The Reluctant Entertainer

One of Alex Jardine’s illustrations from The Reluctant Cook.

Helen Fearon died in 1974 but her cooking and entertaining books have made it back onto shelves.

Here she is on removing scorch marks from linen:

 You don’t have to believe this. It smells too strongly of witchcraft. Nevertheless it is another of Grandmother’s nostrums and it works, goodness knows why. Mix half a pint of vinegar, two ounces of fuller’s earth, one ounce of fowl’s dung (from a cock if possible) half an ounce of soft soap and two large onions cut in pieces …

More: Paris Review