Maura Laverty, like Monica Sheridan, was a pioneer of the Irish Republic’s first television station, RTE, in the 1960s. However, she was already well-established on Radio Eireann. From the 1940s onwards, Maura was radio broadcaster on “female issues” of the time, such as cooking, household tips and “agony aunt” advice! She championed progressive causes, especially improving nutrition, eradicating tuberculosis, and promoting the building of public housing, all important issues for the impoverished newly-established Republic of Ireland (aka “Eire” / “Southern Ireland” / “Irish Free State”).
Apart from novels, plays, short stories and children’s books, Maura Laverty published multiple cookbooks, starting with the government-commissioned “Flour Economy” in 1942, which was designed to respond to the wartime shortage of flour. “Kind Cooking” was published in 1946 and the very popular “Full and Plenty” in 1960. What makes these recipe books stand out for me personally, is that they contain wonderful short stories sandwiched between the recipes! Maura herself came from a rural background and understood only too well how hard life was in Rural Ireland in the first half of the twentieth century.
I have chosen a favourite anecdote of mine, from her book “Maura Laverty’s Cookery Book”, published in 1948. Evidently it was a reprint of her earlier cookbook entitled “Kind Cooking”. The story appears in the chapter called PUDDINGS AND PIES.
This is how Maura herself writes:
“Mr. Rooney, the school-teacher at home in our place, fell in love with a girl who was sent down by the Department to teach our hens to lay bigger and better eggs. The man was faced with the problem of how to dispose of his elderly sister, Miss Mary, who kept house for him. He decided it was high time she got married.
“Miss Mary had come to a similar decision years before, but, because of having to look after her brother, she had let slip her chances of doing anything about it. Now, when she had almost given up hope, she was thrilled to hear her brother hint that life begins at forty-six, and she raised no objections at all when he started making a match for her with Dinny Foran of the Far Bog.
“Beyond the fact that Dinny was a parsimonious, toothless, ancient, uncultivated, morose widower with a grown-up family, there wasn’t a word that could be said against him, for he had a fine farm of land. Having been sounded through a second party, he expressed himself willing to take Miss Mary to his bed, her well-known genius for catering to his board, and her two hundred and fifty pounds to his bank.
“On the evening the expected fiancé was invited to drop in for supper and a settlement, Miss Mary went beyond herself in the matter of food. There was a tender brawn with jewels of spicy jelly studding its meaty ruddiness, milky cold roast porksteak that cut into delicate rings enclosing circlets of parsley-specked stuffing, ham as pink as rose petals selvedged with sweet nacre which had been simmered with love and reverence in a nectar of spring water and stout and onions and treacle. There were little cakes and big cakes, fruit cakes and seedy cakes, tarts and treacle scones and scones made of yellow meal. But Miss Mary’s chef d’oeuvre was the trifle, a sherry-soaked, cherry-sprinkled glory on which the whipped cream rose in Alpine peaks. All in all, that heavenly trifle should have been enough to make any normal man overlook such mundane issues as small dowries and middle-age.
“Dinny Foran sat down to all this magnificence. He looked from one delight to another. Then he reached for a slice of plain bread. He ate his bread, drank a cup of tea, stood up, broke off the match and walked out of the house. He said afterwards that it was the trifle which was mainly responsible. He complained that three kinds of meat and six sorts of cake were bad enough – but a woman who would waste good cream on a pudden instead of churning it into butter, would have a man in the workhouse inside a month!
“Miss Mary had no regrets. She felt she was well rid of a man who was so lacking in soul as to disrespect her lovely trifle. As things worked out, Mr. Rooney was not displeased to be left with his sister on his hands, for the poultry-instructress suddenly became nostalgic for a boy she knew in Dublin and she went back to him. The people of Ballyderrig were glad to see her go. We had no love for outsiders who came with suggestions as to how we might improve ways that had served us well for centuries!” [end of quote]
Maura herself says that there are probably several morals in that story, although, beyond a quip that “a proper appreciation of the sweet course is of great importance in courtship and marriage!” she is reluctant to say. Her last three novels had been banned in Ireland by the draconian Irish Censorship Board, which had a strangle hold over Irish Society and the Arts up until the 1960s! However, they could not object to a wholesome cookery book, containing a few harmless anecdotes, now could they?!
It is a case of reading between the lines, of course! You might think that this story is just a snap-shot in time, of what Ireland was like in the 1930s and ‘40s and that it has no relevance today. Well, yes! 21st century Ireland has changed – up to a point! For instance, the new generation of farmers have no objection to receiving advice from outsiders – so long as there is an EU grant attached to said advice! The Dinny Foran types are marrying young Asian girls, found over the internet, who seem meek at first but soon have the ole codgers eating out of their hands! Yet, scratch the surface of modern rural Ireland and the old attitudes still lurk beneath the veneer of progress.
Locals have always distrusted and disliked “Blow-Ins” (aka foreigners), even if they are only from the next parish! That said, they don’t mind taking advantage of said Blow-Ins, if they can make a few bob out of the Eejits! A favourite past-time is for farmers to sell off dilapidated buildings and barns, which are no longer of use to the farm, especially if they are taxable. Folk from the city love buying these old wrecks, so that they can do them up and play at “Hobby Farming”, which the Blow-Ins refer to as “Self-Sufficiency”. To the current generation of Irish farmers, the idea of self-sufficiency is not an option, as they struggle to compete within the “Agri-Business” world.
To be fair, it is not just Irish farmers, who sell dilapidated farm buildings to unsuspecting city folk. The French farmers do it too. I suspect that it goes on all over the world, wherever people want to leave the city behind and enjoy a different pace of life in the countryside. The question is, are the established rural dwellers willing to co-habit amicably with ex-city folk, who have a different way of looking at things?! That deserves an essay all to itself!
Perhaps what is needed is for everyone to put their prejudices aside, sit down and enjoy a good meal together! So, to finish on a sweet note, here is the Trifle recipe from Maura Laverty’s “Full and Plenty” cookery book.
[Image ID: colour photograph of a page from Mrs. Beeton’s Complete Book of Puddings and Desserts, showing Mrs. Beeton’s Traditional Trifle (page 246).]
Ingredients:
sponge fingers, raspberry jam, 1 glass of sherry mixed with 1 dessertspoon of brandy, egg custard, cream whipped with castor sugar.
To decorate: cherries, candied angelica, toasted almonds.
Method:
spread the sponge fingers with the jam and arrange in a glass dish. Sprinkle with the sherry-and-brandy mix. Add custard. Pile on top the whipped sweetened cream. Decorate with cherries, almonds and candied angelica.
Enjoy!
Author: Veronica Smith first published 10th September 2024
BIBLIOGRAPHY :
MAURA LAVERTY’S COOKERY BOOK, published by Longmans, Green and Co Ltd in 1948. Printed in Eire by The Kerry Man Ltd, Tralee. There is no ISBN number but there is a code number: 16406
FULL AND PLENTY cookery book by Maura Laverty, published by the Irish Flour Millers Association and printed by Hely Thom Limited, Dublin, in 1960
Trifle Photo is from MRS BEETON’S COMPLETE BOOK OF PUDDINGS & DESSERTS, published by Guild Publishing UK (by arrangement with Ward Lock Limited) in 1990. Code Number 6745
ISBN: 9780706368819
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