The Edinburgh Book of Plain Cookery Recipes

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52364

Title

Page from the "The Edinburgh Book of Plain Cookery Recipes" showing cuts of beef

Description

Cookery book entitled "Plain Cookery" by the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science. Contained in a handmade embroidered cover in beige with the word "COOKERY", and some strawberries. The book is bound in blue hard back covers containing 335 pages in cream colour with black printing. Printed in black on front of hard back cover is "PLAIN COOKERY RECIPES" "NELSON" and the logo of the "EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE. Inside is a preface from the Principal P.L. WiINGFIELD dated September 1932" followed by a book full of recipes.

Type

Book

Accession number

SH.2007.018

The college principal, P.L. Wingfield, notes in the preface of Plain Cookery Recipes that the recipes in the book are not only relevant to students, but ‘…should be of value to every housewife…the dishes will provide simple, nourishing food’. This reference to an audience beyond the College and the need to create nourishing food hints at the College’s ground-breaking founding principles.

The College began life as the Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy in 1875. Its founders, Christian Guthrie Wright and Louisa Stevenson, were heavily involved in furthering the education of women. In founding the college, they had two aims: to improve women’s access to higher education and to improve the diets of working class families. They began to hold lectures at the Royal Museum (now the National Museum of Scotland), as well as arranging lectures and demonstrations across the country.

In 1930 the College became the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science in 1930, but to many in the City it will always be ‘Atholl Crescent’, after its first address. Many developments followed, including a broader curriculum, and the institution eventually became Queen Margaret’s University.

The history of the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science illustrates the fight for women’s education, an end to child malnutrition and the formalisation of ‘home’ skills that was raging at the turn of the twentieth century.

During the COVID pandemic, some of the Auld Reekie Retold team tried to recreate a recipe for soda scones from the book. You can watch their efforts on the Cooking up the Past film.

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