The Vicar's Wife's Cook Book

On Facebook there is a wonderful group called the Vicar’s Wife Club. It is devoted (with tongue firmly in cheek) to the promotion of cooking buns, visiting Wesley Owen and hosting dinner parties.

Run by a host of single ladies dreaming of the day when they too will reach the lofty heights of vicar’s wife-dom, they consider important subjects with complex reference to Calvin and Luther, such as dancing in public and how to access good knitting patterns.

The missing cookbook

Despite this group’s diligence to all things Proverbs 31, they lack one thing; the search for the quintessential cooking guide for the Vicar’s wife. As a youthworker’s wife, my culinary skills have mainly revolved around the ability to know the phone number for the local pizza delivery company. Having said that, there has been the odd occasion when I have had to branch out and do a bit of cooking too. Multiplying Delia’s recipes by four or five just got too expensive. Where to look for guidance?

About three years ago, it looked as though help was at hand for the occasions that demanded meals for 15 or more that were cheap, easy and tasty. A group of theological college wives produced a magnificent collection of dazzling but straightforward recipes for thrifty mass catering. It contained incredible state secrets that would set a vicar’s wife up for life but the book was like gold dust and I couldn’t get anyone in its limited distribution circle to lend me their copy. I was at last successful when I happened to bump into the book’s editor in Sherborne Woolworths (moment of silence, please) and to my great relief, my cookbook was in the post.

I understand, however, that most vicars’ wives, aspiring or actual, are without this precious item. They will be glad to hear that, at last, one vicar’s wife has gone a step further and written a cookbook that you can actually buy in Waterstones.

Waitrose competition

It was in 2007, through winning a competition run by Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine, that Elisa Beynon was given the contract to write her cookbook. Entrants had been asked to write a short article about food that included a recipe of their own, so Elisa made use of her experience of catering for people at church to inform her writing. Previously known to readers of this publication as a regular writer of articles, book reviews and features in EN, Elisa has spent the last couple of years working towards the final draft, which saw its launch as a 330-page hardback early in March.

The judges were looking for ‘a new and original voice in food writing’ and recognised Elisa’s entry as unpretentious and lively, with a gentle humour. It is distinctive because of its concern for the people who she is cooking for. Most food programmes and celebrity chefs are keen to either overwhelm us with their impressive creations or to help us to overwhelm others with their impressive creations. Elisa manages in her book to present a variety of dishes that may be great ideas, but essentially serve our guests with great food, our pockets with their unpretentious ingredients and us by enabling the most challenged to branch out a bit.

As well as the variety and consistent pleasure of the recipes, the book is an enjoyable read, in the tradition of Nigel Slater and other food writers. It is set out as a series of menus, tailor-made for the visitors who would come and eat them and each menu is accompanied by the honest story of how the meal turned out. It encouraged me to think a bit more about my guests and gave me some good pointers towards combinations of ingredients that I didn’t know about before.

Serving others

When it is tempting to think a bit too much or a bit too little about our cooking, it is good to remember that, in preparing food for others, we are not serving our own pride, we are serving them. I think I picked up this theme in an exemplary fashion yesterday evening when I thought hard about the pudding that I wanted to cook for my friend and my cousin, realised I couldn’t make it, and went out and bought it instead.

The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book by Elisa Beynon is published by Fourth Estate and is available from most online and high street booksellers. RRP £18.99, but Amazon seems to be cheapest.

The Vicar's Wife's Cook Book

The missing cookbook

Waitrose competition

Serving others

Eleanor Margesson

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