For our April 2026 meeting we welcomed Jacky Robinson back to our meeting to tell us about some women of the thirties, forties and fifties who defied convention … and also happened to write a cookbook! Jacky is a keen cook and for over 20 years she has been running charity fundraisers with her sister by cooking and hosting fine dining meals in her own home. She also has an enormous collection of cookery books and loves an excuse to trawl through her collection and to spend happy hours researching the back story of some of the folks who wrote them. She soon found that several women had more in common than writing cookery books – they were also united by having made some very brave choices in difficult times, flying in the face of convention.
Jacky began her talk with Elizabeth David as she was an early inspiration with her classics French Provincial Cooking and A Book of Mediterranean Food. Coming from a well-to-do family very much part of the ‘establishment’, Elizabeth rebelled against the social norms of the day in the 1930s, studying in France, becoming an actress and running away with a married man with whom she was having an affair. They eventually reached Egypt where they parted and although Elizabeth married while continuing to work there during the Second World War the marriage did not last and she and her husband separated and divorced soon after. Returning to England after the war, Elizabeth was horrified by the contrast between the poor food available in England and the excellent food she had experienced in France, Greece and Egypt using simple ingredients. She began writing magazine articles and this developed into the cookery books for which she is still known today.
Jacky also touched on Patience Gray who published Plat du Jour in 1957 and Honey from a Weed. Patience graduated from the LSE and while working for the Arts Council began an affair with a married man, with whom she had two children and took his name by deed poll. However in the 1960s, Patience met sculptor Norman Mommens (also married at the time) with whom she travelled around the Meditteranean, eventually settling in Italy and then marrying in 1994 and living with him until her death in 2005.
Constance Spry came next, possibly better known as an inspirational and successful florist than a cookery writer but she published Come in to the Garden in 1942, set up a cookery school and is credited with the invention of Coronation Chicken! On the personal side, by 1923 she had divorced her husband and set up home with Henry Ernest Spry, a married man although in 1932 she began a four year affair with painter Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein).
By now we were getting the picture! Jacky also covered the work and amorous lives of Nancy Spain, Elizabeth Smart and Agnes Ryan and ended with Fanny Craddock who after two legal marriages and one void bigamous marriage met the love of her life, the then married Johnnie. She changed her name to Craddock in 1942, eventually marrying Johnnie bigamously in 1977 in the belief that her second husband had died and they remained together until Johnnie’s death in 1987.
“Fantastic speaker, really interesting links between early cookery writing and alternative bohemian life styles…”
“Very enjoyable … amazing how readily women changed their names by deed poll to ‘get married’.”
“Great meeting all round!”