GENTLE ART COOKERY

Part of a striking upheaval in attitudes to food and cooking between the wars, The Gentle Art of Cookery was published to immediate success in 1925, providing a level of detail that was unusual amongst its contemporaries, while inspiring its readers with its daring recipe selection. With chapters entitled 'Dishes from the Arabian Nights', 'The Alchemist's Cupboard', and a collection of startlingly original 'Flower Recipes', in which renowned herbalist Hilda Leyel and her assistant Olga Hartley revive the medieval use of flowers for food with recipes such as Rose Ice Cream, Nasturtium Salad, and Marmalade of Violets, this book can't help but capture the imagination of even the most jaded of recipe readers. In 1983, it was revised and made available in paperback to entice a whole new generation of readers. Leyel (1880-1957) became very interested in herbalism, and with her academic training in botany, she studied the work of the herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, among others. She wrote The Magic of Herbs in 1926, and opened Culpeper House in 1927, a shop selling herbal medicines, food and cosmetics; these proved very successful, especially with women. She founded the Society of Herbalists, a non-profit organization, for the study and application of herbalism. In 1941 the society's existence was threatened by the Pharmacy and Medicines Bill, which would have destroyed the work of the herbalist in England. Influential friends rallied to Leyel's support, and the bill was modified to enable patients to obtain treatment upon joining the society. She also joined Sir Albert Howard in his campaign for compost versus synthetic fertilizers, and those working for pure water and food. She was an original, almost eccentric public figure in her lifetime, and her pursuit of the unusual and the exotic runs through all her writing on cookery. Olga Hartley, her friend and collaborator, was also an expert in the field, notably in the uses of fruit.