The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  A whole cellar was given up to stacks of old black pots, remnants of the time food was cooked above the fire in the kitchen. A monstrous coal-fired kitchen range had been left gathering dust in a corner, looking utterly Victorian in contrast to the sleek electric ovens Nell used today. Hanging on the wall by a large fishhook, an old enamel bathtub reminded Nell of how things had been before bathrooms: servants would carry the bath into a lady’s boudoir, dozens of maids carting up large jugs of scalding water. In a corner, a broken wooden clock lay on its side, its hands silently set to midnight.

  As she raced from one arched cellar to another, finding nothing but ancient equipment, she began to slow.

  Perhaps it was as Mrs. Quince said. The books had been purged. She imagined them in a heaving fire, spitting and exploding with lives dedicated to food: plumes of gold and green smoke would light the sky, the aromas of feasts of ages past infusing their memories into the universe.

  Scrambling on, a final passage led to a couple of boarded-up cellars. After easing some boards away with her fingertips, she beamed her weakening torchlight into the dark, murky depths.

  Fear gripped her like a cold wind snaking around her heart. A scratching sound came from the corner. A mouse? A beetle? Or a ghost from the past, guarding its secrets?

  Beaming her torch around the back of the musty cellar, she spotted boxes in a darkened crevice. Beside them, a pile of something appeared dull and battered. Inch by inch, she closed in on it, the torchlight flickering.

  She dropped down to her knees, not worrying about what rats or spiders might be there, pulling out one after another, her face bright with elation.

  It was a pile of old recipe books. They were stacked in the arched brickwork, their black and brown spines limp with age and use. A motley collection of odd editions, they included handwritten and old typed books with yellowed pages speaking of mutton and porter, pig’s ears in marrow soup, and venison hearts cooked in loganberries. They’d been untouched for decades, centuries maybe, some of them in boxes that exploded with dust and mildew as she tugged them open.

  Each one had been carefully stored by the house cooks, preserved for another generation, another earl, another heir. Nell took them out one by one, then ferried them through to the kitchen table.

  “Did you find them, dear?” Mrs. Quince tottered over to take a look.

  “I knew they were here.” She looked at her elder resolutely. “If we’re going to win, we’re going to need something unique, and where better to look than into the past?”

  She blew off some cobwebs, then when that didn’t work, used a tea towel to wipe them off. A particularly battered and stained volume lay on top of the pile.

  “I like the look of this one. It’s called The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director. Shall we start with that?”

  Inside, the pages were as fragile as butterfly wings, golden and parched and smelling of must and mildew. The writing was in old script, the ornate tails on the ends of the letters making them look archaic. The lines were close together and at times uneven, and she imagined the ancient typesetting machine tilting with a lack of precision. It gave a look of insects marching across the page, patchy and irregular.

  She began to read. At first the words seemed impregnable, but then she realized that the letter S was formed differently, like an f, and the word “receipt” was used instead of “recipe.” There were lists of ingredients she’d never even seen before: flower syrup, lark breast, tragapogon, whatever that was. She quickly looked it up. It was a kind of flower, from the salsify family, the shoots tasted mildly of oysters, to be cooked and served like asparagus.

  “How old is the book?” Mrs. Quince asked.

  Hurriedly, Nell flicked back to the inside of the book’s cover. There, in the scrawled handwriting was a name. F. B. Bradshaw, Head Cook to the Earl of Fenley, 1728.

  “It was owned by a head cook over two hundred years ago, alive and working in our very kitchen!” Mrs. Quince whispered, drawing up a chair and sitting beside her.

  The book was divided up by month, and Nell flipped automatically to July, the month of the first round.

  JULY

  In this Month there are many Delicacies about a Country Seat; all kinds of Pond-Fish are good, there is plenty of Poultry of all kinds, wild and tame, except the Water-Fowl, which should yet remain untouch’d. Turkey Poults, Pheasant Poults, Partridges, and some sort of Pigeons, are good; but for the most part the Dove-cote Pigeons are distemper’d, and are now full of Knots in their Skins, and unwholesome. The Eggs of Fowls likewise at this Season, as well as in the former Month, are unhealthful.

  About the end of this Month, you have Hares and Rabbets full grown in common Warrens, and young wild Ducks; and those who live near the Sea, have plenty of Oysters, and in great perfection, much better, in my opinion, than in the Winter. Hares are also now good, and Buck Venison is still good. Turnips, Carrots, Cabbages, Caulyflowers, Artichokes, Melons, Cucumbers, and such like, are in prime; Sallary and Endive, Nasturtium Indicum, Flowers, Cabbage Lettice, and blanch’d sweet Fennel is now good for Sallads. Peas and Beans, and Kidney-beans, are likewise to be met with, so that a Country Gentleman and Farmer may have every thing at home, and let out a Table fit for a Prince, without being beholden to the Markets; and the great variety of Fruits which this Season produces, renders it still more delightful and profitable.

  Red- and black-currants are ripe, and where there are plenty of them, we may make a pleasant Wine with them. Elder-berries are ripe and fit for making of Wine, as well the white as the red sort: these are both very good, if they are rightly managed. The following drinks very much like the French Wine call’d Hermitage, and is full as strong.

  They read on, through a list of cooked wild birds—which included sparrow, as well as the usual grouse, goose, and pheasant.

  “This must have been written before the Game Act.” Mrs. Quince tutted. “These days you can’t shoot game birds at this time of year, when they’re feeding their young ones. It drives down the stocks. But it’s a pity you can’t use a nice pheasant in your contest. Game is off the rations and nothing would impress Ambrose Hart like a perfectly roasted breast.”

  Nell continued to read. All kinds of salads and vegetables were described, including artichokes and “sallary,” which they decided must be celery. The recipes were different from the usual, modern ones, with varying combinations of different flavorings.

  With sudden inspiration, Nell leaped up to see if she could find some of the herbs in the pantry or one of the kitchen storerooms.

  “It’s like a cooking treasure hunt!” she cried.

  Inside the pantry, she pulled up a stool to stand on, holding up her torch to look on the upper shelves. There, almost hidden at the very back, were a number of bottles and jars, all different sizes, some gold and green, or even rose pink.

  One by one, she took them out and examined them.

  They were all there: aniseed, caraway, mace, sorrel, and savory. Something called Jamaican pepper smelled like it was a type of allspice, and there was even one with a bright yellow powder, turmeric.

  “What an interesting sauce this recipe would make!” Mrs. Quince said, standing at the door with the book. She began to read out the ingredients, “anise seed, nutmeg, and cloves.”

  Nell duly found them and took them down.

  The next ingredient was elderberry wine. “There are elder trees in the woods,” Mrs. Quince mused, and she read out the old-fashioned recipe.

  Receipt to make Elder-berry Wine

  To every Quart of Water put a Pound and half of Elder-berries, that are not over-ripe, let them be wiped clean; boil these till the Liquor is strong of the Elder-berry Flavour; then strain the Liquor thro’ a Sieve, and put to every Quart four or five Ounces of white Sugar, boil it again, and scum it as it rises, and when the Scum rises no more, pour it into an Earthen Pot; the
Day following bottle it, putting into every Bottle a lump of Loaf-Sugar, as big as a Nutmeg. This will presently be fit for drinking, is a very pleasant Liquor; but will not keep long.

  But the next ingredient made her pause for thought.

  “Two legs of hare.” Mrs. Quince leaned against the doorframe. “Of course, that would go splendidly with the elderberries as it’s such a dark, flavorful meat. The berries would add a sweetness to it, which is where the cloves and nutmeg come in.”

  Nell frowned. “But where would we get a hare at this late notice?”

  “The farm manager sometimes has game down in Fenley Farm. He might know where to find a hare. Why don’t you pop down there in the morning, after you’ve cleared up the breakfast things?”

  “Oh, could I, Mrs. Quince? It would go perfectly with the elderberries.” Nell imagined the intense, deep flavors combining around her tongue. “I’ll make it so ingenious we’re bound to win.” She got a notebook to make a list of ingredients, but as she did, the sound of the air-raid siren whirred up.

  “Not Wailing Willie again,” Mrs. Quince muttered, carefully closing her recipe book and tucking it into the dresser drawer to keep it safe.

  Nell had to get upstairs to help the family down to the cellar. Lady Gwendoline always wanted to bring half of her belongings, and Nell would stagger down the stairs after her trying not to drop anything.

  As Nell ran up and down the stairs, conveying blankets, books, and the inevitable chamber pots that would have to be emptied in the morning—earlier if it was something smelly—her heart pined for escape. Now that the contest had opened a crack of opportunity in her heart, a mountain of long-held grievances tumbled into her mind like a chaotic avalanche of suffering.

  When would she be free?

  After they were settled in the cellar, Lady Gwendoline sent Nell back upstairs to make a round of potted shrimp sandwiches “in case anyone gets peckish,” and as she dashed around the kitchen, the growing drone of low-flying planes began.

  The blackout curtains were up, but she opened the back door a fraction and slipped outside into the warm night to take a look.

  The noise of the engines was deafening, the antiaircraft guns from a nearby artillery unit joining in with a thunderous ack-ack sound. The bombers were trying to find the air base at Biggin Hill, and they released flares to find their target, lighting up the horizon. Meanwhile the British searchlights beamed across the skies. Both the antiaircraft guns and the searchlights were manned by young women just like Nell. Maids, shopgirls, and hairdressers putting themselves in the line of fire, fighting for their country.

  All at once, first one and then more planes zoomed in low overhead, making Nell duck back into the doorframe. Against the gray-white sky ahead, she saw the bombs falling, holding her breath before the explosions sounded in the distance, horrific and terrifying.

  And yet, deep inside her, something yearned to be out there facing the danger, free from the Stricklands and their frivolous demands, free of the servitude and toil.

  Free to truly live.

  Nell’s Seared Hare with Elderberry

  Wine Sauce

  Serves 2

  1 cup elderberry wine, using ½ pound elderberries and 1 tablespoon sugar

  1 tablespoon oil or butter

  2 legs of hare (pheasant or duck breast could also be used)

  1 teaspoon flour, to thicken

  1 teaspoon crushed aniseed

  1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

  1 teaspoon crushed cloves

  Salt and pepper

  Caramelized elderberries, using 1 cup elderberries and 1 tablespoon each water and sugar

  First of all, make the elderberry wine. Put the elderberries into a saucepan with water to just cover. Boil until the berries are soft and mushy, 20 to 30 minutes. Sieve, pushing through as much of the cooked flesh as possible. Add the sugar and bring back to a boil, then pour into a sealable jar or bottle. It is good for drinking and cooking, but it won’t last longer than a week or two.

  Heat a pan with oil or butter and sear the legs of hare so that they are crisp and browned on the outside and only just fully cooked on the inside. With a sharp carving knife, slice them and fan the meat out on a plate.

  Quickly, with the meat juices in the pan, make the sauce. Sprinkle the flour and stir in briskly. Little by little add the elderberry wine and then heat until it thickens. Add the aniseed, nutmeg, and cloves, as well as some salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes, then pour to the side of the meat.

  Garnish with elderberries caramelized in a small pan with a little water and sugar.

  Zelda

  It hadn’t occurred to Zelda that her new landlady might be known to her, and as she knocked absently on the front door, she noted the variety of herbs and vegetables growing in the front garden. Whoever these people were, they certainly knew their food.

  Most people had turned their gardens into vegetables plots; and parks and football pitches were now given to food production. The moat around the Tower of London had even been drained so that the land could be used to grow potatoes and cabbages to feed London’s overcrowded—and now over-bombed—East End.

  After calling through the letterbox, Zelda strode around to the side gate to see if there was anyone in the back. There she saw a woman crouching over a row of vegetables, surrounded by boys.

  But it wasn’t until Zelda looked more closely that the penny dropped.

  The woman in the vegetable garden was one and the same as the scruff-bag in the cooking contest.

  The letter from the Middleton billeting officer had arrived on the weekend, briefly giving an address and a day for her to move into a new billet. Her new home was to be in Fenley. It sounded as if it might be fancy, “Willow Lodge.” The name rolled off her tongue, quaint, upmarket, yet hopefully not home to one of those old Victorian ladies with “precise” moral values.

  That wouldn’t do at all!

  Zelda knew that she wasn’t in a position to be fussy. It was imperative that she got out of the murky room and the barrage of abuse. Only that morning, she had refused to scrub the house before leaving and thus received a bitter scold, “In case you forget your place in this world, you hussy.”

  No, however dreadful her new landlady, Zelda was simply going to have to put on a smile and make the best of it.

  The name on the letter, Mrs. Landon, rang a bell. It’s probably someone from the pie factory, Zelda had thought absently.

  Yet here she was: Mrs. Landon, Zelda’s cooking competitor. Alongside her were three boys, one of them doing the long jump between rows, and the little one singing “Jingle Bells” in the middle of summer.

  Zelda stood stock-still, suitcase in hand, the blood draining from her face.

  At that moment, Audrey stood upright, one hand going to her brow, the other to her lower back. As she looked around at the boys, her eye caught the newcomer, and she squinted slightly as if to check. Her face scrunched with confusion as she made her way to the gate, trying to look around Zelda as if looking for another person, a different woman.

  “Can I help you? It’s Zelda, isn’t it?” Audrey was paying special attention to Zelda’s waistline, obviously checking for the customary signs of pregnancy, which were not yet especially apparent.

  “I believe I am your new billet.” Zelda brought out the letter and handed it to Audrey.

  Tugging off her gardening gloves, Audrey grasped it, quickly read it, frowned, then handed it back.

  “There must be some mistake. I’m expecting a pregnant evacuee, not a cook in need of a billet.”

  Zelda gave her a quick smile. “I am both. As I told you at the cooking contest meeting, I am head cook at the Fenley Pie Factory, but I’m also a pregnant evacuee escaping the bombs in London.”

  “But…you can’t possibly w
ant to stay with me, a fellow competitor?” Her forehead creasing, Audrey looked again at Zelda’s stomach. “In any case, the woman I’m expecting is already five months’ pregnant.”

  Starting from when she had been working in London, Zelda had taken to wearing a corset to conceal her growing bump. A magazine article had detailed how women were taking to it—some because they didn’t want to lose their well-paid war jobs, others because the baby was illegitimate. They reckoned it could go unnoticed until at least seven months, possibly eight with a first baby. Over the past few months, however, Zelda had taken to loosening it, making it more comfortable for all concerned. These days, it smoothed over the bump rather than pressing it in, and she found that, with careful dressing, it hardly showed at all.

  “Yes, that’s me.” Her lower jaw jutted to the side challengingly, a childish habit from the crowded tenement of her youth. “And regardless of being in the same cooking contest, I still need a room.”

  Battling to overcome her confusion, Audrey clearly decided that, since she could hardly ask Zelda to prove her pregnancy, it was time to move on to what appeared to be a prepared speech.

  “I told the Fenley billeting officer that I wasn’t able to have any evacuees,” Audrey snapped. “We are about to be evicted, and the house is in dreadful condition with mold and damp. The roof leaks in all the spare rooms, and I don’t have the money to fix it. My three boys are handful enough, and what’s more I have a baking business, the contest, and all this to look after.” She spread open her arms to show the vegetables, a beehive, the hens. Was that a pigsty in the corner?

  “You almost have a complete farm back here!” Zelda had heard about the perks of living in the countryside, but this was a bounty! Perhaps billeting with Audrey would prove more useful than she initially thought. She put on a smile, and tried to make it seem honest, heartfelt.

  Yet Audrey was determined. “It’ll be unfair for you to stay, with the contest going on. You might steal my ideas or take over my kitchen.”