Today, we'd use a tiny drop of blue colouring, and I alway used a teaspoon of liquid glycerin to keep the icing pliable.

#9:  Author: ArielLocation: Hither Green, London PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:45 am
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But what did it taste like? I was imagining soap-flavoured icing.

#10:  Author: KarryLocation: Stoke on Trent PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:32 pm
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It would literally only be a very few grains of the stuff! It is like having gravy browning in Christmas cake - there for the colour not the taste!

#11:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:58 pm
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It's a real period piece, isn't it? I think I read the recipes with frank horror - still a sense of post-war austerity, unattractively combined with stodge (so much for the delicious continental food of the CS!) - and laughed at the number of things people get up to in quarantine in the CS books (Ted and co doing lessons frantically etc). I suppose it's hardly surprising, given the sheer amount of time people appear to spend in quarantine for something or other, though dictating recipes suggests total desperation. Couldn't Joey have told stories or something? Or even sung 'The Red Sarafan'?

#12:  Author: ArielLocation: Hither Green, London PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 8:07 pm
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Sunglass wrote:
(so much for the delicious continental food of the CS!)


That's just it, IMO. To me, it's totally British 1950s. Even what EBD probably thought were daring inclusions, making the book appear cosmopolitan, like curry and goulash and chop suey, were completely non-authentic versions.

Some things were interesting - like how to make the famous lemon drink and coffee.

#13:  Author: RóisínLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:07 pm
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Ariel wrote:
Some things were interesting - like how to make the famous lemon drink and coffee.


And the hot chocolate! One thing that stands out for me in this book, in a CSy way, is the discussion over the right way of making hot chocolate. Marie comes in with how they do it in Vienna and there is lots of talk about stick chocolate being the only way... Very Happy

I really love the Cookbook, I must say. I would love for GGB to republish it. Probably my two biggest collection of books are recipe books and Chalet books, and here where the two cross over ... ! Definitely, I would like to try out all the recipes - it would make a fascinating experiment.

#14:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:33 am
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It's especially fun to compare this one with the equally nostalgic Beany Malone Cookbook (1972). EBD wins on the story line, I think, perhaps because it's conversational rather than 3rd person. Beany's recipes are definitely easier to follow, perhaps because they tend to include convenience foods.Very Happy (I wouldn't have recognized a clove of garlic, either, only garlic powder....)

#15:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:19 pm
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I rather like this. It's nice to get a glimpse of the four at a different stage in their lives - having left school, but before they start getting married and having children. It was a nice idea of EBD's to have them going away for a holiday together.

As for the recipes, I think the book is an interesting period piece. It was published in 1953, when some foods were still rationed, or were not long off the ration. Convenience foods weren't around, and authentic ingredients for Continental dishes wouldn't be available. By the standards of the time, some of the recipes probably were a bit different or adventurous for girls who wouldn't remember a time before food was rationed and had never had the opportunity to do much cookery.



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