In September 1968 Rosemary Hume and Muriel Downes, of London's Cordon Bleu cookery school, published the first copy of a 72-part weekly series Cordon Bleu Cookery Course. "Be a better cook, in your own time, in your own home," promised the by-line, and the series kicked off with a three-course meal for four: Tomatoes Gervais (tomatoes stuffed with cream cheese), Chicken Veronique with julienne potato cake and green salad, and Chocolate Mousse Basque with Cigarettes Russes. On the cover, a pretty woman smiles at the dish of Chicken Veronique, which she is carrying to a trio of people sitting at a table in the background. The chicken has been sliced and a cream gravy has been poured over. The grapes which decorate it have been peeled and pipped - "the name veronique is used for dishes having grapes as a garnish."
We might think this is a hoot today, when no one, but no one, has time to peel a grape. But the Cordon Bleu series, and the school of the same name, were powerfully influential in their time, and it is likely that there are few cooks now in their 50s and 60s who don't have a clutch of Cordon Bleu specialities up their sleeves.
In particular, the Cordon Bleu style influenced our youthful catering colleges, so the dishes contained in the 72-part series became part of the currency of commercial cooking. Ten years ago, you would not have had much trouble finding a hotel which would offer you the 3-course meal which was featured in issue 2: cream of watercress soup; baked gammon with cumberland sauce with maitre d'hotel potatoes and leaf spinach; and apple and hazlenut galette for dessert. The sommelier might even have recommended a Pouilly Fuisse to drink, as the authors do.
Cordon Bleu institutionalised the idea of a structured meal, with every course cooked and with lots of menu planning - the back page of every issue, even the very last one, featured suggested "Menus for the Week". Looking at it now, it just seems like so much work. Whilst the woman of the house in England and Ireland (and if Cordon Bleu is to be believed, it always was a woman) was slaving over that hot stove, the smart French housewife (and the ideas all come from French cooking, with the occasional nod to other cuisines) was buying her starter salad in the traiteur, getting her cheese course in the fromagerie, and her dessert in the patisserie. Back home, she probably roasted some lamb and cooked some green beans, and that was that.
But the Cordon Bleu method was always intensive; you couldn't simply cook something. It then had to be garnished and dressed and cosseted, most usually with cream or mayonnaise. The only time anyone was allowed to get away with something simple was in the mind-boggling section of issue 67, entitled "Help for Husbands in the Kitchen": "We have divided this lesson into two parts. The first covers menus and recipes for the husband who is left on his own for the weekend, and is prepared to cook full-scale meals for himself, rather than picnic at home or go out to eat. The second part gives ideas for the husband coping with a small family for one whole week, perhaps while his wife is in hospital."
His wife is in hospital, recovering from exhaustion. The poor unfortunate is, presumably, the same woman who, for a mid-week dinner party, is advised to cook Prawns Alabama; saute of Duck with Mushrooms served with peas and new potatoes, or Roast Leg of Lamb Provencale with endives Ardennaise and boulangere potatoes with chocolate mille feuilles to finish. The recommended wine is Chateauneuf du Pape. I suggest she will need two bottles of it.
Nowhere in the series do we learn anything about seasonality or shopping - the two key secrets of good cooking. And yet there are lots of good ideas, which have stood the test of time. The recipes below, for kidneys turbigo and caramel oranges, are timeless.
What has changed most in the last thirty years has been our approach to eating, even more than what we eat. Cordon Bleu's ideas of menu planning, of strict timetables for every cooking session, and of approaching cooking for every holiday period as if it was an obstacle course which could only be overcome with planning of military precision, belongs to another age. The Cordon Bleu cookery course proves that, when it comes to cooking, the past is another country.