The upper-class vice of the presenter, Mr. Ambrose Hart, drawled through the high-ceilinged old room. “Presenting The Kitchen Front, the cookery program helping Britain’s housewives make the most of wartime food rations.”Radio listeners trying to cope with rationing and food scarcity find Ambrose’s culinary advice inadequate, so his superiors suggest the show needs a woman’s touch and he decides Fenley Village can host a cooking contest – the winner can join him on The Kitchen Front to provide authentic examples of making the most of the available food. Audrey’s children insist she try her luck, even though her sister Gwendoline is also competing, as are (oddly) Gwendoline’s cook, Mrs. Quince, and kitchen maid, Nell. A dark horse entrant is a London chef, Zelda Dupont, who recently arrived to do the cooking at the canning factory owned by Gwendoline’s husband.
“Let’s hear what nonsense Ambrose Hart has to say today,” Audrey said to herself, tasting a drop of her bubbling berries. They oozed with ripeness. The tang from the red currents pulled the sweetness back, and she had added a teaspoon of sugar to help it along. The government let you have extra sugar for “jam making” if you chose to forego your jam ration. Most of this went into the pies Audrey made to sell, much to the boys’ dismay.
Whether you are a cook or not, reading about the ingenious (but not always very appetizing) recipes these ladies concoct for the competition is part of what makes this book so entertaining. Ryan provides a list of an adult’s weekly wartime rations and it is quite inadequate (I was reminded of a guide at the Docklands Museum who told me her mother’s family bred rabbits during WWII so they’d have meat occasionally and none of them could even look at a rabbit after the way). Told in alternating chapters from the point of view of each competitor, including her recipe, the contest takes unexpected turns as the women try to outdo one another, while hiding a few secrets that could result in disqualification. The story had memorable characters as well as some unexpected twists, and I recommend it.
I have enjoyed two of Ryan’s other books, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir and The Spies of Shilling Lane, also set during WWII. She is British but lives in DC. It did bother me that Audrey’s sister, married to the vile Sir Reginald Strickland, is referred to as Lady Gwendoline rather than Lady Strickland. Even if it is meant critically because of her bossiness, it is erroneous and Ryan’s editors should have made the correction.This is book 11 of my 20 Books of Summer and the ninth book for the 2025 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.Title: The Kitchen Front
Author: Jennifer Ryan
Publication: Ballantine, trade paperback, originally published in 2021
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Copy bought for my sister-in-law’s birthday
4 comments:
I bought this for a friend and THEN read it, and was so annoyed by the pregnant woman who didn't just lie and say her husband was killed in the war. I'm sure that story was used again and again at this time, so she didn't need to stress so much about that part of the whole situation!
True, also it was silly of her to think she could hide her pregnancy for nine months; anachronistic for anyone to think she could keep the baby and not be shunned by the righteous.
But all the rationing and improvising was very entertaining, didn't you think?
She is like Helen Simonson a bit in that she's a Brit who lives in DC, though I think Simonson now lives in Brooklyn. But perhaps their books are not too similar?
Simonson is in a class of her own! She has an Austen-like irony I find very appealing. I just wish she wrote faster!
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