Books

[John Callon]

Have just purchased a piece of nostalgia on ebay - a 1967 edition of a book called Practical Cookery by Ceserani & Kinton. It was 1966 when I obtained a ships cooks certificate at the Nautical Catering College in Colquit Street, Liverpool. On the course we all had to buy a copy of the aforementioned which was the 1965 edition. Unfortuantly I lost mine years ago through numerous house moves, so looking forward to going back in time, so to speak and reading and cooking some of the dishes from 40 years ago. Most of the recipes were formulated for Merchant Navy Cargo/Passenger vessels.
Regards
John C

[Doc Vernon]

That will be a bit of Nostalgia for you JC
Like other things in life that rejuvenate the old matter! LOL
Enjoy and treat the Family to some great old Recipes!
Cheers

[John Callon]

Yes I know what you mean Vernon. The book is full of recipes with no pictures of what the dish should look like. None of this fancy rubbish one gets today i.e. celantro, rocket etc.
The recipies call for what was available all of those years ago.
Regards
John C

[Keith at Tregenna]

My late father had a copy of the 'Nautical Cookery Book for the use of Stewards and Cooks of Cargo Vessels (a bargain at 5/6 from M Brown Son & Ferguson, 1949 Edition)

K.

[happy daze john in oz]

John, recipies have change so much over time that the classics are very rarely seen now.

Entrecote Chasseur was one of my favorites never seen now.
Dishes of famous chefs such as Escoffier are no longer fashionable, now we get a bit of lettuce, half a slice of cucumber with a twist of chicken breast and given some outrageous name. Add insult to injury would not even feed the church mouse.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Going to sea whilst rationing was still on was an experience, Sunday dinner every day and Christmas dinner once a week, but more of it, who cared about fancy names, had to have some on the passenger (12) ships, but no doubt it confused them as much as it did us!

[cappy]

###yes ivan i remember a crowd of geordies being told the sweet was coup de hawaii...ie ice cream and a slice of tinned pineapple ..but as it was probably the ist time i had pineaaple....and loads of juice out the can plus ice cream ...i was in greedy boys heaven ...yum yum....we had coup de naranja...coup de apple ....coup de anything .....best food i had ever had and still some complained...cappy

[Keith Tindell]

I have posted before, and i know some on here have had really bad feeders. For myself, the food i had when at sea was fantastic, and as Ivan says, on ration a lot of it at that time. I was always amazed at what ended up in the Rosie. The only thing i missed was fresh milk, except in port, i don't take sugar in my tea, but with conny onny, take it or leave it.The other thing was depending on the 2nd cook was how good the bread was, and apart from passenger ships, never had tab nabs on trampers, kt

[happy daze john in oz]

For those of us who worked passenger ships I doubt if any ever went hungry, and if they did it was their own fault.
But the work was long and hard for catering so wee needed all the nourishment we could get.

[Michael Butler]

Hi John, re Ceserani Kinton
When working for BP Tankers I was sent on a course to BP Refinery Llandarcy South Wales 1962/63
where we were introduced to Mr Kinton ,who gave us the first edition Green cover, to use for our training as 2nd cook and bakers ,
We had to , during the course check recipes etc to look for any errors ,needless to say very few were found
The Book was then issues for City and Guild examinations.Later up graded to 2 volumes
I left my book on one of the BP tankers, But managed to get the 4th Edition later on
which I am please to say has on the Cover photo of myself (taken in 1963 ),standing by the range with Tony Groombridge taking something out the oven
not very Health and safety ,but great times had by all on the course.I later got my Chief Cooks in 1964 Glasgow College (Aged 20 !)
Mike