Full Title:

WISHFUL | COOKING | by | Emily Lina Mirrlees | and | Margaret Rosalys Coker | [device] | FABER AND FABER LIMITED | 24 Russell Square | London

Publication:

London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1949

Binding:

Crown octavo, 8⅝ in. x 5 11/16 in. Green cloth, black lettering on spine, front cover blank. Spine: [decorated rule] | [in italic] Wishful | Cooking | [decorated rule] | E.L. | Mirrlees | & | M.R. | Coker | FABER (see image above).

Notes:

Wishful Cooking is a recipe ("receipt") book of mostly traditional Scottish and English dishes collected over many years by HM's mother, Emily Lina Mirrlees. After her death, it was compiled and completed by HM's sister, Margaret Rosalys Coker (Margot). The title refers to the fact that in 1949 Britain was still under wartime rationing and many ingredients called for in these old recipes were simply unavailable. Reading the recipes is interesting: some of them seem strikingly old fashioned - when did you last sit down to a meal of anchovy cigarettes and sweetbread cutlets with tomato jelly? The recipe for chicken fried steak and cream gravy, on the other hand, could have come right out of the kitchen of any cook in the southern United States, and occasional ingredients such as Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Campbell's Mushroom Soup introduce a very mid-twentieth century note.

Michael Swanwick suggests that T.S. Eliot may have had a hand in getting Faber to publish this book. As far as I know, there is no evidence to support that but it may well be true. Eliot was a close friend to both HM and Lina, and certainly had the influence to get what might have otherwise been an unpublisheable manuscript into print. Swanwick also emphasizes the fact that Hope is not listed among the many people that Margot thanked in the preface, and suggests that this is indicative of a rift between HM and her family. I am not at all sure that I find that convincing. The list of names seem to be those who contributed recipes. Hope was about as non-domestic as it was possible for a woman to be at that time, and would hardly have been one of the contributors to a book like this one.