A Book of Old Kentish Recipes - Available now

This abundance has been reflected over the centuries in numerous recipes published in old cookery books. Old Kentish Recipes is an edited compilation of those recipes – mainly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of these recipes have been ‘hidden’ away in old books and not been republished for centuries.

They are nearly all county or place name recipes, such as: Kentish huffkins, Canterbury pudding, Dover cake, Tunbridge water cakes, etc. Or recipes containing Kentish produce, e.g.: Hop top soup (1773), Cherry jam (1808) and Dover samphire receipt (1699).

Over 200 recipes are interspersed with interesting facts about Kentish food ways and history such as the Canterbury pudding riots (1647), The Great Eater of Kent (1630), and the Anniversary Feasts of the Natives of the County Kent (1701).

Many of the recipes are for the adventurous cook – measurements are often vague and some of the ingredients may be hard to find nowadays.

Flead, for example, is the inside fat of a pig or hog – lard can be used as a substitute (Flead cakes, 1845).

Also, cooks often used enormous quantities compared to today:

Dover Biscuits (1880)

Beat half a pound of fresh butter into a cream, and stir into it half a pound of fine sugar. Beat two eggs to a froth ; add a table-spoonful of nutmeg. Mix the eggs and butter together, and blend with them three-quarters of a pound of fine flour. Roll out the paste thin, and cut into small cakes. Time to bake, twelve to eighteen minutes. Probable cost. 1s. 6d. Sufficient for two dozen or more cakes.

Written, designed and published by Paul Brewin in aid of the Pilgrims Hospices in Kent. For more details and to order, please go to: http://britishcookery.co.uk/