1973 baked bean hotpot for kids
- rosemary
- 13 hours ago
- 5 min read
"The recipes in this book have been specially chosen for you because they are easy to follow. Cooking is a wonderful hobby for boys and girls alike " Elizabeth Sewell
A tiny bit patronising? But then it is from a book published in 1973 - ancient history now and it's also written by a Professor of Literature - particularly poetry.
Yes it's a lucky dip and this one is quite an oddity that David found. I'm not really sure how it escaped an earlier major cull of my cookbooks. I have no memory of buying it at all, unlike another cookbook for children - The Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook by Katie Stewart which I have kept because I actually still use it occasionally for basic things like pancakes and Yorkshire pudding and bread and butter pudding. But then Katie Stewart was a 'proper' cook who wrote recipe books for adults too, and columns in magazines. Maybe one of the grandmothers bought this one?
1973 is the year my first son was born so it was obviously not purchased for quite a few years. But yes, look at those flares on the boy, and the hair as well. All very colourful and flamboyant, unlike the author Elizabeth Sewell - born in Britain who later moved to America where she became a professor and a citizen. She seems to have been quite distinguished in her field and wrote many books, mostly academic literary kinds of things, but also the odd novel - and cookbook. Which is so odd that I wondered whether actually there were two different Elizabeth Sewells. After all it's not so unusual a name.
This is the frontispiece to this slim volume - it contains a mere 17 recipes. It's very flower power isn't it? Flares, hair, butterflies and cute rabbits, but kids who look more like young teens than real small children who might be more interested in butterflies and bunny rabbits. Somehow it's very coy.
There is a brief introduction - the words at the top of the page are some of the first. But even though the author says: "there's no dull food here" it's a very dull introduction. The food is admittedly not as old-fashioned as the foods of my childhood - there are recipes for chicken cacciatore, garlic bread and sweetcorn soup, but there are still rather horrible and vintage sounding things like banana delight and snowflake jelly. I don't think there is anything that might have tempted my children.
Well maybe this one which was my lucky dip page - just picked at random. Baked bean hot pot. Another cutesy picture with kids who, to my eyes anyway, look far too old to be sitting eating dinner on the sofa clutching a teddy bear. I mean look at the expression on her face.
Fundamentally it's just a casserole made with tins of baked beans, frankfurters, onions and capsicum. Something man has been making since ancient times. All over the world.
However, a few words about the method. Remember that this is a book that is supposed to be teaching children to cook. And yet, look at those instructions. "Peel and slice onion". How do you peel an onion? "Remove seeds from capsicum". How do you do that? In the Hints to Guide You at the beginning of the book she says: "Follow the pictures exactly. They will show you how to do each step correctly." I don't think so. There are no pictures of adding the beans and frankfurters, and sure, it's pretty obvious, but still.
As you can see I am struggling a little bit here. However it is interesting to ponder on what, today, you might include in a cookbook for children. There are heaps of books - and videos of course, aimed at teaching kids to cook - below are three examples from the 'celebrity' world - Buddy Oliver's Let's Cook (Jamie's son) who has been doing this for years now - and yes - he's a kid himself, so if he can do it, so can you. Donna Hay's Basic to Brilliance - Kids and Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Apprentice, which I bought once by mistake and which is well intentioned, detailed and probably very easy to follow, but very boring in its presentation.
There are hundreds more.
Going back to those sausages and beans in a hotpot however, because it is a good starting recipe for kids. It's very simple to prepare - just put a whole lot of things in a pot and stick it in the oven. OK maybe chop and fry some onions and perhaps the sausages too - but really you probably don't even to do the preliminary frying.
I will do my usual thing and suggest a few others - beginning with the BBC who have a whole web page of Easy sausage suppers; followed by one of the thousands of TikTok videos - although this one is probably aimed at young men rather than children. What makes this one stand out, other than the busty lady doing her sexy thing, is that there are a whole heap of interesting spices in there. And the beans are, as in our 1973 kids' book - baked beans from a tin.
Because we are talking about simple here I obviously turned to Nigel and Real Fast Food - and he didn't disappoint with his most basic Sausage and bean hotpot but in later times he became just a tiny bit more complicated with Sausages and black-eyed beans and then Baked sausages with harissa and tomatoes. I also thought it would be fair to turn to Jamie Oliver who is into getting kids and the unsure into cooking - and indeed he offers his wife's Sausage and smoky bean casserole.
There was no picture for Nigel's basic recipe but a blogger with a website called Marmalade and Me had also made it and the picture is from her, slightly adapted recipe. She calls it part of The Saving Ravenous Teenagers from Imminent Starvation Process.
It is indeed a good, tasty dish - baked beans and sausages and infinitely variable. Nigel himself, for his basic recipe said to use whatever sausages and beans you had to hand. And from there it's up to you as to what else you put in in terms of extra vegetables, cooking liquid, spices and other flavourings. It's a real fun thing to do really. Might have a go later this week. Well I was also thinking about the sausages and pumpkin mash wasn't I? Obviously going to be a sausage week in some way or another.
YEARS GONE BY
April 28
2024 - Detail
2021 - Scrolling
2020 - Deleted
2018 - Cardamom - a taste surprise
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