Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book (Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook)

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Most of the ones I own favour style over substance, and rarely have more than two or three recipes you would bother to cook again. In the absence of aubergines, for example, my mother made a decent if robust moussaka with sliced potatoes. A swallow of Canada Dry from the bottom of a can, or pink, maggoty prawns from a teacup in the fridge.

When my mother brought the food to the table she always said “chicken simla, or something similar” and everyone laughed.

My mother’s version of it had a thin, beige sauce that pooled on the plate, glistening with chicken fat, the double cream slightly split. Most disturbing of all is the turkey in aspic, a hunk of cold poultry and mandarin orange segments suspended in a piss-coloured jelly set as firm as perspex. There were tips on how to cut corners and save time and money, on how to substitute ingredients that were scarce or unavailable. The rice pudding sprinkled with demerara sugar that came out of the oven smelling as sweet as baby milk, with a skin like tortoise shell you had to crack with a spoon.

My mother cooked her way through everything life threw at her, from Christmases and birthday parties to the Ulster Worker’s Council strike, from a single book. She cooked it on the rare occasions she had people round for dinner, when she got out the Tyrone crystal hock glasses and red candles.We pulled flitters of chicken from a cold thigh or drumstick, our noses wrinkling at the piquant smack of Coleman’s French mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Out of print so can only be bought 2nd hand and these books have been well loved and used so it's difficult to get one in good condition.

My mother served hers over patna rice, a variety you rarely see now that came in a dusty plastic pouch. I also have four box files stuffed with recipes ripped from newspapers and magazines, and several butter-smeared notebooks of hand-written notes and menus. The recipes and instructions were very easy to follow and and there was a picture of every dish with each recipe. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged.

It was better than nothing, but I always thought we had been excluded from the best part; sitting around the table.