Hilda\'s Diary of A Cape Housekeeper

This charming record of a vanished way of life was first published in 1902, and is now reissued in a fascimile edition. The author, Hildagonda Duckitt, who also wrote successful cookery books, was a scrupulous and affectionate recorder of everyday life in the Cape, and she follows the seasons round the year with varied and pithy comments on the weather, local events and excitements and on the changing seasonal tasks of the housewife. The autumn sees her making peach and tomato pickles, quoting from Gerard\'s Herball on the subject of potatoes and preserving water-melon peel and figs in sugar. In winter she is taking cuttings from her hydrangeas, stewing sheep\'s trotters and speculating on the use of dates in Arabia.

Hilda\'s Diary of a Cape Housekeeper is more than a curiosity. Many of the traditional recipes which Mrs Duckitt shares with her readers are still as delicious and practical today as they must have been in 1902, and the book with its descriptions of picnics and outings in the lovely Cape countryside, is a marvellous evocation of a bygone age.

Hardcover with unclipped dustcover, Frontispiece plus 301 pages text and recipes.Fine.